Croatia: Tito’s Bloodthirsty Unpunished Genocide

The month of May is one of the most poignant months for Croatians. Patriotic Croats, those who fought for independence during and since World War Two commemorate the victims of communist crimes, the multitudes of thousands brutally murdered at Bleiburg (Austria) in May 1945 and the hundreds of thousands murderously purged post WWII (Way of the Cross), while the communists and former communists celebrate what they call their liberation of Croatia in May 1945! The historical fact remains that Croatia was not liberated, it was forced to remain as part of Yugoslavia and the weapon used for that was genocide and mass murders of Croats who rejected communism.  

8th of May 2023 the so-called antifascists in Croatia, communists actually, celebrated “their” liberation of Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, on May 8th 1945. Sickening accolades to murderous communists/partisans rang painfully in our ears because the historical facts point to absolutely nothing that can humanely be celebrated. The remains of brutal murder of innocent Croats by the partisans, including children, filled mass unmarked graves on the fields around the capital as well as its main cemetery Mirogoj. The fact is that archived boxes of death records in the cemetery contain names of people, men, women, and children whose date of death is recorded as 8th May 1945.  These registers of deaths speak of 8th May 1945 as a very sad day for Zagreb, on which many innocent people murdered and suffered terribly. There are tens of mass graves around Zagreb, alone. All those deaths and massacres occurred on 8th May 1945. Does this signify liberation! Not by a long shot. Partisans had orders: locate the people on the list they were given, take them within the hour and kill them! This pattern of killing is found in records of all cities, towns, and villages in Croatia from 8th May 1945 onwards.

More than one thousand mass graves, many of which contain several thousand victims of communist crimes, have been unearthed in Croatia; more than 1800 when those unearthed in Slovenia and Bosnia and Herzegovina are counted. Yugoslavia’s Josip Broz Tito has been labelled by several credible academics and politicians across the world as among top ten mass murderers of 20th century

Zagreb was occupied, not liberated on 8th May 1945. Occupied in every possible way by genocidal communist forces as directed by communist Yugoslavia leader Josip Broz Tito using Stalinist communist methods that murdered some 36 million innocent Russian lives. After which a murderous totalitarian dictatorship followed in Yugoslavia.

The fact is that Yugoslavia was the most unsuccessful European country of the 20th century. There is no country in Europe, which is in its seventy years of existence, from December 1918 to January 1992, twice created and twice disintegrated in the seas of blood of its citizens. The first Yugoslavia (two versions of Kingdoms headed by Serbian Monarchy) lasted less than 22, and the other (communist Yugoslavia) for less than 47 years – together they survived less than the average life expectancy of European citizens. All possible economic and political arrangements have been tried in Yugosavia so that it could be preserved.  It was capitalist and socialist, monarchical and republican, genocidal and murderous, unitarist and federalist, pluralist and monistic, the king’s right-wing and the marshal’s left-wing dictatorship. She was in the West and the East, undecided and unaligned. Nothing helped. Yugoslavia fell in early 1990’s – rivers of blood just like during and post World War Two, but Croatia finally emerged free of the Yugoslav communist terror.

This genuine freedom though, is still being undermined and cut and disrespected. Instead of organising commemrations to victims of communist crimes during May 2023 the powers that rule Croatia celebrate false liberation! They are the participants in continued denial of justice to these victims! The occupation, not liberation, of Croatia in 1945 was initially physical, murders. Yugoslav/Partisan military forces killed many tens of thousands of Croatian, prisoners of war and civilians in Slovenia and Austria after the formal end of the war in 1945 and the slaughter continued for decades to come. This was not discussed in historiography and politics until the collapse of Yugoslavia in early 1990’s, partly because the state hid and erased the traces of its abominable crimes and because, through intimidation, it forced millions of inhabitants to remain silent – to live in a kind of schizophrenia in which they could not forget the past, and were not allowed to remember it. Then the communists turned to property, they sent innocent people to their deaths in order to steal their properties. The political occupation followed which was characterised by oppression, political prisoners, assasinations at home and in the diaspora of Croatian patriots and multitudes fleeing the country to the West in fear for their lives.

