President Milanović and President Pahor at Commemoration Marking 77th Anniversary of Liberation of Internees from Italian Fascist Concentration Camp Kampor
The President of the Republic of Croatia Zoran Milanović and the President of the Republic of Slovenia Borut Pahor took part in a commemoration marking the 77th anniversary of the liberation of internees from the Italian Fascist Concentration Camp Kampor on the island of Rab.
In his address following the joint wreath-laying ceremony at the Memorial Cemetery Kampor, President Milanović said that speeches are superfluous on such occasions, but he is pleased that no speech had a hint of daily politics. “Two, three or four thousand people disappeared here. We don’t know how many, but even one is too much. This camp demonstrates the banality, lack of care and evil towards man”, the Croatian President noted.
“The policy of the Italian authorities was not the extermination of Croats and Slovenes. People were brought here and essentially they didn’t know what to do with them. The Italian guards weren’t all Fascists or camicie nere. Fifteen thousand people were brought here who died before their very eyes. One of the one hand, some two and a half thousand Croatian Jews from the so-called Independent State of Croatia were actually saved. They were brought here to be saved, this is a fact. On the other hand, this is an attitude towards the Slavic minority as towards a random biological appearance. This never harmed the relations among the internees from either side”, the President noted. He added that there was no envy or hatred among the internees, only mutual suffering and common expectations. “Later when the camp was liberated, they left with that army, some because they wanted to, others because they had no choice, no ideology was the decisive factor, they just wanted to save their lives. They had no black or red insignia”, the President said.
“I don’t think that something like this could happen again. It is easy to say that it must not happen again, that it will not happen again, but it reminds how little is needed for a human being whether a chauffeur, doorman, jurist, or miner, when he gets a uniform, a semblance of power, weapons, to decide on the fate of others as though they are objects, made up of spare parts. That is was happened here. It is not so much about hatred against Slovenes, Croats even less so against Jews, only man’s capability to become inhuman. This defect has no nationality”, the President of the Republic concluded.
This is the first time that the presidents of the Republic of Croatia and of the Republic of Slovenia attended together a commemoration for the victims of one of WWII’s most infamous Fascist concentration camps. In the continuation of their stay on the island of Rab, they toured a documentary photography exhibition “Posljednji svjedoci / Zadnji pričevalci” (The Last Witnesses) and the exhibition “Tkanine otpora: glasovi žena” (Textiles of Resistance: Women’s Voices).
PHOTO: Office of the President of the Republic of Croatia / Dražen Volarić