Dear former inmates of the Jasenovac camp,
Relatives of victims,
State officials and
Dear friends,
 
            We are gathered here around this unique stone flower in commemorating once again this year the anniversary of the breakthrough of inmates from the Jasenovac concentration camp and in remembering all the victims of this horrible place where people were murdered and tortured, where they died or perished in some other way; people who all deserve to be remembered by name and by their tragic lives.
 
            Today, we shall remember the people whose lives were broken here only because they did not fit into the plans for creating a new Nazi European order which, in Croatia under the Ustasha regime, also took a horrible human toll.
 
            Concentration camps depicted the worst facet of the Second World War. They were the cruellest expression of the genocidal policy. The Ustasha regime eagerly copied Nazi politics. That regime not only assumed a quisling role, but it also embraced the persecution and execution of people who were declared undesirable due to their race, ethnic background, religion or political conviction.
 
            Today, sixty-five years after the breakthrough of the last inmates from the camp most of the tragic facts pertaining to this place are clear and known. We know the names of most of the victims, just as we know the names of most of the criminals. A large number of them, either executioners or commanders, were convicted of their misdeeds. The politics that was responsible for this crime was condemned historically, morally and legally. But even more importantly than that, a major part of the Croatian people already during the Second World War did not agree with such a policy of crime.
 
            By joining the anti-fascist movement en masse, the movement that in proportion to the population of the country was the largest in the then occupied Europe, the Croatian people demonstrated not only their opposition to the occupation, but also their refusal to adopt the Ustasha regime's policy of crime, which culminated here in Jasenovac, in the mass murders of Serbs, Jews, Romanies as well as anti-fascists and pro-democratic Croats and citizens of other nationalities.
 
            Crime has no justification. There is no reciprocity. No one should justify one crime with another crime committed by "the other side". No crime can either morally or legally be justified by another crime! This should be always borne in mind when judging the crime that took place in Jasenovac. To put it simply, a crime is a crime regardless of who the perpetrator is and what justification is sought for it.
 
            By the same token, a crime must not be used for political purposes, especially not for stirring up hatred and inciting new evils. Today, sixty-five years after the end of the Second World War we know almost everything about the crime in Jasenovac: the number and names of the people killed there, the mode of their execution, the torture they suffered. Rare were those who managed to get out of Jasenovac alive, either in an exchange or by fleeing. Increasing or reducing the number of victims in present-day circumstances can be an impermissible way of inciting new hatred and crime. This execution site in Jasenovac as well as all the others, including those from the recent war in the territory of the former Yugoslavia, should not be places of division among people and nations, obstacles to reconciliation or a motive for new conflicts. Quite the contrary: the death and martyrdom of Jasenovac victims and all other victims of the war frenzy must be transformed by people of good will to a sanctuary of humaneness and forgiveness, but also of decisive and whole-hearted condemnation of crime.
 
            Nevertheless in marking this day of remembrance of the perishment of innocent victims with deep reverence, we mark it both as an admonition to our time of what may happen if we forget the truth that all people are equal in their dignity and that all need to be equal in their basic human rights before the law. By standing here we also renew our obligation to raise our young generations in a spirit of non-violence and tolerance. Tolerance goes beyond its original meaning of tolerating one another. It means both mutual acceptance together with all the differences that make us special and unique. It means readiness to live together and cooperate. To be different – this should never and to no one, majority or minority - serve as a reason for discriminating others in their basic human rights.
 
            As the anti-fascists who fought evil in the Second World War, so did our defenders in their honourable fight for freedom in the Croatian Independence War. The Republic of Croatia is an internationally established state, soon-to-be a member of the European Union, a country that, with good reason, can be proud of its achievements in the protection of human and minority rights. The achievements of the anti-fascist struggle are anchored in the Croatian Constitution, in its Historical Foundations. This clearly politically determines the position of the modern Croatian state towards the Second World War and its participants and affirmatively evaluates the contribution of the anti-fascist struggle in Croatian history.
 
            We cannot change our history, either remote or recent. Nevertheless, we must understand it, face up to it and accept the truth both when it speaks of our victories and successes and when it points to our errors and the evil that we brought upon others. This may be a painful process, a process in which all those who wish well to their people must take part. We are all obliged to be ready to face up to history and draw lessons from it, lessons of nobleness, hope and love for all people and peoples. It is the only way to avoid history being a negative burden. It is the only way to dedicate ourselves to building a world of mutual understanding, trust, acceptance and cooperation. For this reason, Jasenovac victims admonish, they demand that the sufferings borne here mostly by Serbs, Jews and Romanies, but by Croats and other peoples as well, be a pledge for building lasting peace and friendship among peoples, that Croatia be built as a democratic state uncompromisingly protecting human rights, rights that belong to each individual and a people as a whole.