Recently opened memorial museums and exhibitions in Croatia museumize the “Homeland War” of 1991 to 1995. This article examines the four major institutions, the Museum of the Homeland War in Karlovac as well as three sites in Vukovar: The Memorial Center for the Homeland War, the Memorial Hospital and the Ovčara Memorial Home. This first systematic site analysis compares 1) the overall narratives; 2) how enemy images from World War II are reactivated to demonize “the other”; 3) how women are represented in these war exhibitions; and 4) the topics that are left out. I argue that while there is still no national museum that includes war developments in all of the country, the two big institutions, the Museum in Karlovac and the Center in Vukovar, focus on the “defenders,” as the Croatian fighters are called – while in Karlovac strikingly marginalizing and at the Center completely omitting civilians. War here means (male) soldiers and weapons, while the other two institutions portray individual victims without discussing their biographies. In all sites, Serbs are depicted with reference to World War II: as Chetniks, running “concentration camps” who committed either “urbicide and culturocide” or a “holocaust” against Croats.

This paper discusses the way in which a post-conflict European Union (EU) member immediately after accession both shapes and adapts to EU memory politics as a part of its Europeanization process. I will analyze how the country responds to the top-down pressures of Europeanization in the domestic politics of memory by making proactive attempts at exporting its own politics of memory (discourses, policies, and practices) to the EU level. Drawing evidence from Croatian EU accession, I will consider how Croatian members of the European Parliament “upload” domestic memory politics to the EU level, particularly to the European Parliament. Based on the analysis of elite interviews, discourses, parliamentary duties, agenda-setting, and decision-making of Croatian MEPs from 2013 to 2016, I argue that the parliament serves both as a locus for confirmation of European identity through promotion of countries’ EU memory credentials and as a new forum for affirmation of national identity. The preservation of the “Homeland War” narrative (1991–1995) and of the “sacredness” of Vukovar as a European lieu de mémoire clearly influences the decision-making of Croatian MEPs, motivating inter-group support for policy building and remembrance practices that bridge domestic political differences.