Croatian rock star's controversial San Jose appearance

One of Croatia's hottest rock stars is scheduled to play at an offbeat venue in San Jose on Sunday, despite an international protest from the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a prominent Jewish humanitarian agency dedicated to fighting anti-Semitism, racism and genocide.

Marko Perkovic, 42, is slated to play at the Arc of Willow Glen, a banquet hall that seats about 300.

But while he sings to thunderous crowds of about 50,000 in southern Europe, he also has been criticized for what some say is his tacit support of fans who show up at his European concerts wearing T-shirts with fascist symbols and perform a Nazi salute.

Perkovic's concerts in Cleveland and Toronto were canceled, largely due to pressure by the Wiesenthal center. He did perform at alternate venues just outside both cities. Perkovic is better known by his stage name, "Thompson," for the type of submachine gun he used while serving in the Croatian army.

"If this were me, and I were accused of what he's been accused of, I'd want to set the record straight really fast," said Mark Weitzman, the New York director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center's task force against hate.

Weitzman stops short of calling Perkovic a neo-Nazi or Nazi sympathizer, but he says his "passive acceptance" of some fans who are apparently Nazi-leaning "seems to be creating an environment where fans are glorifying fascism and he doesn't seen to be telling them 'no.' "

But Perkovic has spoken out against fascism, according to George Corluka, who managed the singer's New York concerts. Perkovic does not speak English, and so Corluka said he was speaking on the singer's behalf.

"He hasn't been silent about this controversy," said an e-mail Corluka sent to the Mercury News on Friday. "At every concert Marko states that he is not a fascist or a Nazi, nor does he support them."

Corluka's e-mail also implied that Perkovic is the victim of a smear campaign concocted, perhaps, by Serbians who deplore anything that has to do with Croatian nationalism.

Perkovic kicked off his North American tour Nov. 2. San Jose appears as the last stop listed on his Web site.

Members of San Jose's Croatian Catholic Church helped arrange the visit for the band that sometimes sounds a bit like Iron Maiden, and sometimes like an ethnic folk rock band.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, about 4,000 residents claim Croatian ancestry in Santa Clara County. Many are hurt that their community's image is being tarnished by claims about a pop idol who, they argue, is simply passionate about his country.

"We would not bring him here if these things were true," said church council president Aldo Stemberga of Menlo Park. "They are all lies."

There have been no reports in the United States of neo-Nazi behavior or large counterprotests surrounding Perkovic's music.

One of the most recent controversial flash points was a huge June concert in Croatia's capital, Zagreb, where fans were seen sporting Ustasha T-shirts and other paraphernalia. The Ustasha were Croatian fascists and Nazi collaborators during World War II.

In an article in the International Herald Tribune following the concert, Perkovic told the reporter that he had never raised his own arm to make a fascist salute. Nor, he said, did he encourage people to wear Ustasha uniforms. As for the Ustasha slogan he uses, he said it was a traditional Croatian saying that predated World War II.

But critics argue that Perkovic should tell fans, emphatically, at his concerts that if they salute Hitler, or wear Ustasha T-shirts, he doesn't want them there. They ask whether fans could imagine Mick Jagger or Billy Joel allowing this type of behavior, and not speaking out against it.

The Wiesenthal center also pointed to Perkovic's 2002 performance of "Jasanovic/Stara Gardinska," a song Weitzman says venerates concentration camps where thousands of Jews, Serbs and gypsies died. The agency also points to some YouTube videos that use Perkovic music overlaid with photos displaying fans wearing neo-Nazi garb.

But Croatian-American Irena Ukalovic-Halsey, 39, of Los Altos Hills has translated Perkovic's songs into English. They are not hateful, she said.

And she notes that the YouTube videos aren't Perkovic's doing or, necessarily, his responsibility. She also wonders whether, in a crowd of 50,000 this past summer, Perkovic would have noticed a small group raising hands in a Hitler salute. She said some of her relatives attended the concert and didn't see any of this behavior. This issue is important, and has been a source of internal conflict for her, she said, because she's proud of her birthplace, but is also friends with Jews. And so Ukalovic-Halsey and her Croatian au pair are going to Sunday's concert, at $45 a pop, to witness the band for themselves.

"I do like his music," she said. "I like his message of unity and patriotism that he sends. If there was an ounce of bigotry or anti-Semitism that I noticed, there's no way in this world that I would go. My research has not proven any of the allegations to be true. I want to see for myself, and I imagine that I'll find nothing."

But Weitzman, from the Wiesenthal Center, said Perkovic will be on his best behavior on tour in North America, including his stop in San Jose. He added that he hopes this will be the singer's "future direction."