Naslov
The faith of Ljudevit Jurak (1881-1945) and Eduard Miloslavic (1884-1952) two Croatian forensic experts of mass graves at Katyn and Vinnitsa

Autori
Petrovečki, Vedrana ; Fatović-Ferenčić, Stella

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Sažeci sa skupova, sažetak, stručni

Izvornik
Abstracts of 19th World meeting of the International Association of Forensic Sciences (IAFS) / - , 2011

Skup
19th World meeting of the International Association of Forensic Sciences (IAFS)

Mjesto i datum
Funchal, Portugal, 12.09.2011. - 17.09.2011

Vrsta sudjelovanja
Predavanje

Vrsta recenzije
Međunarodna recenzija

Ključne riječi
mass graves; war crimes; investigation

Sažetak
Ljudevit Jurak (1881-1945) and Eduard Mi1os1avic (1884-1952) were two eminent Croatian physicians who paved the way of the foundation of pathology and forensic medicine in Croatia. The field of pathologic anatomy in Croatia actually opened with Ljudevit Jurak’s appointment as a prosector in Public Health Institutions of the city of Zagreb in 1913. Twenty-two years later, in 1935, Eduard Miloslavic founded the Department of Forensic Medicine of the Zagreb School of Medicine. Due to the fact that both were involved in the investigation of Soviet Union war crimes during World War II, their fate was not investigated during the fifty years of Communist regime it was risky even to mention their names. Consequently, references to Jurak and Miloslavic are fairly sparse, and most archive sources and documentation are unbalanced. The majority of the documentation on Jurak is missing, because his property and every trace of his existence have been carefully destroyed. Miloslavic, on the other band, lived and worked in several countries, leaving behind a larger body of documentation on which to base a study of his life and career. Several papers have been published on their lives, although their lives and careers still need searching. This presentation aims to concentrate on their role and involvement in the investigation of war crimes in Katyn and Vinnitsa during the World War II. In 1943, Miloslavic was invited as a medicolegal expert in an International Committee to investigate the massacre in the Katyn forest near Smolensk, and Jurak to investigate the mass grave in Vinnitsa near the Ukrainian river Bug. Both medicolegal investigations proved that crimes were committed by Soviets. However, Jurak and Miloslavic’s part in those investigations had a dramatic impact on their future. Jurak was arrested by the Yugoslav political police in 1945, deprived of human rights, and condemned to death. To this date, his burial place is unknown. Miloslavic’s fate would probably not be much different if he did not managed to escape from Yugoslavia never to came back. Those two personalities of Croatian history, because they were not prepared to settle for the falsification of history, demonstrate how professional integrity collided and was finally destroyed by a political regime. After the Second World War, the Soviet responsibility for the Katyn Massacre was either widely disbelieved or ignored, not only in Croatia. Many western journalists and scholars were unable or unwilling to report accurately on crimes of Katyn and Vinnitsa and their importance for human rights and freedoms to which all humans should be entitled.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Kliničke medicinske znanosti, Povijest

POVEZANOST RADA