Commemoration of dishonourable historical events

Dishonourable and shameful historical events may be celebrated by special interest groups and notably extremists. This may take the form of ceremonies, the erection of monuments and statues, or commemorative publications.

In 1993 the President of Croatia provoked controversy over plans to honour Croatian dead in the conflict with Serbia on the location of the concentration camp from World War II where Croatian fascists slaughtered tens of thousands of Serbs, Jews and Gypsies. This followed his act in renaming a square dedicated to victims of fascism to "The Square of Croatian Giants". Serbians claim that more than 1 million Serbs were slaughtered by the Croatian Ustashe during World War II. In 1993 in the USA a statue was removed because it commemorated an English officer who in 1637 led a massacre that virtually wiped out a tribe of Indians. In 1993, a statue of Ion Antonescu was erected in Slobozia (Romania); as a fascist dictator during World War II he was responsible for the deaths of at least 250,000 Jews and 20,000 gypsies.