Zagreb, June 9, 2023
Members of the activist network of the Youth Initiative for Human Rights visited the exhibition "Lens of the Independent State of Croatia: The Dangerous and Unsuitable for Public Order and Security" at the Zagreb City Museum.
The Jasenovac Memorial Site and the Serbian National Council are the authors of this exhibition, which is based on archival material: police records from the Zagreb Police District Fund, which record the arrests of citizens of Zagreb in 1941 and 1942. Based on the research of the author of the exhibition, the detainees recorded through the exhibition were linked to the Jasenovac concentration camp.
The authors of the exhibition are Đorđe Mihovilović, curator of the Jasenovac Memorial Area, and Aneta Vladimirov, senior head of the cultural department of the Serbian National Council, while the participants were guided through the exhibition by associates Tena Bakšaj and Nikola Puharić.
Bakšaj and Puharić explained that the exhibition uses police records as an archival tool of learning since it gives insight into the profiles of people who were imprisoned and tortured and, in most cases, taken to Jasenovac where they were killed. In addition to this majority category, the exhibition includes parts related to survivors and victims for whom it cannot be said with certainty whether they were killed in Jasenovac or Jadovno.
Recognizing the way police records were used as a mechanism to dehumanize the "dangerous and undesirable," the authors include photographs of detainees to "open up the possibility of encountering human faces whose glances at the lens certainly marked the end of life as they knew it until then", while "data from the charts allow the reconstruction of parts of their lives, their socioeconomic opportunities, the prospect of their survival, incessant agony and fear."
In addition to guiding them through the exhibition, Bakšaj and Puharić gave members copies of police records in order to notice the entire material in relation to the parts included in the exhibition and were given the task to find the places where the detainees lived on the map of the city of Zagreb from that time and compare street names in relation to today.
We would like to thank Nikola Puharić and Tena Bakšaj for organizing the visit, guiding us through the exhibition, and leading the workshop through which members of the activist network had the opportunity to learn about human rights violations in their local community.
In addition to visiting exhibitions, the activist network's meetings include workshops, film screenings, talks, and numerous other activities.
Interested young people can join the activist network by expressing interest by e-mail croatia@yihr.org.
Project MLADI! is implemented with the funding of the Central State Office for Demography and Youth.
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