Zuroff: The international community should respond more harshly to the restoration of Xhafer Deva's house

Director of the "Simon Wiesenthal" Institute, Efraim Zuroff, said today that the international community should react more strongly to the intentions of Pristina to restore the house of Xhafer Deva in South Mitrovica, but that he doubted that this would happen, RTV reports.

Zuroff told Tanjug that this would most likely not happen because Deva, after being admitted to the United States of America, had allegedly helped the American intelligence service.

On the occasion of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, he said that anti-Semitism had always existed throughout the world for centuries and that it had been growing lately due to the role of social networks.

"They allow anti-Semites to connect with others with the same terrible ideas, which emboldens them and helps hatred spread easily," he said.

When asked why in some countries, such as Croatia, the Ustasha exclamation point was glorified or symbols were highlighted, Zuroff says that "nostalgia for the Ustasha regime is a disgusting and offensive phenomenon".

"It insults the memory of their numerous victims, incites hatred, anti-Semitism, and prejudice," he said.

According to him, the Holocaust was the worst human tragedy in history, which could have been prevented.

"It's not a natural disaster, like an earthquake, a volcano, or a tsunami. It was made by human beings, which means that people could have prevented it and that's why it's important to learn from this disaster," Zuroff said.

As he said, some people had forgotten about the events of the Second World War, some had not.

"There are those who think about it every day because of the way it's affected their lives, but of course, for younger people, it is history, not their experience," Zuroff said.

According to him, the main victims of the Nazis had been the Jews and the Nazi killing of all Jews had been unprecedented in human history, which was why more and more people were aware of the suffering of the Jews.

When it comes to the suffering of the Serbs and Roma people in World War II, Zuroff says that the tragedy of the Serbs was influenced by the policy of the former President of the SFRY, Josip Broz Tito, which hid Ustasha crimes, while, as he believes, the Roma people did not do much to publicize their suffering.

When asked what countries that had not distanced themselves from Nazi crimes, primarily in Eastern Europe, should do to make it clear that they did not agree with it, Zuroff says that they should tell the whole truth about the widespread participation of their own people in the crimes of the Holocaust.