ANATOMY OF DECEIT:
An American Physician's First Hand Encounter
With The Realities of The War In Croatia
by Jerry Blaskovich, M.D.
Those who wish to purchase an autographed hard cover copy of the book please click here.
The author welcomes your email comments: jblaskovich@hotmail.com
Reviews
Croatian Medical Journal - December 1998 (Volume 38, Number 4)
Book Review
A Beacon for Croatian Intellectuals:
Blaskovich J. Anatomy of Deceit. An American Physician’s First-hand Encounter with the Realities of the War
in Croatia.
New York: Dunhill Publishing, Co., 1997. 247 pages, hard cover. ISBN 0-935016-24-4. Price: US$24.
Jerry Blaskovich is a US physician of Croatian origin, Zagreb University School of Medicine graduate, Korean
War veteran, Diplomat of the American Board of Dermatology, devoted member of the World Association of
Croatian Physicians, and, as he has recently convinced us, a great author. During the 1991-1995 war in
Croatia, nobody had to tell Dr Blaskovich where to go, what to do, whom to help, and what to write. Although
living in California, Jerry knew what his homeland needed, what tasks suited his abilities, what pressure his
family was able to go through, and what his health and strength allowed him to do. Being a doctor and an
intellectual, he did not opt for playing shallow politics, futile heroism, or hypocritical humanism. Croatia
needed intellectuals-soldiers, and Jerry, among the few of them, became one of the most successful. I was
acquainted with his assistance to war-ravaged Croatia, with his love, care, concerns and efforts. Many other
have offered all this too but Jerry is special for writing about it. When the aggression against Croatia
commenced, accompanied by a powerful Serbian propaganda, hypocrisy, and deceit of international
community, Jerry Blaskovich, a dermatology professor in his early fifties, took a university course in
creative writing to be able to respond to innumerable anti-Croatian articles published in the US newspapers
and journals. Despite the animosity towards anything Croatian in the western media (really familiar only to
those who attempted to talk/write to them), Jerry published over 100 rebuttals to lies and vicious accusations
of Croatia during the war. This alone calls for admiration and recognition as an unsurpassed achievement in
the Croatian recent history. However, this did not satisfy Jerry Blaskovich: after the war, he embarked on
writing a book on the war in Croatia, a first-hand encounter with the realities of suffering, injustice, hypocrisy,
deceit.
This book is completely in line with Jerry’s other works, his erudition, and experience. It is written for an
American reader, and thus has a typical personal touch, fluency, and comprehensive approach which makes
it easily readable, interesting, and even exciting. It begins with Dr Blaskovich’s involvement in forensic
investigation of the Voæin massacre (80 executed Croatian civilians), but soon turns into a description and
analysis of the unwillingness of the western media to report the event. This develops into a description and
analysis of the reasons for a refusal of the media to report on any Croatian sufferings in the war, and then
into the analysis of the entire Serbian aggression against Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Jerry
was thus involved with the analysis of international politics, and, being an American, he knew more than those
most informed living in Croatia. It was fascinating to read about the disgraceful background of actions and
statements of many important political figures who were deciding people’s destinies in the area. It was also
discouraging that the old sayings proved to be true: great nations find their interests more important than our
lives, many people consider money and position more important than justice and fairness. The lecture Dr
Blaskovich teaches us should not be only remembered, but also given a serious consideration and scientific
analysis, especially by the Croatian intellectuals and experts.
I particularly enjoyed Dr Blaskovich’s description and explanation of the fact that a large number of Croatian
physicians took the leading roles in the state and society after the free elections and especially in the war
(chapter Physicians, Leaders by Default). A touch of humor, but not at the expense of the depth of analysis
and soundness of facts, can be found in the author’s description of the first steps of the infant Croatian
democracy and changing of political views of Croatian emigrants in San Pedro. Dr Blaskovich nicely
demonstrates his ability of succinctly describing and thoroughly analyzing reactions of the presidents of
states, ministers, generals, but also of the refugee women, and even a basketball player. Each of these
stories has the same goal: revealing the truth about the wars in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. This
book is, more than anything else, a book about the truth (there are a few incorrect numbers, but they are
obviously typing errors). The truth is written for a foreigner – simple, interesting, and general but also for an
expert, because the book provides relevant arguments revealing the appropriate background, and touching
the right points.
The revelation of truth is not the only, and even not the key point of the book: it is a Croatian testimony, and
every one of those who have experienced the events will be able to explain and support its every detail,
every standpoint. Blaskovich’s book should be considered our starting point, in at least two extremely
important aspects: a) this is a Croatian story, b) this is an example of what Croatian intellectuals should be
doing. Those who were late for joining the war should not be sorry (but happy) that the war ended and will not
repeat: there is a lot more to be done, in every aspect of the Croatian history, values, achievements, war
defeats and victories, culture, science, education, future. An intellectual – a writer, scientist, physician, or
other – does not have to defend his country with a gun in trenches, and does not have to sell his/her soul for
a position, political or other; one should do what he/she does best. I believe that with Jerry Blaskovich the
Croatian story only started marching through the jungle of the western public information system, and hope
that other experts will follow his example.
