Early life Slavko Goldstein was born in
Sarajevo in the
Jewish family of Ivo and Lea Goldstein. His grandfather Aron had come to
Karlovac, which was at the time in the
Austro-Hungarian Empire, in 1890 from
Transylvania. There he worked in Lisander Reich's bookshop, and married the latter's sister Adolfa. The Goldsteins then opened a trade in
Topusko, and later moved to
Orljavac. From there, they moved to
Tuzla where they opened a store and where Slavko's father Ivo (
Izchak) was born. After he graduated agronomy in
Vienna, Slavko's father returned briefly to Tuzla and, as a convinced
Zionist, moved to
Mandatory Palestine. He lived in an agricultural
kibbutz near
Haifa. In 1928, with his wife Lea, whom he had met in Palestine, he returned to the
Kingdom of Yugoslavia – not in Tuzla with his father, but in Karlovac where he took over the bookshop from his uncle Lisander Reich. Slavko was born during a trip to
Sarajevo, and spent his childhood in Karlovac with his brother
Danko (
Daniel), where his father was a book dealer.
Second World War During the
Second World War and the 1941
Nazi occupation of Yugoslavia, Slavko's father was arrested by the
Ustaša, while Slavko escaped from Karlovac to where he was hidden by the Djerek family. His brother Danko took his grandfather Aron to Tuzla, while his mother Lea was in jail from July to August, when she was released thanks to some friends. In January 1942, all three were found in
Kraljevica. They thus joined the
Partisans with whom they stayed until the end of the war. From Spring 1942 to 1945, Goldstein was active in the field and combat units of the NOVJ. He ended the war, at 17, with the rank of
Lieutenant. His mother Lea spent the war in the medical service, and his brother Danko as a courier for the Agitprop of the Central Committee of the
Communist Party of Yugoslavia (KPJ). Slavko's father was killed at
Jadovno concentration camp at the end of July or the first day of August 1941. Apart from his father, Slavko lost a part of the family from Tuzla during the Holocaust, who were killed in the
Jasenovac concentration camp and
Auschwitz. He edited more than 150 books, and worked as a publisher on about 400 titles.
Later years One article claims Goldstein identified as "
Yugoslav". However, in his book '1941: The Year That Keeps Returning' he repeatedly refers to himself as a Croatian Jew. On 20 May 1989, together with his brother and several associates from
Cankarjeva založba, where he worked then (
Vlado Gotovac and
Božo Kovačević were also employed there), he founded the first political party in modern Croatia, the
Croatian Social Liberal Party (HSLS) and until February 1990 was its President. In 2007, Goldstein published the book
1941. – Godina koja se vraća ("1941 – The Year That Comes Back") for which he received the Cyclop Award for the Publicist Work of the Year. Goldstein was then the first president of the Jewish religious community
Beth Israel from Zagreb, founded in 2007 after an internal conflict in the Jewish community of Zagreb led by
Ognjen Kraus. After the victory of the
SDP-led coalition in the
2011 parliamentary elections, Goldstein became a special advisor for culture of the Croatian Prime Minister
Zoran Milanović, as well as President of the Council of the
Jasenovac Memorial Center. In 2011, together with his son Ivo he published the book
Jasenovac i Bleiburg nisu isto ("Jasenovac and Bleiburg are not the same"). In this book, he opposes those who hold that "... Jasenovac and Bleiburg are simply two identical crimes with different ideological signs." In 2015, Slavko Goldstein opposed the initiative to introduce the greeting
Za dom spremni as an official greeting of the
Armed Forces of Croatia. He stated that he would not be able to live in Croatia if the greeting was introduced in the military, schools or other state institutions, and that he would immediately seek political asylum in another European country. Goldstein died on 13 September 2017. ==Works==