Ljubica Štefan | |
|---|---|
| Born | Prilep,Kingdom of Yugoslavia (modern-day North Macedonia) |
| Died | |
| Occupation | historian |
| Righteous Among the Nations |
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| By country |
Ljubica Štefan (1921–2002) was a Croatian historian. She was awarded honorific titleRighteous Among the Nations.[1]
Born in Croatian family inPrilep,Kingdom of Yugoslavia (modern-dayNorth Macedonia) in 1921, Štefan graduated inKrk,Croatia in 1939. She started studyingSlavic studies at theFaculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in 1939 in Zagreb, but finished in 1949 inBelgrade. She was a professor of slavistics inBelgrade,Kosovo andVojvodina.[citation needed]
During theSecond World War she lived inKarlovac by her uncle Lujo Štefan, with whom she run actions of liberating and savingJews of Nazi-puppetNDH prosecutions. Consequently, she was awarded honorific titleRighteous Among the Nations.[1] Her and her uncle's name were engraved inYad Vashem in 1992 together with the word Croatia for the first time in the history.
Štefan discovered and published documents about collaboration betweenSerbian Orthodox Church with Third Reich's military authorities. She lived inBelgrade until 1992 when she returned toCroatia. During theYugoslav Communist Regime she published her works anonymously or underpseudonyms (Edo Bojović), because she was blacklisted by Yugoslav authorities.[citation needed] She published her works inHrvatsko slovo,Vjesnik,Hrvatski obzor and many others.
She researched contemporary history, especially relations betweenSerbs,Albanians andJews, as well asHolocaust inSoutheastern Europe. The history award of Croatian Cultural Fond is named after her.[2]
According to sociologistJovan Byford, Štefan belonged to a group of authors whose works supported the Croatian side against the Serbian side in a "war of words" which became propaganda war after the involvement of various state ministries. These groups of authors depicted Serbs as a genuine "genocidal nation" whosecollaborators during WWII, with the blessing of the Serbian Orthodox Church, cleansed Serbia from Jews and committed much worse crimes than theUstaše.[3]
According toJohn K. Roth, in her workFrom Fairy Tale to Holocaust, Štefan falsely alleges that Serbia ran an independent state during the Second World War (the country was underGerman military occupation).[4] Štefan advocated the unproven theory[5] that theJasenovac concentration camp was used byJosip Broz Tito and the Yugoslav communist regime to imprison political prisoners after World War II.[citation needed]
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