In June 2006 the Croatian Parliament adopted bz a large majority the DECLARATION ON THE CONDEMNATION OF CRIMES COMMITTED DURING THE TOTALITARIAN COMMUNIST REGIME IN CROATIA 1945-1990. Given today’s developments and those after that year in which former communists took more and more power in Croatia for whose independence they spilled not a single drop of blood, includes the following paragraphs: 

„… 4. The fall of totalitarian communist orders (regimes) in Central and Eastern Europe was not in all cases, and not even in the case of the Republic of Croatia, accompanied by national and/or international investigations of the crimes committed by those regimes. In fact, the perpetrators of these crimes were not brought before the court of the international community, as was the case with the terrible crimes committed by National Socialism (Nazism).

5. As a consequence, there is a very low level of awareness among the public of former communist countries, including the Croatian public, about crimes committed by totalitarian communist regimes…

6. The Croatian Parliament is convinced that people’s knowledge and awareness of historical events is one of the prerequisites to avoid similar crimes in the future. In fact, moral assessment and condemnation of committed crimes play an important role in the education of young generations. A clear attitude of the international and national communities towards the past can and must be a guideline for our future actions.

7. The Croatian Parliament believes that victims of the crimes of totalitarian communist regimes who are still alive or their families deserve sympathy, understanding and recognition for their suffering…“ (Croatian National Gazette/Narodne Novine  NN 76/06 od 10.07.2006)

And this very parliament continues to promote the communist murderers, continues to justify these abominable crimes, continues to degrade the victims of communist crimes they condemned. It is truly sickening! Even more so knowing that this is not even a bit penalised by the European Union of which Croatia is a member state and which condemned most strongly all totalitarian regimes including the communist.

There is absolutely no doubt that the communist system was the most criminal of all totalitarian ones; of the fascist one, of the National Socialism one. The numbers of victims testify to that, the manner of killings testify to that… Croatian government of today, its cronies and parties of interest, with their public displays about liberation of Croatia in May 1945, have the audacity to claim that Croatia was liberated by mass murderers (of its wn people). Communist Leader Josip Broz Tito is still revered by quite a few and so is the communist five-pointed red star on the Yugoslav flag that was smothered by the bloody fight for independence during 1990’s. Several hundreds of thousands of innocent Croats have died at Tito’s orders, but there has been no trial for the communist criminals who caused the suffering, according to some published court opinions in Croatia during the last decade it was the communist system, not the individual criminals, who murdered (e.g. the 2014 case of Josip Boljkovac)! Communist crimes and their perpetrators have not been prosecuted, not even posthumously! The push in Croatia to label cold blooded murder by communists as political murders appears to be yet another tool of injustice towards victims in Croatia. Tito has not been prosecuted posthumously, either! Every possible excuse under the sun has been used by the government to avoid prosecution of communist crimes in Croatia.

And so, this May 2023, Croatia stands as divided almost never before. It is an independent state, free from former Yugoslavia but the remnants of Yugoslavia are felt and visible at every turn. The independence achieved through the Homeland War of 1990’s appears as something not at all important to the government and majority in parliament. They are more occupied with keeping the communist Yugoslavia spirit and mind alive than with anything else. Sheer cruelty towards own nation!

The reality in Croatia shows that the most powerful state and social institutions in Croatia persistently avoid confronting and distancing themselves from the criminal communist past. Moreover, within the Croatian state and social institutions, the criminal paradigm of Yugoslav communism and its value system, symbols and personality cult are advocated more and more openly and vulgarly.

We count our blessings, though, in all those who will, starting 12 May 2023, be commemorating the hundreds of thousands Croatian victims of communist crimes at Bleiburg, Austria, and the Way of the Cross, across Croatia, at mass graves and pits. Ina Vukic   

Croatia: The Horror of Communist Crimes Still Swept Under The Carpet

iFilms and Croatian Film Institute Youtube Channel – a wealth of truth

If it weren’t for truth-dedicated people like USA-based Nikola Knez and those involved in the Croatian Film Institute, iFilms and KnezTV and the wealth of truth they endow the world with, most of communist Yugoslavia and Serb crimes against the Croatian patriotic and independence-loving people would be buried deep, never to be seen and/or prosecuted in the mind if not courts of law.

