Peres: Ahmadinejad should visit Croatian concentration camp

JASENOVAC, Croatia - Touring the site of Croatia's World War II concentration camp, President Shimon Peres said yesterday it was a demonstration of "sheer sadism" and that Iran's president, who has denied the Holocaust, should visit it.

Peres and Croatian President Ivo Josipovic toured Jasenovac, where a memorial honors about 85,000 Jews, Serbs, Gypsies and anti-fascist Croats who died in 1941-45 at the hands of Croatia's pro-Nazi regime. Thousands were also deported from Croatia to Nazi-run camps where they died.

Peres used the opportunity to refer to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's denials of the Holocaust. "I wish I would see him here," Peres said. "And I'm asking myself why does he deny [it]? To permit the legitimacy of continuity to kill."

Jasenovac, the worst of about 40 camps in Croatia during the war, didn't have a gas chamber. Inmates were killed with guns, knives and hammers; many were tortured or starved to death. About 30,000 Jews died in Croatia during the war, most of the Jewish community's pre-war population.

Yesterday, Peres concluded his three-day visit to Croatia - another sign of warming relations between Israel and Croatia.

Josipovic thanked Peres for "joining us to bow to the victims and to help us to face our past."

Peres told him he was "proud the two of us are trying to raise the civilization of humanity, respect and human rights."