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Official state commemoration at Jasenovac in April. Photo: Beta.

Controversial Slovenian right-winger Roman Leljak will promote his book and documentary film The Jasenovac Myth across Croatia for three weeks from the end of this month, using venues owned by the Catholic Church and local municipalities.

According to Leljak, the book and film reject almost all scientific research on the Jasenovac concentration camp and downplay the overall death toll. Leljak claims that only 1,654 people died in the camp between 1941 and 1945.

Using official documentation and other research material, the Jasenovac Memorial Site made a name-by-name list of victims of the camp, which amounted to 83,145 people, mostly Serbs, Roma and Jews. The camp was run by the Croatian fascist Ustasa, whose WWII-era Nazi puppet state passed racist laws against Jews and Roma, as well as others targeting Serbs.

Leljak’s first promotion of the book and film in Croatia will take place on September 27 in Zagreb’s Archdiocesan Pastoral Institute, a Catholic Church building.

The Institute did not reply to BIRN’s inquiries about the event. The Zagreb Archdiocesan Office told BIRN to speak to the Institute.

Leljak will hold another event the day afterwards at the Archdiocesan Seminary, another church venue, in the coastal city of Split.

“The Seminary has a hall used for various events, such as the presentation of various books, at which authors and presenters talk about the book. The same goes in relation to the book you are asking about. If someone is interested in the book and its contents, they can come and listen and also talk to the author,” Edvard Punda, the head of the Seminary, told BIRN.

The following day, Leljak will hold a promotion in the town of Petrinja at the Public Open University ‘Croatian Home’, which is owned by the municipality.

The university’s dean, Milan Herceg, told BIRN that it “simply rented out the venue” to Leljak, with the fee paid by another private individual, and that the university is not in any way involved in the programme of the event or familiar with the content of the promotion.

On October 16, Leljak will hold a promotion in the eastern town of Vukovar, in the Pastoral Centre of St. Bono. The Centre told BIRN to contact the organisers for a comment, although they are not mentioned on websites or promotions posted by Leljak on Facebook.

Leljak, a non-academic researcher, has for years independently worked on Communist Partisan crimes at the end of and after World War II, as well as the crimes committed by the Yugoslav state security service, known as UDBA.

Leljak is a highly controversial figure who has appeared in far-right media, offering figures for those killed by the Partisans and Communists that are much higher than in the vast majority of historical research on the subject. Most academics in the Balkan region and elsewhere do not use his work as a credible source.

While appearing as a guest on Zagreb’s Z1 TV in April, Leljak presented recipes for cakes written by a Jasenovac inmate. He said he would publish a book of recipes from Jasenovac.

In his book and film, he claims that no children were killed at Jasenovac – despite the official number of 20,101 – and goes against scientific research on the camp by saying that Jewish communities were allowed to send food to the inmates and that the Ustasa state bought hygiene supplies for female prisoners.

In 1989, as a member of the Yugoslav People’s Army counterintelligence service, Leljak was sentenced to 14 months in prison for stealing equipment and money and for illegally filming.

In 2008, he was also sentenced to seven years in prison for the embezzlement of over a million euros from Austria’ Leasfinanz bank and 448 Slovenian citizens who were clients in his leasing company.

Read more:

How Croatian Wikipedia Made a Concentration Camp Disappear

How to Combat Croatian Revisionists’ Culture of Lies

Croatia Must Not Whitewash the Horrors of Jasenovac