MTV from Hell: Croatian Nazi Singer to Play NYC (with video)

I recently commented (here) on a NY Sun article (The New York Sun:Neo-Nazi Band Set To Play Amid Protests, By MARUXA RELAÑO) on a concert by a Croatian neo-Nazi performer Marko Perkovic, who performs under the name Thompson (after the submachine gun of the same name). Perkovic is going to be performing in a Croatian Catholic church in Manhattan.

A reader named DAVID suggested that I post some video of Perkovic's videos and I thought you might be interested to see him in action. I warn you that his videos can be disturbing. I also warn you that his music is absolutely atrocious and devoid of talent or art; Perkovic traffics in dull moronic fascist chants with little appeal. At least that makes it easier to ignore him.

Here are some links to Perkovic's videos. The truly Nazi character of this material has to be experienced to be believed. This is MTV from hell:

BEFORE WATCHING THOMPSON'S MUSIC VIDEOS, WATCH THESE VIDEOS OF THE JASANOVAC DEATH CAMP SO YOU KNOW WHAT HiS SONG CELBRATES. YOU CAN ALSO SEE WHERE HE GOT SOME OF THE FOOTAGE HE USES.

HERE'S A VIDEO FOR THOMPSON'S "Jasenovac i Gradiska Stara" GLORIFYING THE CROATION HOLOCAUST

and ANOTHER VIDEO FOR THE SAME SONG

and ANOTHER

NAZI CHANT BY FANS AT THOMPSON CONCERT

VARIOUS OTHER THOMPSON VIDEOS:

#1 #2 #3

Croatian Nazi Concert Planned in NYC

Croatian neo-Nazi, neo-Ustase singer took his stage name from the Thompson submachine gun.


from The New York Sun:Neo-Nazi Band Set To Play Amid Protests, By MARUXA RELAÑO:

Protests are mounting against plans for a Croatian rock star, Marko Perkovic, who critics say glorifies the Nazis, to perform in New York.

The performer, known as Thompson, combines folk-inspired melodies with the electric thrill of heavy metal and nationalistic lyrics.

While Thompson's songs promote love of God, family, and his nation, the singer and songwriter is also said to glorify war and Croatia's Nazi past, and that has groups lining up in protest of his two New York shows at the Croatian Center in Midtown next month.

In past concerts, he has performed an anthem of the country's Nazi-backed military regime — the Ustasha — that references extermination camps where tens of thousands of Jews, Serbs, and Gypsies were killed during World War II. He greets adoring crowds with a famous Ustasha slogan — and many respond with the Nazi salute.

"To glorify what happened during the Holocaust is not what we need in the world today, nor do we need it in this city — after the events we have recently been through. To play with that for the sake of music, or even conviction, I find it totally repugnant," the director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Task Force Against Hate, Mark Weitzman, said.

Mr. Weitzman said his group is in conversations with the Croatian Embassy, whose government has been trying to distance the country from the strong nationalism of the 1990s as part of a serious bid to join the European Union in 2010.

"I get the sense that they are not very happy about the concert, but I'm not sure how they are going to respond. Hopefully there will be the right response," Mr. Weitzman said.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights nonprofit that has been monitoring Mr. Perkovic's performances for several years, has also asked the Croatian Embassy in Washington to publicly repudiate the band as part of the country's commitment to international treaties denouncing the Holocaust, and to forgo working with any institution that supports the tour.

Last week, organizers of a Thompson concert planned in Toronto next month cancelled after pressure from the Canadian offices of the Task Force Against Hate. The group is now in conversations with the venue that is to host their Vancouver appearance, as well as to police there, said Leo Adler, director of national affairs.

Mr. Adler said in Canada, where there is a lower threshold for what constitutes hate speech, there is a chance that Thompson's lyrics could violate the law. In America, freedom of speech is more protected, he noted.

The director of the Anti-Defamation League, Abraham Foxman, said he hoped education and exposure of the band's background would convince people to not attend their concerts. "The sad part is how popular they are in Croatia and that they are now coming here to appeal to U.S. Croats to almost justify the Holocaust," Mr. Foxman said.

"It's a free country, and people can choose to be offensive. We are not in the business of censorship or shutting people down, but we do hope that when people understand what they are about they will not want to hear them play," he added.

