Philip J. Cohen
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Philip J. Cohen (born 1953) is a former United Nations advisor on Bosnia and Herzegovina who has written several works on the history of the former Yugoslavia. Cohen was educated at the
New College of Florida New College of Florida is a public liberal arts college in Sarasota, Florida. It was founded in 1960 as a private institution known simply as New College, spent several years merged into the University of South Florida, and in 2001 became an aut ...
and
University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) was a state-run health sciences institution of New Jersey, United States. It was founded as the Seton Hall College of Medicine and Dentistry in 1954, and by the 1980s was both a major ...
and is a qualified dermatologist. He authored a noted book ''Serbia’s Secret War: Propaganda and the Deceit of History'', first published in 1996 by Texas A&M University Press to mixed reviews. He followed this in 1997 with the publishing of ''The World War II and contemporary Chetniks: Their historico-political continuity and implications for stability in the Balkans'' by Ceres. In 1998, he received an award from
Franjo Tuđman Franjo Tuđman (; 14 May 1922 – 10 December 1999), also written as Franjo Tudjman, was a Croatian politician and historian. Following the country's independence from Yugoslavia, he became the first president of Croatia and served as p ...
the President of Croatia for his "contribution in spreading the truth about the aggression against Croatia" and "exposing Great Serb and anti-Croat propaganda" through his books.


Life and career

Philip J. Cohen attended
New College of Florida New College of Florida is a public liberal arts college in Sarasota, Florida. It was founded in 1960 as a private institution known simply as New College, spent several years merged into the University of South Florida, and in 2001 became an aut ...
in Sarasota where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree, graduating in 1975. In 1983, he completed his Doctor of Medicine at the
University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) was a state-run health sciences institution of New Jersey, United States. It was founded as the Seton Hall College of Medicine and Dentistry in 1954, and by the 1980s was both a major ...
. He is a practicing dermatologist. In 1993, he wrote a position paper on ending the war in the former Yugoslavia for President Bill Clinton's transition team. The following year, he was Advisor for Policy and Public Affairs with the United Nations Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina. During the Yugoslav Wars, Cohen had close ties with Croatia's ruling party, the
Croatian Democratic Union The Croatian Democratic Union ( hr, Hrvatska demokratska zajednica, lit=Croatian Democratic Community, HDZ) is the major conservative, centre-right political party in Croatia. It is one of the two major contemporary political parties in Croa ...
(HDZ). In 1998,
Franjo Tuđman Franjo Tuđman (; 14 May 1922 – 10 December 1999), also written as Franjo Tudjman, was a Croatian politician and historian. Following the country's independence from Yugoslavia, he became the first president of Croatia and served as p ...
, the President of Croatia, awarded Cohen the Order of Danica Hrvatska (for culture), the 13th highest award in the Croatian honours system, for his "contribution in spreading the truth about the aggression against Croatia". Book "exposing Great Serb and anti-Croat propaganda" through his books, ''Serbia’s Secret War: Propaganda and the Deceit of History'' and ''The World War II and contemporary Chetniks: Their historico-political continuity and implications for stability in the Balkans''.


''Serbia's Secret War: Propaganda and the Deceit of History''