Matko Marušiæ
International Journal of Dermatology: "The genocide, the pathos,and the grim details of war are
recounted with objectivity and compassion. The author is an excellent war correspondent and medical
journalist."
Anthony M. Mlikotin: Professor Emeritus, former Chairman of Slavic and Comparative Literature;
University of Southern California: In spite of the apocalyptic tone, the book is written in the style of an
odyessy, lyrical tone of narration prevails from the beginning to the end. Through as the evidence in every
instance is, the style lifts the book from the dullness of discursive prose tothe inspiring regions of the genre of
fiction...This book will be read even after the events of the war years in Croatia and Bosnia have sunk into
oblivion."
PENINSULA PEOPLE: The antagonism between Serbs, Croats, and Bosnian Muslims runs deep, and to make
heads or tails out of the true causes of the bloody fueds is a formidable task Anatomy of Deceit is an attempt
to set some records straight.
Muhamed Sacirbey: Ambassador, Permanent Mission of Bosnia-Herzegovina to the United Nations:
"Anatomy of Deceit undertakes a serious and most necessary review of how media and official factors
manipulate raw information...My continuing official responsibilities curtail me from pronouncing a final
judgment on Dr. Blaskovich's conclusions. Nonetheless, Dr Blaskovich's presentation of the facts are
supported by many of my first hand observations and one can reach their own judgment on that basis."
Los Angeles Times: "Clearly written to inform, not sensationalize, the atrocities detailed sends the reader to
the tissue box asking, "How can one human being do this to another?"
Irene B. Bierman, Ph.D., Director Gustave von Grunebaum Center for Near Eastern Studies: UCLA:
"His book has three parts: the physical events of the Serbian military action; broken, mutilated bodies,
hospitals under siege, Croatian and Bosnian victims of programmed torture and rape. These hate killed acts
are documented by medical investigations, including autopsies.
Second, the realization that the international media who witnessed the same unspeakable horrors would not
speak of them or write of them: persuaded themselves and the world that the Serbs were guiltless and that the
Croats, even women and children and the elderly, were not victims of hate-filled violence, but simply war
casualties."
American Croatian Review: "We believe Dr. Blaskovich's book is destined to become the seminal piece the
truth puzzle about the former Yugoslavia."
jnmir@aol.com from San Diego, California. "A very candid and refreshing view on a complex issue.I found
this book to be very clear and concise in dealing with the recent issues in the Balkan regions. Too often, the
press gives a one-sided or watered down view of current events. Dr. Blaskovich has provided his readers with
an eyewitness account which brings the atrocities of war into the reality of the reader.
mcadams@usfca.edu from San Francisco CA, is not the work of an armchair "expert" or that of a journalist-
turned-historian who paid a brief visit to the region. Anatomy of Deceit is the product of a lifetime of education,
a knowledge of the language and cultures of Croatia and Bosnia, and the product of one who has been on
the front lines, in refugee camps, in the hospitals, and in the morgues and makeshift burial grounds. His story
is at once infomative, sickening, and riveting. It is a true personal chronicle of one man's transformation and
the world's transformation into the grim realities of the "New World Order."
drenner@apc.net from Laguna Beach, CA, Finally a clear description of the "whys" of the Balkan War.
Somehow Slobodan Milosevic, iron handed ruler of Serbia, also known as the Butcher of the Balkans,
convinced the governments of the civilized world not to interfere while 250,000 Croat and Bosnian civilian
men, women and children were slaughtered, and in the case of the women, raped as recreation by Serb
paramilitary soldiers (thugs) in order to bear Serbian children or be killed and cast away if they had become
useless. It was a gruesome but fitting fate the world was made to believe. It took five years for the west to
mount a tepid response that resulted in the Dayton Accords awarding Serbian violence with half of Bosnia. Dr.
Jerry Blaskovich rips away the fictions and myths so adroitly put in place by a canny Serb PR machine (they
hired Saatchi and Saatchi in London among others), fictions maintained and reinforced with the dedicated
help of Kissinger Associates who had a vested interest in Serbian victory. As a medical doctor who had
devoted his life to medicine, scholarship and teaching at USC, Dr. Blaskovich saw first hand the atrocities
visited on these unprotected populations targeted for extinction. He could not remain silent, and began an
intensive examination of this shameful chapter in modern western history. Why did the world allow this
atrocity? Read "Anatomy of Deceit" for the truths our press ignored or failed to grasp. (The State Department
knew. Five career diplomats quit in disgust - a historical first.) Milosevic continues his wars of aggression
today as his thugs kill Albanian civilians, including children, in Kosovo - a program he set in motion in 1989,
two years before his attacks against Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia. Although a war criminal by any standard of
civilization, Milosovic remains unindicted and hailed by some as a "peacemaker."