As the 77th Anniversary of May 1945, the end of World War Two, approaches it is most distressing that Croatia, which seceded from communist Yugoslavia paying an enormous price in blood, still has not paid due respect and recognition to the hundreds of thousands of communist crimes victims  found so far in 1000 mass graves and pits (1,700  across Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina so far) but it has a few days ago, 27 April, raised yet another big monument to the victims of the Holocaust and the WWII Ustashi regime! It goes without saying that I do not begrudge commemorating and honouring the victims of the Holocaust, however I do think that it is an abomination to use the memory of these victims, raise monuments to them, to deny the same to all victims of the times relating to World War Two. Indeed, in Croatia, there is no doubt whatsoever that the current powers that be are made of former Yugoslav communists’ sympathisers and protectors, of those who committed horrendous crimes during and after the War against freedom-loving Croatians and they have much invested in life to cover up their or their ancestors’ sins that were within the parameters of Croatian borders many times more numerous and more murderous than any Holocaust-related events that had occurred there.  Croatian government and authorities should have also raised a monument to the victims of communist crimes on this 27 April and before since Croatia seceded from Yugoslavia in early 1990’s. Placing a wreath at a mass brave or a pit where in each say lie 15,000 or more bodies, as the government does from time to time, to show it cares for victims of communist crimes, is nothing compared to grandiose monuments communist Yugoslavia raised to victims of the Holocaust and Croatia now follows suit, ignoring completely the thousand mass graves its communist predecessors dug up and filled.  And the government and all Croatian authorities in power, laced with communist blood, tell us that respecting human rights is their priorities! The Yugoslav communists used to say the same but the human rights they respected belonged only to communist regime lovers and supporters – the same continues to this very day!

I take then this opportunity to, once again, draw the readers’ attention to an extraordinary source of historical information and accounts of communist crimes against patriotic Croats and those who during and since World War Two fought for Croatian independence and truth as well as accounts of the hard and merciless fight in the 1990’s to achieve an independent Croatia away from communist Yugoslavia. That source of course is the iFilms’ Croatian Film Institute based in Texas USA, headed by Nikola Knez, producer and film director. On the Croatian Film Institute’s Youtube channel there is an amazing selection of documentary films, interviews and presentations in both the English and the Croatian languages.

Approaching the 77th Anniversary of massacres of Croatian people by communist Yugoslavia operatives, which are many, but the massacres known as the Bleiburg Massacre are extremely well presented in the Croatian Film Institute documentary ”Bleiburg: Tito’s License for Genocide.”

“In 1945, just a few days after the end of World War II, Tito and his Partisans initiated an extermination campaign against men, women, and children they viewed as enemies of the regime. The mass slaughter began with the forced repatriation of 700,000 civilians and soldiers who fled Croatia and Slovenia seeking asylum in Austria immediately at the close of the war. The refugees, deceived by the British into believing they would be provided with a safe haven by the Americans in Italy, instead were loaded onto trains and sent back to Yugoslavia. Large numbers were massacred outright, others died on forced death marches and in mass executions across the country.

Through filmed interviews with survivors, confessed perpetrators, British officers, military intelligence officials, and scholars, as well as through the analysis of historical documents and newly released evidence of mass graves, the film traces the violations of the Geneva Conventions and international law that resulted in what has come to be known as The Bleiburg Massacre. Through analysis of historical documents, newly released evidence of mass graves, and interviews with survivors, witnesses, confessed perpetrators, military officials and scholars, the film examines the atrocities in the context of international human rights law, with discussion of subsequent promulgation of protocols for the protection of refugees, asylum seekers, and prisoners of war from crimes against humanity and genocide.

This film examines the long-term challenges to democratic nation building that have resulted from the forced repatriation of hundreds of thousands of Croatian civilians and military personnel to Yugoslavia at the end of World War II. Data suggest that violations of the Geneva Conventions led to the death of many of these asylum seekers at the hands of Tito’s Partisans in both death marches and in mass executions.”

”Bleiburg: Tito’s License for Genocide”

http://hfi.mobi/tito’slicensefor.html

Besides dealing with the World War Two and Post WWII massacres and oppressions of Croatian people Nikola Knez and his Croatian Film Institute have also produced a series of documentaries/ interviews with various known dignitaries and activists in relation to the Croatia Homeland War of 1990’s, of Serbian aggression against Croatia, of the amazing efforts that went into creating the modern independent state of Croatia.

