By Ilija Ivanovic
Edited by Wanda Schindley, Ph.D.
Dallas Publishing Company - January 2002
ISBN: 0912011602 - Hardcover
Nonfiction / History
for Violence
Reviewed by: Beverly J. Rowe, MyShelf.Com
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Jasenovac (Yas-a-no-vats) concentration camp was an execution site in Yugoslavia, set up by Hitler's Nazi puppet state of Croatia during World War II. Unknown to the west, the fascist/terrorist Ustasha organization founded a number of these concentration camps between 1941 and 1945. For years, history ignored the existence of these camps of torture and death for some 600,000 Serbs, Jews, and Gypsies.
This book was very difficult to read. I had to put it down and read something else for a while, then go back to it. The book has a number of black and white photos, with footnotes, forward and an epilog by editor Wanda Schindley, Ph.D.
Ilija Ivanovic was taken prisoner when he was thirteen years old and spent three years at Jasenovac, where he witnessed unimaginable atrocities, which he relates here in a compelling, but grim, first person account. He was among the remaining 1,060 men and boys left alive in the camp on April 22, 1945, who made a desperate attempt to escape. Fewer than one hundred survived.
After reading this book, I have to ask myself; how did the world let this happen? What are the warning signs of the emergence of animals like these Ustasha and Nazi organizations and even the Taliban, and what can we do about them? If we could answer these questions and were able to act on the answers, the world would certainly be a much better place.
This book should be read by everyone. History cannot be allowed to ignore the bad things that people do to each other. Read it, and repeat its message often to anyone who will listen.