So, Bulajice's statement that "the state didn't do anything to establish the exact number of victims" is not true, but he doesn't trust those accounts, because they do not fit into his obsessive idea of a million just killed in Jasenovac! I mentioned already that the republic and regional commissions had been elaborating in 1946 the "Listing of victims and material damage done on the side of occupators and their helpers". For the area of Croatia in the Croatian State Archive there are original documents of that listing which contained details according to the type of crime: 1. bombings of civilian population, 2. shooting, 3. hanging, 4. butchering, 5. beating to death, 6. death occurred later as a result of abuse and torture and 7. death in the camps. Also were listed the perpetrators of those crimes: Germans in the country, Germans in other countries, Hungarians, Italians, ustashas, chetniks, etc. Individual data for each victim has been deposited in 35 boxes and registered by each name into 22 books, and the total number for Croatia came out to be 138,984. Of the overall number 22,736 were killed by Germans, 1,255 by Germans and Italians together and 8,111 by Italians. For Bosnia and Hercegovina, at the time of my research in Sarajevo in 1988, there were no available documentation about the census from 1946, but Djordje Pejanovic did mention in his publication "Population of Bosnia and Hercegovina", Belgrade 1955 that with that census the number of 174,084 victims was established. Also according to the listing of the Regional Commission in Srijem from 1946 the following data was presented: 9,805 people died of bombing and shooting, in camps - inside and outside of country - 9,683, on hard labor 491 and mobilized by quislings and occupators 1,618, that is altogether 21,597 casualties. That is how the data of the listing of victims has been acquired for the entire territory of NDH in for 1946.

However I discovered in the Archives of Yugoslavia on 6th July 1988 that the list - compiled at the demand of Germany for the settlement of the reparations - that Dr. Bulajic mentions, was deposited in 2,948 boxes, but according to the instructions of the reading center researchers could get only 4 boxes each day for their work! To my inquiry why after 24 years the complete list of those people has not been compiled (the listing consisted of: killed fighters, victims of fascist terror and surviving participants of the national-liberation movement, but not the killed quislings and collaborators), the head of the reading center answered that they do not have enough people to achieve such a task. However, as we see, Dr. Bulajic obtained the overall number of the killed in camps, and probably the overall number of victims. I found out about that number a year after that, actually 21st November 1989, 8 months after the publishing of my book, from an article written by Djuro Zagorac and Zeljko Kruselj (who managed to get access to those complete data from the list) in the Zagreb magazine DANAS (TODAY).

Table 5

 
 

	Lost lives	Survived	Victims - according to nationality		Victims - according to categories
Yugoslavia	597.323	509.849	Serbs	346.740	Total		597.323
Bosnia & H	177.045	49.242	Croatians	83.257		Killed civilians		352.560
Montenegro	16.903	14.135	Slovenes	42.027		Died in battle		198.758
Croatia	194.749	106.220	Macedonians	6.724		Died		57.143
Macedonia	19.076	32.374	Montenegro's	16.276		Missing		8.862
Slovenia	40.791	101.929	Muslims	32.300
Serbia, proper	97.728	123.818	Jews	45.000
Vojvodina	41.370	65.957	Albanians	3.241
Kosovo	7.927	13.960	Others	4.526
Unknown	1.744	2.213	Unknown	16.202

Zagorac and Kruselj, among other things wrote: "The first phase of compiling the list was done in October and November 1964 together with the preliminary collection of data at the republic level. A real panic occurred when this data was put together in the federal commission in Belgrade. The witnesses of those happenings claim that the reactions basically came down to the following phrase: "Impossible"! The lists therefore were returned to the republic commissions, and from there to the local level. Here and there minor corrections took place, but the general picture could not be changed. It was considered that the error in the compilation of data occurred due to the migration of the population and perishing of whole families and smaller villages in the mountainous regions. This could count for 25 to 30 percent. It was the opinion that the listing mistaked most on individual nationalities, primarily Serbs, Croatians and Muslims. On the other hand, Slovenes, Macedonians, and even Montenegrins data was very much correct." My comment: The correction with the listing from 1946 was as follows: i.e. Croatia 185,327 to 194,749. The number 185,327 for Croatia brings also Dr. Tudjman in his book "Horrors of War" (Croatian edition by Matica Hrvatska, 1990) which he got in 1966 from the republic statistical office, and the later corrections were probably directly forwarded to the federal commission in Belgrade. It is interesting to mention that Dr. Tudjman in 1966 was imprisoned for that figure, which was true! It was most disturbing for the government at that time that the Germans got acquainted with those results and canceled the payments of huge reparation demands!! Those results were hidden in front of the domestic community and the falsified ones were used instead what later gave basis for the aggression of Serbia towards Croatia and Bosnia and Hercegovina!

