Jasenovac

Home > News & Events > Clarifying JRI's Relationship to the US Holocaust Museum and other matters Letters Exchanged on the JRI Website, May-Jun...

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Clarifying JRI's Relationship to the US Holocaust Museum and other matters
Letters Exchanged on the JRI Website, May-June 2002

Subj: ponuda web stranice na srpskom, jidish i romskom
To: webmaster@jasenovac.org
To JRI Website:

Iz postovanja prema zrtvama jasenovackog logora (ubijeno, poklano 700,000 srba, roma I jevreja) mogli ste ponuditi vase web stranice na srpskom, romskom I jidish jeziku. Ovom prilikom trazit cu da se izvrsi povrat svih eksponata koji su oduzeti iz jasenovacke postavke i preneseni u New York. To je dio istorije srpskog, romskog i jevrejskog naroda sa podrucja Kraljevine Jugoslavije, i svi eksponati trebaju da se vrate odakle su oduzeti. Nadam se da ce svi koji ce odlucivati o tom imati razumijevanja I da ce se sve to vartiti u Gradisku.

Vojo Lukic

English Translation

Out of respect to the victims of Jasenovac (some 700,000 Serbs, Jews and Roma slaughtered and murdered) you could offer the content of your website in Serbian, Romalen and Yiddish. On this occasion, I also want to ask for the return of all artifacts taken from the Jasenovac exhibit and transferred to New York. This is part of history of the Serbs, Roma and Jewish people of the Yugoslav Kingdom, and all artifacts should be returned from whence they were taken. I hope all those deciding about this will have understanding, and that everything will be returned to Gradiska.

Vojo Lukic

Translation by Nebojsa Malic

Here's our response (first in Srpski, then a summary in English):

Postovani g. Lukicu,

Primili smo vas predlog za postavljanje sadrzaja na srpskom, romskom I jidisu na nase stranice. Tekstovi na srpskom su vec u pripremi. Do sadrzaja na romskom i jidisu se tesko dolazi, ali sve sto budemo mogli da sakupimo bice objavljeno.
Sto se tice vaseg zahteva za povratom eksponata iz Jasenovca, sa aljenjem vas obavestavamo da JRI nije imao nikakvog ucesca u njihovom oduzimanju. U pitanju je bio americki Muzej Holokausta, smesten u Vasingtonu, koji finansira americka vlada. Po poslednjim informacijama, veliki deo oduzetih eksponata je predat vlastima u Zagrebu, odakle im se gubi svaki trag. Uprkos bojazni da bi neke strukture u danasnjoj Hrvatskoj mogle pokusati da unistenjem ovih eksponata zatru mracnu istoriju Jasenovca, odlucni smo da ce istorija patnje i stradanja u ovom logoru ostati zapamcena.

Srdacno vasi,

Prof. Barry Lituchy, Direktor za istrazivacki rad
Nebojsa Malic, Direktor za prevodilacko-izdavacku delatnost

Dear Mr. Lukic,
We received your request for putting up content in Serbian, Romalen, and Yiddish on our site. Content in Serbian is already in preparation. Content in Yiddish and Romalen is more difficult to come by, but everything we manage to obtain will be published.

Regarding your request for return of Jasenovac artifacts, I regret to inform you that the JRI had nothing to do with their expropriation. The institution in question was the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC, funded by the US government. From what we know, the majority of artifacts has been turned over to the Zagreb authorities, and nothing has been heard of them since. Despite our fears that certain structures in modern-day Croatia could try to wipe out the dark history of Jasenovac by destroying these artifacts, we are determined to preserve the memory of the suffering and horrors in this camp.

Sincerely,

Barry Lituchy, Research Director
Nebojsa Malic, Director of Translations and Publishing