GREIF: PROFESSOR PAID HIGH PRICE FOR VIEWS ON JASENOVC

BELGRADE, JANUARY 26 /SRNA/ - Israeli expert on Holocaust research Gideon Greif said today in Belgrade that Professor Srboljub Živanović paid a high price for his uncompromising views on the Jasenovac extermination concentration camp, which was run by the Croatian Ustashas with extreme cruelty and where more than 700,000 innocent Serbs, Jews and Roma were killed.

At a commemoration at the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts /SANU/ held on the occasion of the death of academic Srboljub Živanović, remembered as a member of the Forensic Team that excavated mass graves in Jasenovac in 1964, Greif pointed out that Živanović was a great scientist, a brilliant doctor, a noble man and a man of integrity, and above all a brave man who defended his views without hesitation. He pointed out that Živanović faced confrontations that were not based on historical facts, but were based on immoral, biased, and sometimes evil reasons. Greif said that Živanović, who investigated Jasenovac and documented the extreme cruelty of the Croatian Ustashas, will be remembered as the youngest doctor of the Forensic Team, which already in 1964 excavated mass graves in the Jasenovac death concentration camp system. "After shocking revelations about the number and age of victims, who ranged from newborn babies to old people, Professor Živanović insisted that the team must return and continue the research. The government insisted on the opposite, but the team did not want to change the report when it came to the composition and number of victims, after which the government took away the report and closed it to the public," Greif said. As Greif pointed out, Professor Živanović will always be remembered for the efforts he made to establish true and authentic facts about the genocide that took place against Serbs, Jews, and Roma in the territory of the Independent State of Croatia /NDH/ during World War II. "I promise that I will try to be like him - a fearless fighter for the truth. He was not afraid to say what he thought. No one silenced Professor Živanović and no one will silence me either," Greif said. Member of the World Roma Parliament Dragoljub Acković said at the commemoration that with the death of Professor Živanović, the Roma lost the most because he was the only man who dared to say that around 100,000 Roma had perished. "That remained for eternity," Acković said. Mira Radojević, a corresponding member of SANU, pointed out that Professor Živanović, a distinguished scientist, was disputed by some critics, who even claimed that he is an amateur who exaggerates due to his belonging to the Serbian nation, despite all of his scientific works and knowledge. "If we start from the fact that for several decades Jasenovac has been the most important symbol of the suffering of the Serbian people in the Second World War and the national policy of the NDH, it is obvious that the main goal is to deconstruct the alleged Jasenovac myth, as it is increasingly pointed out. Consequently, demolishing the myth would relativize and make meaningless all existing knowledge about the genocidal character of the NDH," Radojević said in a letter that was read at the commemoration. Academic Radovan Savčić, survivor of the Jastrebarsko Ustasha children's camp Gojko Rončević-Mraović, as well as forensic anthropologist and professor at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Belgrade Marija Đurić, who spoke about the impressive results of Srboljub Živanović's scientific work, also spoke at the commemoration, which was organized by the Diana Budisavljević Institute.