For Serbs living in America, whose minority population in Croatia was decimated during WWII and the Balkan wars of the 1990s between Serbs and Croats, Thompson's songs strike a particularly sensitive chord.

"He is singing about genocide against a people who were ethnically cleansed. It's intolerable," a development officer at NYU, Radosh Piletich, 35, said. Mr. Piletich is part of a loose group of Serbian-Americans in New York who would like to see the concert canceled and have lodged complaints with the office of Rep. Jerrold Nadler, in whose congressional district the concert will be taking place.

"I would like to stop the concert. I would like to stop the hatred. I don't understand how we can be in the 21st century and allow this type of language to take place," a man whose grandmother was killed by Ustasha during the war, Tom Djurdjevich, 37, said.

"If you listen to his lyrics, it celebrates butchery. It's beyond inhumane. He talks about gouging out of eyes and sawing off of heads," Mr. Djurdjevich continued.

One of the New York events' organizers, George Corluka, of Syndicate Productions, did not return calls and emails requesting comment.

But patrons at several Croatian bars in Astoria, Queens, where tickets for Mr. Perkovic's performance are being sold for $45, dismissed the importance of Thompson's extremist rhetoric, saying he is just appealing to a young nationalist sentiment long repressed by the Communist regime that gripped the country following World War II.

"Everybody says he's a good person. He's singing about genocide in the context of a war," said a painter, Marko Marienovich, 42, whose 21-year old daughter has made plans to go hear Thompson play said. "What he's singing about, he went through. He sings about the things he saw."

Many said they respect the fact that Mr. Perkovic is a veteran in the war between the Croats and Serbs. He earned his stage name from an American-issued submachine gun used by the Croats.

"He's a Croatian hero. You are going to see how many people show up for his show," a retiree, Boris Yurisic, 47, said.

So far, tickets for Mr. Perkovic's November 2 concert at the Croatian Center on 41st Street in Manhattan — which holds 700 people — are sold out. Tickets for a second concert the following day, scheduled due to strong demand, will soon go on sale. The Croatian Center adjoins the Roman Catholic Church of Saints Cyril and Methodius and St. Raphael, on 10th Avenue. Calls to the church offices were not picked up.

A spokesman for the Archdiocese of New York, Joseph Zwilling, said he didn't know about the concert or the artist and therefore couldn't comment. "I'd have to contact the Parish about this and we'll have to investigate it, certainly," he said.

At a readers' suggestion (thanks DAVID), here are some links to Thompson's videos. The truly Nazi character of this material has to be experienced to be believed. This is MTV from hell:

BEFORE WATCHING THOMPSON'S MUSIC VIDEOS, WATCH THESE VIDEOS OF THE JASANOVAC DEATH CAMP SO YOU KNOW WHAT HiS SONG CELBRATES. YOU CAN ALSO SEE WHERE HE GOT SOME OF THE FOOTAGE HE USES.

HERE'S A VIDEO FOR THOMPSON'S "Jasenovac i Gradiska Stara" GLORIFYING THE CROATION HOLOCAUST

and ANOTHER VIDEO FOR THE SAME SONG

and ANOTHER

NAZI CHANT BY FANS AT THOMPSON CONCERT

VARIOUS OTHER THOMPSON VIDEOS:

#1 #2 #3

Israeli envoy to Croatia accuses TV official of anti-Semitism

from Haaretz - Israel News

Israeli ambassador to Croatia, Shmuel Meirom, called on Tuesday for the dismissal of a programming council official at Croatian TV broadcaster HRT, accusing her of anti-Semitism.

Jadranka Kolarevic had attacked Ephraim Zuroff of the Simon Wiesenthal Center for speaking out against the broadcast of a concert by ultra-nationalist Croatian performer Marko "Thompson" Perkovic.

Perkovic's songs feature patriotic sentiment and nostalgia for the Ustasha regime, which collaborated with the Nazis during the Second World War, and during whose rule (1941-1945) tens of thousands of Jews, Serbs, Roma and anti-fascists were killed in concentration camps.

Perkovic's fans often wear black uniforms resembling those of the Ustasha army.

"Many people die daily in Palestine and he wants to comment on the situation in Croatia," Kolarevic said of Zuroff, who runs the Wiesenthal Centre's Israeli branch.