Therefore, in the Archives of Yugoslavia they deliberately lied as if not having enough staff for the job to be undertaken with the listings from 1964. It was also evident that the federal organs, in the first place the Federal Statistical Bureau, which organized and analyzed this data from 1964, and also in 1946 hid this information, which was evident proof that the initial figure of 1,706,000 casualties which was given to the International Reparation Commission in Paris was way too high. This information was known to other political executives and high administrative circles in Belgrade, and even to Dr. Milan Bulajic, but that didn't change that he continued to lead harsh discussions and proving in the media that only in Jasenovac about a million Serbs were killed and that this is the largest Serbian city under earth, since that served members of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SANU) and to ruler Milosevic himself, as a cause to start the war for the alleged protection of Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia and Hercegovina.

That from the beginning there was an organized network of organs that worked on the cover-up of the truth about the actual victims of war, is not only visible from the before described case, but also from other sources that I found about after the publication of my first book in 1989. Those and other manipulations I described in my second book "OBSESSIONS AND MEGALOMANIA OF JASENOVAC AND BLEIBURG", published in January 1992 by Globus, Zagreb (in Croatian).

The first manipulation happened already in 1947 when the International Reparation Commission asked for the documentation for the registered loss of 1,706,000 victims in WWII. About that research and documentation I found out only at the end of 1989 when I received from Dr. Kocovic copies of the Serbian emigrant magazine "Our Word" ("Nasa rec") printed in London. In number 368 from October 1985 Dr. Vladeta Vuckovic (at that time professor of mathematics in USA) wrote an article "The Burial of a Myth" in which it was explained how in 1947 he as a student of mathematics working at the Bureau of Statistics in Belgrade for an assignment to calculate in two weeks the total figure of all victims with the instruction that the number "must be impressive, but scientifically-statistically based". It was needed for E. Kardelj who wanted "to substantiate with those information the demands of Yugoslavia for reparations at the conference in Paris". However, the number of 1,700,000 "either out of ignorance or in order to deceive, the people of the regime turned demographic losses into actual victims, which were according to all investigations scientifically funded something more than a million." In the interview given to the Belgrade magazine RAINBOW ("DUGA") number 412 from 9-23 December 1989, during his stay in Yugoslavia, he describes in detail how he, as a beginner in the statistical bureau received an assignment from the Director Dolfe Vogelnik and his assistant Alojz Debevc to calculate losses from the war, but wondered why such a state of matter is not done personally by Vogelnik and Debevc. He says: "I realized they were aware of the responsibility and that it was easier for them to give such an assignment to someone new whom it could be easier to pinpoint if some troubles arose. They simply got off the hook." After turning in his study, for which he received a money award and seven days of leave, he read in BORBA (Belgrade daily newspaper) that "Yugoslavia is asking from the occupier payment of war damages, among other things for a million and seven hundred thousand victims! He read the text once again. His estimate on the losses of population, the demographic losses in which are also calculated unborn children, had been officially proclaimed as of war victims. The state knows what it is doing, he thought and - forgot about it!" It is understandable why such experienced demogrpahers like D. Vogelnik, Debevc and Tasic did not want to take on such an assignment - because then, in 1947, the census of the survived had not been done yet - but it is logical that they carry full responsibility for having that task given to a beginner and for the misinterpretation of the results which he had calculated. The turning of responsibility over to Kardelj cannot clear the guilt of the ones responsible at the Federal Institute of Statistics when such an important issue is at stake.

