Bleiburg Massacre – Croatia, the War, and the Future

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

May 1, 2022 by inavukic 4 Comments

_{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 77^th 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 77^th 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

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Bleiburg Massacre, communist crimes, Communist Yugoslavia, Count Nikolai Tolstoy, Croatia, Croatian Film Institute, iFilms, Ina Vukic, Mass graves in Croatia, Nikola Knez, Peter Galbraith, victims of communist crimes

The Glory Of Croatian Martyrs

August 30, 2015 by inavukic 15 Comments

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

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

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)

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Battle of Krbava, Bishop Mile Bogovic, Bleiburg Massacre, Church of Croatian Martyrs, communist crimes, Croatia, Croatian Homeland War, Croatian martyrs, Glory of Croatian Maryrs, Krbava Field, Udbina, Vukovar, Way of the Cross

Croatians Remember Sir Robert Menzies And Bleiburg Massacre

May 15, 2014 by inavukic 33 Comments

Sir Robert Gordon (Bob) Menzies of Australia

“According to British documents, located in the British Public Records Office at Kew Gardens in London, over 500,000 Croatian civilians and 200,000 soldiers were handed over to Tito’s Yugoslav Partisan Army in May of 1945. Based on eyewitness testimony and independent documentation, we can only estimate that the vast majority were slaughtered. The Bleiburg Tragedy is, perhaps, the best kept secret of man’s inhumanity to man. Certainly, it serves as an example of man’s ability to ignore the suffering of the powerless and those who lack nation-state status. Let us pray that Croats always cherish their independence and always fight those that attempt to subjugate them,” Michael Palaich.

May 15th 2014 marks 69 years since the days after WWII ended hundreds of thousands of innocent Croats (disarmed soldiers, civilians including women and children, fleeing communist Yugoslavia into promised freedom in the West found themselves slaughtered over the ensuing two months by Tito’s communists; the field at Bleiburg in Austria marks the central point where the slaughters began as the fleeing refugees were turned by the British forces into Yugoslavia, into the vicious and murderous hands of the communists, who dare to call themselves antifascists, under the pretence of forced repatriation.

May 15th 2014 marks 36 years since the death of Australia’s former Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies. On 19 May 1978 some 100,000 Australians turned out in the Melbourne CBD and in the suburbs to pay tribute to Menzies, after he died at age of 83. This very fact provides an indication of the respect with which many held him and among them were multitudes of Croatian immigrants in Australia who had fled communist Yugoslavia, thus surviving the vicious and merciless communist purges.

While in May of every year Croats commemorate the 1945 Bleiburg Massacres, not only to pay respects to the victims but also to keep the candle of hope alight for justice, for the prosecution of communist crimes, Australian Croats in their many numbers also remember in gratitude the life of Sir Robert Menzies – their Prime Minister who stood by their rights to keep the flame and the dream of independent Croatia alive.
Robert Gordon “Bob” Menzies is the longest-serving Prime Minister in Australian history. Menzies was Prime Minister twice, first from 1939 to 1941, and then from 1949 through to 1966, for a grand total of 18 years and five months in the top job. Menzies was at the centre of many significant events in this period of Australian history, which shaped the modern nation and the Australian Liberal Party.

Menzies was strongly opposed to communism because it enshrined what Ronald Reagan was later to term the evil empire. The prisoners in the various communist gulags, hard labour camps, purges under political opponents banner … well understood this—as did the descendants of the victims of Lenin, Stalin, Tito, Mao …

Amidst a plethora of false allegations of Croat violence in Australia – without doubt the work of communist Yugoslavia Secret Police UDBA – Menzies found it necessary to deliver an historic speech in the Parliament of Australia when in 1964 the authorities found no evidence whatsoever to support allegations of Croat Ustashe violence towards individuals of Yugoslav nationality from which systematic or organised attacks could be inferred. Menzies’ resolve in protecting the rights of Croatian immigrants in Australia to cherish the very dream of an independent Croatia was a resolve not of a hater of communism but that of a politician who lived for the people, their rights and welfare.

In fond memory of Menzies, I quote a part of his speech in the Australian Parliament on 27 August 1964:

“…In the years since World War II, Australia’s immigration programme has brought to this country people from all parts of Europe with a diversity of historical and cultural backgrounds. Many of these people were refugees from oppression. Many derived from happier circumstances. This flow of new citizens has played an important part in building the nation. It is something, which has given us great satisfaction and we wish to see it continue. However, it is basic to our immigration policy that all these new citizens should be integrated as fully, and as quickly, as possible into Australia’s national life…

I turn now to the matter of immigration from Yugoslavia. To understand the attitudes of these migrants it is necessary to remind ourselves that this part of Europe has an exceedingly complex and troubled history. Yugoslavia emerged from the political settlements of World War I. It brought together as a union a number of southern Slav peoples including Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, under the Serbian King Alexander. The Serbs obtained their independence from the Ottoman Empire during the nineteenth century and were numerically the largest group in the new State. The Croats had formerly enjoyed a degree of autonomy within the Austro-Hungarian empire and retained a national identity dating back as early as the ninth century. Deep differences of religious, cultural and historical kinds have existed between the groups despite kindred racial origins.

Within the new State, the Croats sought a federal concept of government with a large degree of local autonomy. In 1928, the leader of the Croats, Stjepan Radic of the Croatian Peasant Party and two of his colleagues were assassinated in the Parliament in Belgrade (Serbia). This precipitated a profound breach between Serbs and Croats. The Croats developed strong agitation in support of independence. Peasant Party leaders taking their cause to the League of Nations. Some Croat Parliamentary representatives were arrested, others, among them Dr. Ante Pavelic, went into exile…

It is difficult for people coming to Australia easily to forget their historical backgrounds. Since the war a number of organisations opposed to the present Government of Yugoslavia have developed throughout the world amongst refugees and migrants from that country. It is understandable that some Yugoslav migrants of Croatian origin should continue to hope for the establishment of an independent Croatia and within a democracy like Australia they have right to advocate their views so long as they do so by legitimate means. I wish to make it perfectly clear that the vast majority of the migrants from all parts of Yugoslavia who have settled in Australia have proved to be law abiding, hard working citizens and a real asset to this country…

…So I make the Government’s position quite clear: This Government will not interfere with freedom of opinion. Equally, it will not tolerate any activities, which constitute a breach of the law.”

On this day in May we remember the innocent victims of communist crimes and we remember Sir Robert Menzies. Croatia today, perhaps more than ever before, needs politicians of Menzies’ caliber – politicians who know how to bring justice to the victims of communist crimes and fight against the communist agenda that still seeks to degrade and destroy the independence Croats paid for in rivers of blood. Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps. (Syd)