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.

Documenta's programs are:

1. Public dialogue and public policies
Deepening and intensifying of public dialogue on dealing with the past, as well as public and judicial initiatives related to documenting of facts on war crimes, criminal prosecution of war crimes, compensation for harm inflicted by war crimes, teaching of history and culture of memory.

1.1 Dealing with the past
1.2 Coalition for regional commission
1.3 Culture of memory
1.4 Teaching of history
1.5. Reparations

2. Documenting
Systematic collection of materials on war-related events, personal memories of war and work of human rights organizations.

2.1 documenting of human losses
2.2 recording of personal memories of war with the use of oral history method
2.3documenting the work of human rights organizations

3. Improvement of  judicial practices and standards
Systematic monitoring of court trials for war crimes, reporting on court trials in the Republic of Croatia and the region and advocacy of improvement of the witness support system.

3.1 Monitoring of war crimes trials
3.2 Monitoring the procedure of compensation for damages

In order to achieve its goals, Documenta cooperates with its founding organisations, 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.

Documenta is, together with more then 1.800 other organisations from the region, initiator of the Coalition for the establishment of  Regional Commission for establishing the facts upon conflicts in the region (RECOM).