The latest series of the interviews for the Globezoom sector of KnezTV for Croatian Film Institute and iFilms includes:

Interview with Peter Galbraith

An interview with US based Peter Galbraith (in English), United States of America Ambassador to Croatia 1993 – 1998. The interview covers the Croatian Defence War and the war for independence and independence (Homeland War), negotiation missions, about Serbian crimes in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, about Operation Storm, about driving a tractor, about Dayton, about President Franjo Tudjman.

Interview with Count Nikolai Tolstoy

An interview with UK based English-Russian Count Nikolai Tolstoy (in English) about his findings on the English repatriation of Croats, Slovenes and Cossacks (army and civilians) on the Bleiburg field in 1945. They all had assurances from the English that they would be accepted and forwarded to safe American zones in Italy. Instead, they were fraudulently handed over to Yugoslav and Russian communists who, without trial, liquidated them in massacres.

An interview in two parts with myself, Ina Vukic (in Croatian), as the most prominent Croatian woman in Australia – in this interview I talk about my contribution to the creation of the Croatian State, about the cooperation with the President of the Republic of Croatia Dr. Franjo Tudjman, about the embezzlement of money raised for Croatia from Australia, on the Croatian Spring, on my family, on the Communist Yugoslavia Security Services UDBA and the Croatian Yugoslavs in Australia, about  Croatian emigrants and their attitude towards the war in Croatia.

Interview with Ina Vukic Part I

Interview with Ina Vukic Part II

The unresolved and horrific legacy communist Yugoslavia left behind remains a terrible burden for those communist crimes’ victims left behind; the victims themselves remain unimportant as if cattle that had to be slaughtered. All that and more to ensure the life of communism!  The Croatian governments since year 2000 and all its Presidents since then have purposefully and cruelly brushed aside and trodden upon the vitally important moral reckoning and legal responsibility for the crimes committed by the communist regime of Yugoslavia.

Every day, we come across strivings to remind the world that communism is the most vicious idea in human history, one that has murdered, enslaved, and ruined more lives than any other, by a massive margin. It has already killed more than a hundred million men, women, children, infants, and unborn across the world. It has massacred, murdered, and purged hundreds of thousands of Croats, wielding knives and guns and barbed wire not only at home but also across the diaspora. How long can Croatian people endure the utter and perverse disregard for the victims of communist crimes while victims of the Holocaust keep on receiving the attention and recognition due to all. All victims of crime deserve justice, but all are not receiving it. Accountability for communist crimes can wait no longer in Croatia and until it happens, we are so fortunate to have been blessed with avenues of Croatian truth, such as Nikola Knez’s Croatian Film Institute, the world can walk along and keep the memories and truth alive. Ina Vukic

The Glory Of Croatian Martyrs

 

The Glory of Croatian Martyrs Sculpture relief by Kuzma Kovacic Church of Croatian Martyrs Udbina Croatia

The Glory of Croatian Martyrs
Sculpture relief by Kuzma Kovacic
Church of Croatian Martyrs
Udbina Croatia (Click picture to enlarge)

In 2003, in the city of Rijeka, Pope John Paul II blessed the rough stone base for the future altar sculpture for the Church of Croatian Martyrs at Udbina, a relief of the impressions of the Battle of Krbava (1493 when Kingdom of Croatia forces fought the advance of the Ottoman with tragic consequences. While the Croatian army was heavily defeated on September 9th 1493 in the Battle of Krbava, a hundred years later, in the Battle of Sisak on June 22nd 1593 it won a glorious victory over the Turks. From that point onwards the power of the Turks in Europe began to decline continuously), Bleiburg and Way of the Cross (post-WWII mass murders of Croats by Yugoslav communists) and the sufferings and victims of Vukovar during Croatia’s Homeland War of 1990’s (mass murders and tortures perpetrated by Serb aggressor). As part of the marking of Croatian Martyrs Day this altar relief called “The Glory of Croatian Martyrs”, sculptured by artist Kuzma Kovacic, a three part whole made up of 70 large stone tiles from the Island of Brac, was blessed on Saturday 29 August 2015 in the Church of Croatian Martyrs in Udbina. The relief’s author, Kuzma Kovacic, said that his work “The Glory of Croatian Martyrs” represents almost a thousand years of the connection between the Catholic faith and the Croatian history.

