Wiesenthal Center: Sakic’s Death While Still Under Sentence is a Model of Justice for Post-Communist Europe

Jerusalem – The Simon Wiesenthal Center today issued the following statement by its chief Nazi-hunter, Israel director Dr. Efraim Zuroff, in the wake of the demise earlier this week of convicted Ustasha war criminal Dinko Sakic, the former commandant of the notorious Jasenovac concentration camp.

“The fact that former Jasenovac commandant Dinko Sakic died while still serving his maximum sentence of twenty years’ imprisonment for his role in the deaths of numerous innocent Serbs, Jews, anti-fascist Croatians, and Gypsies sends a powerful message regarding the importance of prosecuting and punishing Nazi war criminals in post-Communist Europe. To this day, the Sakic trial remains the most successful trial of its kind and the trial which has had the greatest impact on Holocaust consciousness in the post-Communist world. The Croatian judicial authorities deserve credit for this success, and especially Judge Drazen Tripalo, who conducted the trial in an exemplary manner.

“Unfortunately, the Sakic trial has hereto never been successfully duplicated anywhere else in post-Communist Europe, where the need for the prosecution and punishment of local Nazi collaborators is more acute than ever. The Wiesenthal Center will continue its efforts to press for such prosecutions throughout Eastern Europe with the hope that additional trials will also increase Holocaust consciousness and a greater awareness of the significant role played by the Nazis’ local collaborators in the implementation of the crimes of the Shoa.”


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