It should be added that D. Vogelnik, after having completed the national census 15 March 1948 and had all data analyzed, published in The Statistical Survey no. 1/1952 under the title "Demographic losses of Yugoslavia in WWII" the figure of 3,250,000 which he holds to be the "most probable" account of demographic losses, taking into account that the lowest border stays at 2,900,000 (included are losses of the newly annexed regions). The motive for why D. Vogelnik, after the completed census in 1948, undertook another calculation of the demographic losses, even though as the director of the Statistical institute with the passing on to the government of FNRJ he accepted the correct calculations done by Vladeta Vuckovic in 1947, can be only seen in the light of the new information about the survived acquired after the census, came to the conclusion that the demographic losses should be much higher if it is needed to preserve and justify the figure of 1,7 million lost lives in WWII.

Already in the following number of the Statistical Survey 2/1952 Ivo Lah, an experienced demographer and statistician, analyzed and turned down the calculations of Dr. Vogelnik in the article "Actual Demographic Losses of Yugoslavia in WWII", and among other says: "According to the calculation done by Dr. Vogelnik the estimated annual growth from 1941 to 1948 would be 2.13, or at least 1.86 percent. Such a high annual growth of population Yugoslavia never had and certainly will never have. (My remark: In the period 1921 to 1931 an annual growth of 1.5% had been achieved, but after 1931 it was in perpetual fall, so that in 1939 - when the official registration of the annual growth-rate had been done before the war - it counted only 1.1 percent). Lah goes saying: "It is only the question of the motivation of such a hypothesis. Dr. Vogelnik is motivating his calculations in the first place to correct the statistical data. However, the results of the census of 31 March 1931 and 15 March 1948 he did not correct!" In the same article Ivo Lah turned down the integrity and accuracy of the calculations of demographic losses which D. Tasic summed up to be 2.428.000 applying the annual growth-rate of 1.495% for the period of 1941 to 1948. It should be stressed that Dr. Vogelnik and D. Tasic, after these critics coming from Lah, never published anything which would comment upon this and that they disagree with it, and that was because they didn't find any arguments which would justify their calculations.

However, for Dr. Bulajic, the only acceptable calculations are those of Dolfe Vogelnik, who summed the largest demographic losses, since only they can bring to, according to him, the desired level of 1,7 million lost lives. That Dr. Vogelnik's calculations of demographic losses for the period 1941 to 1948 are unacceptable, can be seen from the comparison of his number of inhabitants with those published in the Statistical yearbooks of the Bureau for Statistics:

 
 

	31 Mar 1941	15 Mar 1948	Census 15 Mar 1948	Demograph. losses
Bureau of Statistics	15.839	17.354	15.337	2.017
D. Vogelnik	15.839	18.354	15.337	3.017

 

However, this surplus of 1 million demographic losses, which D. Vogelnik calculated for the whole of Yugoslavia, cannot, as Dr. Bulajic manages, simply be taken as a million killed in Jasenovac, but that total amount of losses should be distributed on individual republics, regions and nationalities, on basis of annual growth-rates for that period. In accordance with this, Bosnia and Hercegovina should get 270 thousand, Montenegro 30, Croatia 200, Macedonia 90, Slovenia 50, Serbia (without regions) 265, Vojvodina 50 and Kosovo 55 thousands!

And here is how the distribution of the surplus would look like according to nationalities: in Croatia 40 thousand should be added to Serbs, and about 135 thousand to Croatian, so it would come down to it that Croatian had larger losses than the Serbs. Also would Croatians and Muslims have larger losses than Serbs in B&H. And an especially curious situation would be Serbia without the regions, for which it should find where those 265 thousand people died, together with the 165 counted from my side! A similar case would be with Slovenia, Macedonia and the regions!! This at the same time shows and proves that Vogelnik actually didn't help much to all those who used his calculations, especially to Dr. Bulajic, since the calculations inevitably totally disqualify "the demographic engineering" of producing genocide, which it with the figure of one million killed only in Jasenovac, wants to charge for genocide not only ustashas but the whole of Croatian nation!

