Croatian President Ivo Josipovic has apologized to Jewish victims of the Holocaust in his country and called for restitution for Croatian Holocaust survivors.
In an address to the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament, last week, he declared: "We need to look into our hearts, and to come to terms with the darkest stain in our history. Here I am, standing before the parliament of the Jewish state, and more importantly, in front of people born in Croatia, and with no ambiguity, I apologize and I ask for forgiveness from all the Holocaust survivors and all the victims,".
He added: "Some members of my nation worked to systematically destroy parts of humanity. We must look in our hearts, at the darkest stain in our history. We must know: The snake is weak, but it is still there."
He said that an apology is not enough, and that he hopes his country will pass a restitution law to reimburse survivors and their descendants for property they lost during the Holocaust.
All but about 5,000 of Croatia’s pre-war Jewish community of approximately 30,000 perished in the Holocaust.
Josipovic’s statement was welcomed by B’nai B’rith International, a founding member of the World Jewish Restitution Organization.