ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses a terrible irony. From 1941 to 1944, a part of the Croatian and Bosnian Serb population was targeted with genocidal aggression by the Ustasha regime in Nazi-backed Croatia. Approximately fifty years later, Serbian paramilitary units conducted wide-scale ethnic cleansing, mass rape, and genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Collective memories of past victimization and cynical manipulation by Serbia’s leadership provided a moral cloak for some of the bloodiest acts of European state-building since 1945. Using the Holocaust as a lens through which to understand Serbian history and contemporary events proved an extremely useful strategy. It fed into pre-existing myths of victimization and loss, while tapping into a growing public awareness of the Holocaust and its significance. As Americans became Holocaust-conscious during the 1990s, so too did Serbs. Since part of the propaganda war was waged by Diaspora Serbs living in North America, this was hardly surprising.