One can add another example of Bulajic'es unscrupulousness and not accepting the facts from the authentic sources. Namely, at the occasion of opening the museum a conference was organized under the title "Round Table - Museum of Victims of Genocide" in Belgrade. The magazine POLITIKA-SVET (POLITICS-WORLD), published a special publication named EXCLUSIVE Number 1, April 1990. On that "round table", organized by Dr. Bulajic, about twenty people participated, among others the director of The Federal Institute of Statistics Dr. Dragutin Grupkovic, who among other things spoke the following: "After the war some calculations were published, but not about the victims of war, but of demographical losses of Yugoslavia. Those estimates were very precise, since they were done on professional methodological basis. The data differs for a couple of hundred thousand, and if it is 1,750,000 or 2,000,000 is not such an error and it is not really important. On basis of that estimate of demographical losses one can really calculate and establish the four-year losses of WWII and how they occurred."

It is important to note what Dr. Bulajic said, who spoke first after Dr. Grupkovic: "Let's thank professor Grupkovic for bringing us those possibilities, because without such a judgment and readiness our today's gathering would come down only to talking and good hopes!!" What can one say about such a declaration? Is it hypocrisy or total confusion of a man who accepts everything that directly doesn't affect his mythical number. However, if one knows that Dr. Bulajic is very well acquainted that the number of demographical losses implicitly contains the number of lost lives, what Dr. Kocovic'es and my data clearly show, since from the demographical losses one should extract the number of people who emigrated - and only 425 thousand Germans left the country (on the Internet, what I will write more about later, Dr. Bulajic mentions the number of 500 thousand emigrated Germans), and all demographers, even Dr. Vogelnik estimate the cutback in birth-rate and the rise of death-rate caused by war, between 300 and 400 thousand, then it is evident that from the demographic losses one should extract about a million in order to get the number of lost lives! While I present demographical losses of 2,022,000 in my book, Dr. Grupkovic from 1,750,000 to 2,000,000 or some 1.875,000, it means that my losses both demographical and war are higher for about 150,000! But for me he writes that I am doing a crime by lowering the amount, since if there is no huge amount of people killed in camps, there is no genocide or crime. Afterall, killing in the camps is not the only war crime, but also the one taking place in settlements, which were, as is widely known, taken 4 to 5 times sometimes, from the side of Partisans, chetniks and ustashas. It is only logical that in a civil war there are more killed in settlements, but the death of those people does not interest Dr. Bulajic!

Even from this account there is enough evidence of the manipulations from the highest administrative and political structures, that stubbornly, but unprofessionally take advantage above all Dr. Milan Bulajic. However, in order to acquire a more complete picture of the actions of Dr. Bulajic, to which I came with my research, I will mention two more that characterize the unscrupulousness and methods which he used already at the time of integrated Yugoslavia.

After the publication of my book, Dr. Bulajic organized 13^th November 1989 as part of the regular Belgrade TV show "The Jury" a display of crimes in Jasenovac, on which apart from me, from Zagreb participated the editor of my book Slavko Goldstein, then president of the Jewish Community in Zagreb, and a journalist of the magazine "TODAY" ("DANAS") Zeljko Kruselj, and from Belgrade, apart from Dr. Bulajic, also Dr. Nikola Zivkovic, Dr. Vjenceslav Gliskic, Prof. R. Petrovic and Antun Miletic. The main cause apart from the discussion about the methods of research and the published results, was the headline statement of Dr. Srboljub Zivanovic, by phone from London, in which he claimed that a commission of anthropologists in which apart from him took part Dr. Antun Pogacnik and Dr. Vida Brodar from Ljubljana, on basis of exhumation taking place from 22^nd to 27^th June 1964 estimated that in Jasenovac at least 700 hundred thousand people had been killed and that the graves contained 800 skeletons each. Since neither I or S. Goldstein and Z. Kruselj weren't acquainted with the report of that commission we, of course, couldn't deny it either. However, when we received the original report of that group from the Memorial center Jasenovac, it came out to be that the report, written on 32 pages and signed by all three members of the commission, did not contain any reference about the estimation of the number of victims or the number of 700 hundred thousand skeletons. About that report I wrote in detail in my book "Obsessions and Megalomania around Jasenovac and Bleiburg", and here I intend to bring only the most important facts. The exhumation was carried out on 7 graves, in which there were altogether 284 skeletons, and in one, the biggest - 197. The last day, 27^th June it was written: "With this our research is finished and we think that this exhumation and anthropological research represents the initial work on the research of the graves of the Jasenovac camp. The examination of these graves, that we opened cannot give the insight into the complete state of matters, because it is known that there are about 200 graves on different places as far from one another as a few kilometers!"