Texas A&M University Press published Cohen's ''Serbia's Secret War: Propaganda and the Deceit of History'' in 1996. The foreword was written by David Riesman, Professor Emeritus of Social Sciences at Harvard University. Its front cover included a reproduction of an anti-Semitic postage stamp printed in January 1942 to mark the
Grand Anti-Masonic Exhibition The Grand Anti-Masonic Exhibition (german: Anti-Freimaurer-Ausstellung, sr, script=Latn, Antimasonska izložba) was the name of an antisemitic exhibition that was opened on October 22, 1941 during World War II in Belgrade, the capital of the Naz ...
that opened in
Belgrade Belgrade ( , ;, ; Names of European cities in different languages: B, names in other languages) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Serbia, largest city in Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers a ...
on 22 October 1941. On its back cover, the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Margaret Thatcher described the book as "a useful counter to current myths about Serbia's history during the Second World War", and the
Library Journal ''Library Journal'' is an American trade publication for librarians. It was founded in 1876 by Melvil Dewey. It reports news about the library world, emphasizing public libraries, and offers feature articles about aspects of professional prac ...
recommended it highly as an "impressive, scholarly book offering a wealth of new information". On 7 October 1996, the book was reviewed by Professor Brendan Simms, Fellow of
Peterhouse, Cambridge Peterhouse is the oldest constituent college of the University of Cambridge in England, founded in 1284 by Hugh de Balsham, Bishop of Ely. Today, Peterhouse has 254 undergraduates, 116 full-time graduate students and 54 fellows. It is quite ...
, in the '' Times Higher Education Supplement''. Simms observed that Cohen's book was "a revisionist work in that it overturns conventional wisdom, but not in the murky or dubious sense connoted by Holocaust "revisionism". First of all, Cohen never disputes that hundreds of thousands—but not millions—of Serbs died horribly, and often for no other reason than that they were Serbs. Second, despite the fact that Cohen is not a trained historian, his central thesis of extensive Serbian collaboration with Nazi Germany is well supported by the evidence". Simms mentioned that Cohen "somewhat blurs" but does not suppress the fundamental qualitative difference between the Croatian and Serbian involvement in The Holocaust, in that the Croatian involvement was led by the Croatian fascist Ustaše with
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...
assistance, but the Serb involvement was led by the Germans with support from collaborationist Serbs. Simms noted that "in places Cohen gives the Croats the benefit of the doubt", but states that " ne of this affects Cohen's central argument: "Serbia" and many Serbs collaborated with Nazi Germany". In December 1997, Cohen's book was reviewed by Professor Charles W. Ingrao of Purdue University's History Department in '' Nationalities Papers''. Ingrao described the book as a "well-written, heavily footnoted narration" which "details the degree to which the Serbs of what is today Rump-Yugoslavia collaborated with the Nazis, both before and immediately after the April 1941 German invasion". He noted that, "It is difficult to refute his contention that it was the Croats, Serbs, Bosniaks, and Jews of multiethnic Bosnia and the Krajina that provided the backbone to the anti-fascist war effort at a time when both the Četniks and Nedić regimes of Serbia were pursuing their own agenda of an ethnically pure Greater Serbia". Ingrao observed that while scholars were already familiar with a great deal of the material included in the book, Cohen's exposé on the Serbian-Jewish Friendship Society founded by
Slobodan Milošević Slobodan Milošević (, ; 20 August 1941 – 11 March 2006) was a Yugoslav and Serbian politician who was the president of Serbia within Yugoslavia from 1989 to 1997 (originally the Socialist Republic of Serbia, a constituent republic of ...
was new evidence about an organisation that was used to convince the international community of the common bond between Serbs and Jews. Ingrao concluded that, while Cohen overplayed the evidence at a couple of points in the book, he was impressed by both its factual accuracy and balanced judgements. In February 2000, Dennis Reinhartz, Professor of History and Russian at the University of Texas at Arlington reviewed Cohen's book in ''Holocaust and Genocide Studies''. Reinhartz stated that Cohen's book belonged to "the current popular-historical and journalist literature that seeks to demonize and condemn more than to chronicle and elucidate fairly". He added that the book was "in danger of degenerating itself into an irrational conspiracy history and belongs to those history works of the Balkans that contribute little to our understanding of past events and their impact on the present". The French journal ''Cahiers de l'URMIS'' published in its 2000 issue a paper by Marko Živković, an associate professor in the Anthropology Department at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, which criticised Cohen's book. In it, Živković, himself a Serbian Jew, stated that ''Serbia's Secret War: Propaganda and the Deceit of History'' was the culmination of a two-track strategy by the Croatian media aimed at "damage control" regarding Croatian atrocities against Serbs in the Independent State of Croatia during World War II. Živković stated that this strategy involved presenting anti-Semitism in the NDH as an import from Nazi Germany, and in trying to show that the Serbs were no better, and possibly worse in their treatment of Jews during World War II than the Croats. Živković observed that Cohen had not lied or distorted the sources, but had failed to weigh the evidence regarding whether anti-Semitism was marginal or dominant in Serbia during the war. In 2002, Professor
David Bruce MacDonald David Bruce MacDonald is a professor in Political Science at the University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada and served as the Research Leadership Chair for the College of Social and Applied Human Sciences (2017 to 2020). From 2002 to 2008, he worked ...
of the University of Otago published his ''Balkan Holocausts?: Serbian and Croatian Victim-Centered Propaganda and the War in Yugoslavia''. In it, he described ''Serbia's Secret War'' as "a controversial pro-Croatian revision of Serbian history". MacDonald cites Cohen as a "good example" of a "non-Croatia propagandist who became intimately involved with the uđmanregime." Cohen's book was mentioned in ''Yugoslavia and its Historians'', published by
