Centre for Peace, Non-Violence and Human Rights Osijek, Centre for Peace Studies, Civic Committee for Human Rights and Croatian Helsinki Committee decided to found Documenta – Centre for Dealing with the Past in an attempt to encourage the process of dealing with the past and establishing factual truth about the war and to contribute to shifting of the discussion from the level of dispute over facts (the number of killed people, etc.) towards a dialogue on interpretations.

The key reason for making this attempt was the silence about and falsification of war crimes and other war-related events in the period from 1941 to 2000, which has influenced the recent past of Yugoslavia, as well as post-Yugoslav societies.

Since its establishment Documenta contributes to the development of individual and social process of dealing with the past, in order to build a sustainable peace in Croatia and the region by deepening the dialogue and initiating a public debate on public policies that encourage
dealing with the past,collecting data, publishing research on war events, war crimes and violations of human rights, and monitoring war crimes trials at the local and regional
level as a contribution to the improvement of court standards and practices in the war crimes trials.

Since 2006 Documenta is working on building and strengthening regional coalition of civil society organizations from post-Yugoslav countries, advocating the establishment of Regional Commission for establishing the facts upon conflicts in the region (RECOM).

In order to achieve its goals,

Documenta cooperates with its founding organizations, associations of families of the missing people, other civic initiatives, governmental institutions, international institutions and organizations, institutions of state and local government, academic institutions, religious groups, the media and other interested individuals.