Croatia Raises First Ever Public Place Monument To Victims Of Communist Yugoslavia

Sunday 23 August marked European Day of Remembrance for Victims of all totalitarian and authoritarian regimes and of particular interest are the events marking remembrance for victims of Communist crimes as victims of Nazi and Fascist regimes have duly been and are rightfully always remembered at all time and regular events ever since WWII. While there were numerous events held at various mass graves, pits and communist jails in Croatia, the citizen action group “Circle for the Square” (Square referring to Marshal Tito Square in capital Zagreb people want renamed as Tito is placed among top ten mass murderers of the 20th century world), a civil initiative for a Croatia without totalitarian symbols in public spaces, said on Sunday that Croatia showed no determination to condemn communist crimes but glorified those most responsible for committing them.

A a good number of people from the public and about a dozen members of the initiative, carrying banners against Tito, rallied in Marshall Tito Square in downtown Zagreb for the ninth straight year, unsuccessfully urging the City Assembly to rename the square.

 

Activist Ante Beljo said the European Parliament Resolution on European conscience and totalitarianism was adopted six years ago and the one by the Council of Europe condemning communist crimes even before.
The European declarations say that political parties and institutions cannot decide on the victims and the remembrance for them, but their descendants and those who were endangered during communism, fascism or Nazism, he said.
He said the Croatian budget financed institutions such as the Documenta Centre for Dealing with the Past, which he said spread untruths about the Croatian people.
“Recently, since the Operation Storm anniversary, we have been witness to so much pressure on Croatia and the spreading of untruths created over 70 years of the Yugoslav totalitarian system. This is happening again so that our country could remain under the complex of guilt and lies which have been spread around the world for years – that the Croatian people is genocidal and that it should not have its state. The victims are the best proof of what Croats fought for,” Beljo said.
He said Marshall Tito Square, with this name, glorified the communist and Yugoslav system because Tito had nothing positive associated the Croatian people. “He was a communist dictator and today Croatia is a democratic state. With his movement, he fought for Yugoslavia, which inflicted so much evil to the Croatian people, and he has nothing to do with the Croatian state. Yet some continue pushing for symbols of Yugoslavia’s totalitarian system to remain.”

Croatia’s former communists who wrongfully call themselves antifascists are the ones who keep symbols of the Yugoslav communist regime alive in the positive light and have not contributed anything towards the condemnation of communist crimes or to prosecuting those held responsible; indeed they try and cover up the crimes at every turn.

The European Day of Remembrance for Victims of all totalitarian and authoritarian regimes this year saw a large number of commemorative ceremonies at multitudes of mass graves and pits across Croatia filled with the remains of thousands of innocent people murdered and tortured by the communist regime but the one that caught my eye the most was the one in the town of Vodice (north of Split and Sibenik coast) because the first monument to victims of Yugoslav communism in a public place ever raised and unveiled in Croatia actually occurred there last Sunday! The monument was raised under the auspices of the Town of Vodice and association Croatian Home Guard of the Sibenik-Knin county.

This event heralds a positive future for Croatian democracy based on condemnation and rejection of all totalitarian and authoritarian regimes of the past. This was what Croatia fought for in the 1990’s and communism just wouldn’t die; it needed and still needs a strong push into extinction.

The monument at Vodice is artwork by the distinguished academic Croatian artist Kazimir Hraste, the unveiling mass and prayer were offered by Bishop Ante Ivas of Sibenik and the honour of the unveiling this very important monument was given to Dr. Zvonimir Separivic, president of the Croatian Victimology Society.

Calling upon Cardinal Aloysius Stepinac’s words, Dr. Separovic reminded us all how Croatia had been a victim of big evils.

“As Branimir Luksic once said: today’s man has interests, and not ideals. We think that we need to act ethically towards those who act unethically and treasonously. Here we have a monument that represents a great refreshment for the circumstances we find ourselves in, it is one of the paths to the truth,”Dr. Zvonimir Separovic emphasised in his speech at the unveiling. “That monument sends the message that the truth must be shown, that according to identifications done so far, 153 victims from the Golubinka pit and other places around Vodice, mainly civilians brutally murdered by the communist authorities during the last two years of WW but also after it … We hold that this is not a path of hatred but of love, it’s a positive, a warm treatment of the victims, concerned with preserving the victims’ dignity. This is not politicising but a path towards the truth which releases, especially the people who are here, who survived, for the families of those that perished there is consolation in knowing that at least someone is talking about their loved ones. You had to keep quiet for 5o years, you had to go to prison if you mentioned Golubinka or Jazovka pit or a third one or any place where people were killed.”

 

At the unveiling, Nikola Spanja, president of the Home Guard Association of Sibenik-Knin County said that the town of Vodice has given its permanent contribution to eternal remembrance of victims of communism and that according to known data there were 153 persons murdered by the regime from Vodice area in post-WWII years.

“Lasting is that remembrance of victims of Golubinka, Hudina pit, Bleiburg and all other known and unknown places of mass murder. This monument is dedicated to the victims from Vodice whose basic human rights were denied – the right to life and human dignity – and victims over whom terrible crimes and sins were committed,” said Spanja.

 

 

 

It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if the Croatian antifascist riffraff started protesting against this monument in Vodice, seeking it comes down. They are very afraid that new ones might start coming up in other towns and they want to bury the criminal communist history.
If I were the deciding authority in Croatia I would rename the Marshall Tito Square in capital Zagreb into Victims Of Communist Crimes Square. And certainly, many more public monuments to victims of communist crimes are needed, not just markings or plaques on mass graves and pits. Communist Yugoslavia with Josip Broz Tito at its helm built many colossal monuments for what they called Peoples’ Freedom Fight and yet that freedom was not for Croatian freedom but for keeping Croatia with the Yugoslav federation (geographically concocted by the Serbian King after WWI) where it would continue to be oppressed especially by the Serb component of the multi-ethnic federation. If these cannot be torn down for historic reasons then I would build an equally colossal monument for victims of communist crimes right next to each one of them. More than a million innocent victims deserve nothing less! Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps. (Syd)