Stanford University Press Stanford University Press (SUP) is the publishing house of Stanford University. It is one of the oldest academic presses in the United States and the first university press to be established on the West Coast. It was among the presses officially ...
in 2003. In a chapter titled ''Clio amid the Ruins. Yugoslavia and Its Predecessors in Recent Historiography'', Dušan J. Djordjevich observes that "the quantity and quality of new historiography on Serbs and Serbia are disappointing", and states that " forts to reinterpret or fill gaps in the literature are often subject to obtrusive, distorting agendas of apology or condemnation". In a footnote to these observations, Djordjevich describes Cohen's and another book as ones which explore important topics, but "in which censorious zeal trumps balanced scholarship". In 2011, Miroslav Svirčević of the Institute for Balkan Studies of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts reviewed Cohen's book in its journal ''
Balcanica ''Balcanica'' is an annual publication of the Institute for Balkan Studies of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. Thirty-eight volumes have been published since 1970, with contributions from prominent Serbian, Yugoslav, Balkan and Europea ...
''. Svirčević was highly critical of the book, and stated that it belongs to "pseudo-scholarly publications, not infrequently swaying on the verge of ugliest war and racist propaganda". Svirčević further pointed that "''In fact, the Cohen's book teems with forgeries, half-truths, incompetent use of historical sources, overstrained theses and ill-intended inferences.''" In the same year, the historian Klaus Buchenau criticised Cohen for drawing heavily on contemporary press accounts to demonstrate the "fascism" of the Serbian Orthodox Church, and failing to take into account "the omnipresent censorship and manipulation" in the Nedić-controlled newspapers. In March 2011,
Marko Attila Hoare Marko Attila Hoare (born 1972) is a British historian of the former Yugoslavia who also writes about current affairs, especially Southeast Europe, including Turkey and the Caucasus. Biography Hoare is the son of the British translator Quintin ...
, an associate professor of economics, politics, and history at Kingston University posted a personal blog entry which dealt with a number of issues regarding Cohen's book. He wrote that denial of the genocide at Srebrenica in July 1995 "tends to go hand-in-hand with the denial of the genocidal crimes carried out by Serbian Nazi quislings and collaborators during World War II". He stated that "
Great Serbia The term Greater Serbia or Great Serbia ( sr, Велика Србија, Velika Srbija) describes the Serbian nationalist and irredentist ideology of the creation of a Serb state which would incorporate all regions of traditional significance to S ...
n nationalists of the 1990s waged a hate campaign against Croats and Bosniaks, seeking to equate the ''entire'' Croat and Bosniak nations with the Ustashas". He observed that Cohen wrote his book as a response to this propaganda. Hoare recounted meeting with Cohen in the mid-1990s, and stated that the book was "very good". He also noted that attacks on Cohen by Serb nationalists have continued for 15 years, extending to a claim that Cohen hadn't even written the book. Hoare dismissed this claim as a "complete fabrication", stating that he had met Cohen at Yale University during the book's writing, had read the manuscript and discussed it with Cohen at length, and seen Cohen's library and archive. The following year, an article by Alexander Mirkovic of Northern Michigan University was published in ''Balcanica''. He stated that it is common to find an opinion, even among experienced United States Department of State officials, that the Yugoslav Partisans were mainly supported by anti-fascist Croats and Slovenes. In a footnote to this observation, he states that page 95 of Cohen's book contains the false claim that " erall, from 1941 to 1945, the Partisans of Croatia were 61 per cent Croat and 28 per cent Serb". In 2013,
Raphael Israeli Raphael Israeli (born September 15, 1935) is an Israeli historian and writer. He is a professor emeritus of Middle Eastern, Islamic and Chinese history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, as well as a research fellow at Truman Institute for ...
, Emeritus Professor of Middle Eastern, Islamic and Chinese history at the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; he, הַאוּנִיבֶרְסִיטָה הַעִבְרִית בִּירוּשָׁלַיִם) is a public research university based in Jerusalem, Israel. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Dr. Chaim Weiz ...
published his book ''The Death Camps of Croatia: Visions and Revisions, 1941-1945''. In that book he referred to Cohen's work as "seminal", and noted that Cohen had "copiously documented" the large amount of anti-Semitic press in the German-occupied territory of Serbia. He also observed that Cohen had "definitively demonstrated" that the head of the German-appointed puppet regime, Milan Nedić, along with other members of the
Serbian Orthodox Church The Serbian Orthodox Church ( sr-Cyrl, Српска православна црква, Srpska pravoslavna crkva) is one of the autocephalous (ecclesiastically independent) Eastern Orthodox Christian denomination, Christian churches. The majori ...
, "were aware and supportive of the German extermination plan and execution
f Jews F, or f, is the sixth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''ef'' (pronounced ), and the plural is ''efs''. Hi ...
and were not loath to lend a hand when asked". Further, Israeli referenced and quoted Reinhartz's review of Cohen's book, and noted that at least one Belgrade Jewish author on the Holocaust in Serbia considered Cohen to be propaganda from "Tudjman's kitchen". The sociologist Jovan Byford lists ''Serbia's Secret War'' among a "series of propagandist pieces of quasi-historical writing" written by pro-Croatian authors during the 1990s. Byford emphasizes that Cohen belongs to group of authors whose works support Croatian side in propaganda war with Serbia also by intentionally depicting Serbs as genuine "genocidal nation". In a June 2018 review of a work on a similar topic, the historian Luke Gramith from University of West Virginia referred to Philip Cohen's Serbia's Secret War as a polemical and even anti-Serbian work.


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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Cohen, Philip J. 1953 births American dermatologists Living people New College of Florida alumni University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey alumni Historians of the Balkans