How did Dr. Zivanovic come to the information that in one grave there are about 800 skeletons knows only he himself, because Dr. Vida Brodar, whom I visited in Ljubljana 11^th April 1990 (Dr. Pogacnik had died in the meantime) confirmed to me that the commission hadn't, apart from the written words in the report, worked on any estimates. It is incredible that a person with an academic title can do something as dishonest as that, only in order to satisfy someone's specific goals, which Dr. Bulajic used in the mentioned show. And the purpose was that with such (dis)information my work gets turned down in the public.

The second fabrication of Dr. Bulajic, is not connected with the victims of war, but with the living "victims of genocide" which after the war was done to the Serbs from Croatia and Bosnia and Hercegovina, with their moving to Vojvodina! In his publication "The Ustasha Crime of Genocide" in Volume 3, page 62 under the title "Another Research Problem" he writes: "After the ustasha crimes of genocide done to Serbs in NDH, waves of migration of Serbs in the liberated Yugoslavia occurred 1945-46. It was a migration only from the territory of Croatia and Bosnia and Hercegovina of over a quarter of a million of people, precisely 260,516 primarily Serbs", referring to the publication of academician Dr. Vladimir Stipetic, AGRAR REFORM AND COLONIZATION OF FNRJ, years 1945-48 in the edition of Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts, Zagreb, 1954 in which is stated totally different information. First of all, it wasn't a migration only from Croatia and Bosnia and Hercegovina, but also from all other republics and Kosovo region to the region of Vojvodina, from where Germans had emigrated. From Croatia 52,868 people were moved, and from B&H 85,574 colonists, that is totally 138,622, and not 260,516. And from Montenegro, Serbia without regions, Slovenia, Macedonia and Kosovo altogether 107,984. And that was achieved as part of the FEDERAL COLONIZATION PROGRAMME and by directive of the central state organs, and not according to wishes and desires of some "ustasha" government in Croatia and B&H. One can see the perfidy and the malice of Dr. Bulajic, who every, and even the best measures for the Serbs like the movement of people from the hilly and infertile regions of Croatia and other republics and Kosovo to the fertile flatlands of Vojvodina (Backa, Banat and Srijem) - through which Serbs became the majority nation in that region, and before (census of 1931) had only 37% share in the total population of that region - turns into accusations against Croatia and its leadership in the Socialist Yugoslavia! What is even more dishonest from Dr. Bulajic is that he, on the public invitation of Dr. Vladimir Stipetic, author of the publication, which he quoted for his twisted figures, did not publicly apologize for what Dr. Stipetic called "scientifically unacceptable deed!"

At the end it remains to show human losses that occurred for Serbs and Croatians in the most tragic territories, namely those of Jasenovac and Bleiburg and with it related "Way of the Cross" after the end of the war. The editor Mr. Slavko Goldstein and reviewers academician Dr. Vladimir Stipetic and Professor Drago Roksandic, were of the opinion that in my book "Losses of Population of Yugoslavia in WWII" published in 1989 there was enough details and documentation that gave a thorough insight to the readers about the total human losses for the prewar territory of Yugoslavia, each republic and region, all nationalities and categories and means of death. That is either as fighters of the national liberation war, victims of the fascist terror occurring in the settlements and especially the most heavy, occurring in the camps, ditches and prisons. There is an extra category of those who fought together with the occupational forces against Partisans and later against the National Liberation Army (NOV). Naturally it is logical that the overall losses for Yugoslavia as whole are the most accurate and that they are around a million, and not 1,7 million as reported to the International Reparation Commission. That is why I am of opinion that Dr. Bulajic should agree with the conclusions written in the Serbian émigré magazine "Our Word" from May 1989 in which it says that the books by Dr. Bogoljub Kocovic and mine are of historical importance, since they brought to the end the "triple megalomania", that is exaggeration of the contribution of NOV's (National Liberation Army) victory over the occupators, and on basis of that the enormous reparation demand , the way too high number of people killed in the Jasenovac camp and on the other side in Bleiburg and on the "Way of the Cross". However, in my book "Obsessions and Megalomania around Jasenovac and Bleiburg", Globus, Zagreb, 1992 (includes the 2^nd edition of the book published in 1989), I worked on losses of Serbs, Croatians and Muslims on the territory of NDH in detail, so one can see and understand more clearly how and where they occurred.

