Member of Parliament Nenad Stazic of the opposition Social Democratic Party (SDP) said on Friday in parliament that the cancellation of an exhibition dedicated to Anne Frank at a secondary school in Sibenik was a disgrace of international proportions and called on the parliament's Committee on Human and Minority Rights to urgently hold a session on the case and on Science and Education Minister Pavo Barisic to replace the school principal who ordered that the exhibition be cancelled.

"... The reason why the exhibition was cancelled is the opposition by the school principal, one Josip Belamaric, to putting on display photographs of the suffering of children in the quisling Independent State of Croatia as part of the world famous story of the suffering of the Jewish girl who was killed in the Nazi death camp of Bergen Belsen," said Stazic.

The international exhibition, opened this past Tuesday, consisted of some 30 boards with photographs and other information depicting the lives and tragedy of Anne Frank and her family during World War II, said Stazic.

"The exhibition has so far visited some 40 countries. Its visit to Croatia is a result of cooperation between the Anne Frank House from Amsterdam and the Croatian Education and Development Network for the Evolution of Understanding (HERMES) from Zagreb. The concept of the exhibition in Croatia is the same as in other countries. Its first part focuses on Europe and the second part on the Holocaust in the country where the exhibition is staged. The Croatian part is impressive, concise and very poignant, and does not contain any ideological tones," said Stazic.

The author of the Croatian part of the exhibition, historian Miljenko Hajdarovic, showed also the recent wars in the region, including the Homeland War, primarily by depicting the suffering of children in them, said Stazic.

"But the school principal was upset by those six Croatian photo boards, he resented that the Ustashas were depicted as butchers and as those who killed children by starving them. The exhibition did not encounter problems in other Croatian towns. It visited 23 towns in three years and was staged in museums, galleries, primary and secondary schools and universities," he said.





Belamaric said on Thursday that the problem with the exhibition was that along with 30 photo boards that make up the exhibition on Anne Frank, the organisers also wanted to add six boards with information on the Ustashas and Partisans.

"Judging from those boards, Ustashas were criminals who slaughtered Serbs and Jews and starved children, while Partisans were perfect. What about the crimes committed by Partisans? Why did not they show how Partisans killed Croats after World War II, what about Bleiburg and Goli Otok?," Belamaric wondered.

Stazic said today Belamaric obviously could not understand that the topic of the exhibition was not "Cominform but the Holocaust... and the damage was done... I expect the Prime Minister to send a letter of apology to the organiser," he said, adding that he also expected President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic to send a letter of apology to the World Jewish Congress.

The organiser of the exhibition, HERMES Communications, said that the exhibition itself would not mean anything without the historical context and that its representatives organised a two-day training for students to guide other students through the event.

"We know that the principal objected to us not showing information on, for example, Bleiburg, but that topic was discussed during the training since all of the information simply cannot be put on boards. We even offered the school to make additional photo boards for those periods of history which the principal said were missing but they refused it and unfortunately we were forced to pull the exhibition," said Tvrtko Pater of HERMES Communications.