Saturday 29 August 2015 at The Church of Croatian Martyrs in Udbina Photo: www.lika-online.com

Saturday 29 August 2015 at
The Church of Croatian Martyrs in Udbina
Photo: http://www.lika-online.com

With that relief the grand dedication sitting above the Krbava Field – the church with its altar relief sculpture – is completed. Several thousands of believers from all regions of Croatia, as well as state and church dignitaries, gathered in Udbina at the holy mass on Saturday, headed by Mile Bogovic, the Bishop of Lika-Senj county. Bishop Bogovic emphasised that besides having a great artistic value the relief sculpture also has a large patriotic and religious value. He reminded the pilgrims of the history of the region where the church stands, where the bishopric…. was established 730 years ago and where at the Krbava Field the geographic centre of Croatia had been wounded in 1493. “Krbava and the whole of Lika were under the Turks for 160 years, and after this there were not only Catholics here but also the Orthodox,” Bishop Bogovic said.

Bishop Mile Bogovic

Bishop Mile Bogovic

He reminded that in 1942 the Croatian Catholics that remained there were forced to leave Udbina, where also their church was destroyed, their cemetery devastated, their houses destroyed and their land taken away from them. “Another law reigned that did not even spare the Orthodox Church in Udbina,” he emphasised (meaning the communist Partisan “law”).

Speaking about the WWII and post-WWII sufferings Bishop Bogovic accentuated Cardinal Aloysius Stepinac’s example. “Although we, like other nations, cannot say we have nothing to regret from our pasts, we can say with pride that there were great many greats of good and sacrifice for others in our history, and our church and worldly history have systematically been muddied,” concluded Bishopo Bogovic.

Bishop Bogovic gave an appraisal in saying that the Croatian past and its Greats “are still, to this day, covered with many fat layers of lies so that not even the most well-meaning persons cannot see the real picture”. “It is sad that the same people who fabricated those lies force themselves upon us as our teachers and receive funds and space for their schools and, so, it’s within these frames that the idea of the Church of Croatian Martyrs appeared and grew,” said Bishop Bogovic, emphasising the church project in Udbina “did not arise from the cult of a gun, a lie and aggression, as suggested by some even today, but that it arose out of the cult of the cross and veneration of those who had suffered the aggression from various guns and aggressors”.

Turning to the marking of anniversaries of sufferings, Bishop Bogovic emphasised how it’s human to value courage and resolve in the defence of people and homeland.

Children at mass in Udbina Croatian Martyrs Day 29 August 2015 Photo: www.lika-online.com

Children at mass in Udbina
Croatian Martyrs Day
29 August 2015
Photo: http://www.lika-online.com

It’s been ten years since the foundation stone was laid and the building of this Shrine (The Church of Croatian Martyrs) to the Croatian martyrs in Udbina had begun. The road to its completion was hard and riddled with obstacles laid by those who did not want the Croatian martyrs remembered in such a grand, deserving manner. The same road, though, had been a joyous one for to pursue with the project also meant the expression of special gratitude to those who had throughout history sacrificed their lives for the human and Christian progress over the Croatian nation.

Church of Croatian Martyrs Udbina the altar and the Glory of Croatian Martyrs relief by Kuzma Kovacic

Church of Croatian Martyrs Udbina
the altar and the Glory of Croatian Martyrs relief
by Kuzma Kovacic

Many of the most prominent sons of Croatia who accepted death so that others could live, now live on Kuzma Kovacic’s relief sculpture in Udbina. They come from Krbava Field, from Bleiburg and Ways of the Cross, from Vukovar and all places of killings in Croatia and all its pits and mass graves; those for whom regimes said were defeated and beaten, those whom the aggressors considered as rubbish and tossed them into pits of torture and oblivion – are greeted by Christ as the victorious and our generation has retrieves their human dignity while Christ waits for them as the victorious. That is the message within the relief sculpture “The Glory of Croatian Martyrs”. Lest we forget! Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps. (Syd)

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