Reframing difficult heritage? : the Holocaust monuments in Croatia

The article focuses on two monuments in Croatia thatcommemorate the Second World War and the Holocaust. Thefirstis theStone Flowermonument (Kameni cvet/cvijet) located at theJasenovac Memorial Site, designed by Bogdan Bogdanovićandunveiled in 1966. The second is theTangible Absencemonument(Prisutna odsutnost/Memorial to Victims of the Holocaust and theUstasha Regime), unveiled 77 years after the war’s end. It islocated in the centre of Zagreb and was created by sculptorDalibor Stošićand architect Krešimir Rogina. Both of thesemonuments are representative of how the official memoryregarding the events of the Second World War is changing inCroatia. They reflect the internal social and political changesoccurring within the territory of former Yugoslavia (now in thiscase Croatia). The main objectives of this text are to provide acomprehensive description of the monument creation process,highlight the meanings conveyed by these monuments, and toaddress the question of how new official forms ofcommemoration in Croatia respond to the global processes ofreimagining Holocaust memory.