The monument is dedicated to 478 villagers and about 1,000 people from neighboring villages killed by the Ustasha in December 1941.
Reacting to the incident, the Serb National Council (SNV) said that the vandals had left vulgar messages of hate and intolerance, as had been done to hundreds of other destroyed or vandalized memorials to the National Liberation Struggle and the civilian victims of the Ustasha terror.
The SNV and Prkos locals expect the state to investigate and punish the perpetrators and send a message to the country that contemporary Croatia is not perpetuating the ideology of the war criminals of 1941, the SNV stated.
Prkos is populated mainly by the elderly, and many Serb returnees still do not have the necessary conditions to return to normal village life there.
Some of the homes in the village are visited every now and then by their owners, who currently live in Zagreb.
Nebojsa Malic called my attention to an email he received from the Serbian Youth League of Canada:
The Serbian Youth League of Canada wishes to inform all concerned government agencies and media outlets in Canada that “CroStore” (www.crostore.com), an online boutique based out of Edmonton, Alberta openly sells and promotes Croat Nazi paraphernalia from the Second World War. The “CroStore” offers visitors to its site the opportunity to purchase various articles of clothing, including military hats, belts, uniforms, badges, emblems etc. sporting the well-known insignia of the WWII Nazi Croat Ustashe movement, notorious for its genocidal rule over the Nazi satellite Independent State of Croatia during the Second World War. The site also promotes and sells a series of DVDs entitled “The Truth about the Independent State of Croatia”, a shocking collection of neo-Nazi propaganda and revisionist hate speech that denies the holocaust and other hideous crimes committed by the Nazis during the Second World War. In addition, the “CroStore” glorifies the infamous “Black Legion”, a Croat Nazi military division from the Second World War known for its unfathomable brutality and direct and active participation in the extermination of more than a million Serbs, Jews and Roma people in Nazi concentration camps of Jasenovac and Stara Gradiska. The store, whose motto is the phrase “Proud to be Croat!”, is also adamant in its support for indicted 1990’s Croat war criminal Ante Gotovina and infamous Croat neo-Nazi rocker Marko Perkovic “Thompson”.
The “CroStore” is headed up by a certain Dr. Mate Banovac, and the postal address given is “170 St. NW, T5T 4M2, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada”.
The Serbian Youth League of Canada invites all government officials, journalists, and concerned citizens to raise awareness about “CroStore”, an online boutique that openly promotes historical revisionism, holocaust denial, Nazi hate-speech, and genocide. All Canadians must stand together and fight to ensure that those who glorify and praise the most terrible war criminals of the modern era and those who wish to relive one of the darkest chapters in human history cannot continue to profit and prosper through the promotion of Nazism in a country such as Canada. We must act now to stop this shameless and hateful website, and we must hold its owners responsible.
History has taught us that we cannot hesitate in stomping out the evil seed of Nazism, for a moment of hesitation may mean the suffering of millions.
Respectfully,
The Federal Committee of the Serbian Youth League (Canada)