TO BE HELD AT HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL PARK IN NEW YORK CITY ON 21 APRIL 2002

Let the truth be known!

PRESS RELEASE
PAST EVENT

On Sunday, 21 April 2002, a ceremony to honor the Victims and Survivors of the Jasenovac Concentration Camp and the Yugoslav Holocaust will be held from 2 to 3 PM at The Holocaust Memorial Park in Brooklyn, NY. A ceremony including a wreath laying, religious service and speeches by Survivors and scholars will accompany the placing of a plaque with a draft of the inscription for the future stone monument to be unveiled in the park later this year. The Holocaust Memorial Park, which is located at West End Avenue between Emmons Ave & Shore Blvd in the Sheepshead Bay section of Brooklyn, is the only monument park commemorating the Holocaust in the New York City area.

April 22nd marks the fifty-seventh anniversary of the breakout attempt by Jasenovac inmates. The memorial ceremony has been timed as closely as possible to mark this anniversary. The Jasenovac Research Institute intends to initiate an annual practice of holding commemorative ceremonies on this date. All those who support justice for and recognition of Yugoslav Holocaust Victims and Survivors are encouraged to enrich this ceremony with their participation.

JASENOVAC

Following the Nazi invasion and dismemberment of Yugoslavia in April 1941, the “Independent State of Croatia” was established as a pro-Nazi government. It was dedicated to a clerical-fascist ideology influenced both by Nazism and extreme Roman Catholic fanaticism. On coming to power, the Ustashe Party dictatorship in Croatia quickly commenced on a systematic policy of racial extermination of all Serbs, Jews and Roma living within its borders. From August 1941 to April 1945, hundreds of thousands of Serbs, tens of thousands of Jews and Roma, as well as anti-fascists of many nationalities, were murdered at the death camp known as Jasenovac. Estimates of the total number of men, women and children killed there have been put at 700,000. Jasenovac was not the only death camp in fascist-occupied Yugoslavia, but it was by far the largest in the entire Balkans region and the one in which a majority of the some one million victims of the Yugoslav Holocaust perished.

TRAVEL DIRECTIONS TO THE COMMEMORATION

• By Car From Manhattan: Take the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (BQE) Westbound to the Belt Parkway. You will travel on the Belt Eastbound and exit at Exit 8 (Coney island Ave.). Follow signs for Kingsborough. Be warned that Exit 8 follows closely upon Exit 7. The exit leaves you on Guilder Ave. You will take Guilder straight – past Coney Island Ave – and to its end at East 12th Street. Make a right turn on East 12th St. Then make an immediate left turn (at the light) onto Neptune Ave. You will then make another rapid turn – your first possible right – onto Cass Place (also at a light). Take Cass Place about 2 blocks past the light. West End Ave. and the Park are immediately on your left. You can find parking on the streets adjoining the park. Please follow posted parking regulations.
• By Car From New Jersey: Take any of the 3 or 4 bridges going to Staten Island and head onto the Verrazano&39;s Narrows Bridge (no toll out of Staten Island). Exit the bridge onto the Belt Parkway going East. Now follow the directions from Manhattan.
• By Car From Queens or Long Island: Take the Belt Parkway West to Exit 8 (Coney Island Ave.). At the end of the exit turn right onto Voorhies Ave. Make another right from Voorhies onto Sheepshead Bay Road at the first light. Take Sheepshead Bay Road to the end (2 lights) and make a right turn. Make your first possible left turn at the second light onto West End Ave. The Holocaust Memorial Park is on this block on your left. You may park on any of the adjoining streets. Please follow posted parking regulations.
• By Bus: The B-49 Bus stops within one block of the Holocaust Park. Any bus connection to the B-49 bus is good.
• By Subway: The best lines to take are the D or the Q trains. Both go to Sheepshead Bay Station. Remember to get a transfer ticket at the token booth. In front of the train station is a bus stop for the B-49 bus.

THE JRI – WHO WE ARE, WHAT WE DO, AND HOW TO SUPPORT OUR WORK

From the memory of those who survived, and from the passion of those who wish the truth to be known, came the Jasenovac Research Institute, a nonprofit foundation dedicated to building public awareness about the Holocaust in Yugoslavia and the furthering the search for justice for its Victims and Survivors. JRI promotes research and activities designed to enlighten the world to the crimes of genocide committed at Jasenovac and elsewhere in wartime Yugoslavia and aims to provide assistance to all groups and individuals who likewise seek justice for these victims.

JRI is a registered Section 501c3 non-profit corporation. Donations to JRI for the costs of the memorial stone, and to finance our other work, are tax-deductible (IRS reg. no. 38-3410276) and can be sent to:

Jasenovac Research Institute
USA

Payment accepted by check, money order, Visa, and Mastercard

Please contact us if you’d like to learn more about our work and how you can join us