Meirom sent a letter to Croatian Parliamentary Speaker Vladimir Seks and HRT General Director Vanja Sutlic, demanding the dismissal of Kolarevic for what he called "deeply anti-Semitic" remarks.

While Seks has yet to react to the ambassador's request, Sutlic said it was not Meirom's place to interfere in Croatia's internal matters.

Photos of Croatian Nazi Pop Concert

view here...don't know whether to laugh, cry or gag...

Jews slam Croatia's failure to condemn 'Nazi' concert

from European Jewish Press:

ZAGREB (AFP)---The Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Centre voiced outrage Monday after a concert by a nationalist Croatian folk singer renowned for glorifying the country’s pro-Nazi WWII regime.

The Los Angeles-based organisation expressed "outrage and disgust in the wake of a massive show of fascist salutes, symbols and uniforms at a rock concert by popular ultra-nationalist Croatian singer Thompson," a statement said.

The concert, which took place in Zagreb on Sunday, was attended by some 60,000 people, among them officials including Education and Science Minister Dragan Primorac, it added.

Marko Perkovic, alias Thompson, is seen as an icon by Croatian nationalists and is supported by right-wing politicians.

He is known for sympathising with the 1940s pro-Nazi Ustasha regime at his concerts where, dressed in black, he gives a Hitler-style salute and shouts Ustasha slogans.

The Simon Wiesenthal Centre’s Israel director, Efraim Zuroff, called for the banning of concerts by singers who glorify fascism and racism.

"The time has come to prohibit public concerts by those who write songs of nostalgia for Jasenovac (concentration camp) and inspire the show of Ustasha symbols," Zuroff said in letter to Croatian President Stipe Mesic.

"I believe that only if someone of your stature and outstanding anti-fascist credentials will lead the efforts to combat this ugly wave of revived fascism, can this extremely dangerous new trend be stopped before it engulfs Croatia."

In the past, Perkovic has been known for his song "Jasenovac and Gradiska Stara," Croatia’s two notorious World War II concentration camps.

The song glorifies the Nazi-allied Ustasha regime and its leader, Ante Pavelic, and abuses Serbs.

According to local media reports, during Sunday’s concert Perkovic refrained from pro-Ustasha references and Hitler-style salutes.

Hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews, anti-fascist Croatians, Gypsies and others were killed by the Ustasha in the Croatian concentration camps.

Jasenovac

Fascist Croatian rock concert wows 60,000 goose-steppers

Nazi hunter raps 'fascist' Croatian rock concert | Jerusalem Post

The Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center on Monday voiced outrage over a Croatian rock concert by a popular ultra-nationalist singer that featured multiple "fascist" invocations.

The Sunday evening Zagreb concert, which was attended by 60,000 people including Croatian members of parliament and the Croatian ministers of science, education and sports, turned into a massive fascist demonstration, the organization's chief Nazi hunter and Israel director Dr. Efraim Zuroff said.

Thousands of people attending the rock concert by the singer "Thompson" shouted the infamous Ustasha regime's salute of "Za dom spremni," while numerous participants came wearing Ustasha uniforms and symbols, the center said in a press release.

"Under the current circumstances, I believe that the time has come to prohibit public concerts by those who write songs of nostalgia for [the] Jasenovac [concentration camp] and inspire the show of Ustasha symbols, which constitute open and blatant incitement against all the minorities in Croatia," Zuroff wrote in a Monday letter to Croatian President Stjepan Mesic.

"I believe that only if someone of your stature and outstanding anti-fascist credentials will lead the efforts to combat this ugly wave of revived fascism, can this extremely dangerous new trend be stopped before it engulfs Croatia," he continued.

The Ustasha regime ran a puppet government after the Nazi invasion of Yugoslavia in 1941.

During their four years in power, the Ustasha carried out a Serb genocide, exterminating over 500,000 people, expelling 250,000 and forcing another 250,000 to convert to Catholicism.

The Ustasha also killed most of Croatia's Jews, 20,000 gypsies and many thousands of their political enemies.

After the war, most of the Ustasha leaders escaped to South America and Spain.

During the collapse of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, there was a certain resurgence of Ustasha symbols coinciding with the ethnic hatred that remained after the wars.