 
 

In B&H-from Table 28 edition 1989&1992	164
In Croatia-from Table 30 ed. 1989/92	131
In Srijem- from Table 34 ed. 1989/92	27
Altogether	322

 

This amount detailed according to territories for:

 
 

	B&H	Croatia	Srijem	Together:
Killed as fighters of NOR	42	35	5	82
Victims of fascist terror - total	103	92	22	217
Of that - in settlements	(48)	(66)	(10)	(124)
- in camps, ditches, prisons	(55)	(26)	(12)	(93)
Killed as quislings and collaborationists	19	4	-	23
Altogether	164	131	27	322

 

These losses are further analyzed:		322 thousand
From that number - As fighters of NOV	82
As quislings and collaborationists	23
Taken to the German camp Sajmiste in Belgrade	20	125 thousand
From that number - Died of typhus	25
Killed by Germans	45
Killed by Italians	15
Killed in fights with ustashas, chetniks, and Partisans	34
Killed in ditches, prisons and other camps	28	147 thousand
Killed in Jasenovac camp		50 thousand

Only on the territory of Croatia, according to the State Commission for Establishing Crimes of the Occupators and Their Collaborators, done in 1946 it was established that: 13,000 died of typhus, 22,376 were killed by Germans, 1,225 by Germans and Italians and 8.111 by Italians. However, the greatest fights occurred in Bosnia and Hercegovina including the seven largest offensives; Kozara, Sutjeska and others in which forces of Germany and Italy participated with bombings by aircraft, artillery fire and other heavy weapons, so it is probable that in B&H Germans and Italians had done even greater damages than in Croatia, that is larger than mentioned above. From about 50 thousand killed in Jasenovac, from Croatia 16 thousand were killed, 2 thousand from Srijem, and from Bosnia and Hercegovina about 32 thousand including 11,219 children from Kozara, according to the "Registration number of death" published in Borba in February 1988. It was known that a large number of those children were adopted by families from the city of Zagreb and other places, but their exact number has not been established. To the German camp Sajmiste 10 thousand people were brought from Srijem, 7 thousand from Kozara and 3 thousand from Banija, Kordun and Lika, according to the Statement of crimes of Austria and Austrians.

From that figure:
 

killed as fighters of NOR	46	11	57
killed as victims of fascist terror in settlements	43	25	68
in camps, pits and prisons	19	12	31
fought on the side of NDH	70	29	99

 

The upper losses are further divided into following:
 

	Croatians	Muslims	Together
Total losses	178	77	255
Killed as fighters of NOR	46	11	57
As victims of fascist terror:
- in settlements from Germans and Italians	22	8	30
- in camps, pits, prisons	13 81	7 26	20 107
Remains	97	51	148
Killed by chetniks	18	29	47
Killed by Partisans	26	16	42
Killed around Bleiburg and on the "Way of Cross"	49	4	53
Sweepings of terrain 1945/47	4 97	2 51	6 148

 

IN JASENOVAC CAMP, according to my research between 48 and 52 thousand Serbs were killed, 12 thousand Croatians, 13 thousand Jews and 10 thousand Romanys, altogether around 85 thousand people.

JEWS in NDH. In the year 1941 there were 34 thousand of them, and according to the census in 1948 in Croatia and B&H there remained 2.6 thousand. Apart from the 13,000 killed in Jasenovac, in other camps and ditches there were about 6 thousand, while about 7 thousand Jews from NDH lost their lives in camps across the border in other countries. (On demand of Germans, in May 1943 there were deported to Oswiecin: from Zagreb 1,700 and other parts of Croatia 2,500). About 5 thousand people emigrated. Thanks to mixed marriages 1,100 Jews survived the 1941-1945 war in Croatia.

Written by Vladimir Zerjavic
Back to Inventions and Lies of Dr Bulajic