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Croatia's former Prime Minister, Ivica Racan, who allowed the first free elections in 1990 and set his country on the road to European Union membership, has died of cancer at 63.
Racan was born in Nazi Germany where his parents were sent to a concentration camp. His father died there but his mother was taken in by a local German family, on whose farm Racan was born.
He ditched a lifetime of communism in 1990 to usher in free elections but his renamed former communist party proved to be unpopular and he was sidelined. However, he fought back to return to power in 2000 heading a centre-left coalition.
