Croatia: Political Communist Crimes Murder Hundreds Of Thousands Croatian Independence Faithful Innocents – “The Bleiburg” Massacres – Lest We Forget!

Photos: Screenshots of historical footage
Click on photo to enlarge

As WWII ended 200,000 Croatian disarmed soldiers and 500,000 civilians (men, women, children) left Croatia seeking refuge from the West only to be sent back from the Bleiburg field in Austria by the British, who held command over that part of Europe, to communist Yugoslavia headed by one of the top ten mass murderers of the 20th century / Josip Broz Tito. They were sent to certain death. What followed were mass murders of these and other Croats who rejected communism, who rejected Yugoslavia, who wanted an independent Croatia. Almost 1,000 mass graves of victims of communist Yugoslavia crimes have been unearthed since 1990 in Croatia, that is, since Croatia embarked on its battle to secede from communist Yugoslavia and finally succeeded in 1995/1998. Almost 600 mass graves in Slovenia… Communist regime of former Yugoslavia and its operatives to this day evade justice. Its multitudes of victims, cruelly murdered, thrown alive or dead into pits, mountains of skulls and bones still remain in those pits. A new mass grave is discovered every few weeks. Victims of communist crimes still have no justice, the justice that is inherent to humanity and its tireless pursuits to achieve and retain the privilege of being called human.

Lest Not Forget!

Ina Vukic

Croatians Remember The Suffering and Victims of Communist Crimes

When the Associated Press publishes an article regarding WWII Croatia and other world mainstream media such as New York Times shares it, you can safely bet your bottom dollar an evidently anti-Croatian independence biased journalist of Serbian extraction wrote the article. And so, on 17 May 2019, the world’s public has been served an article written by Dusan Stojanovic, “Croatia’s WWII Divisions in the Open as Merkel Visits”, not because of the need to acknowledge and respect WWII and post-WWII victims, no matter which side they were on during the war. The article is obviously served in order to prop-up anti-Croatian propaganda regarding victims without even blinking an eye at even the thought that the numbers of victims pinned to Croatian independence fight during WWII and blown out of every proportion, are in fact wrong and made up to no other end but to vilify the Croatian people who wanted Croatia’s independence as opposed to a communist Yugoslavia.

“The (Ustasha) regime was responsible for sending hundreds of thousand Serbs, Jews, Roma and Croatian anti-fascists to death camps,” writes Stojanovic! He gives no source for this statement in his article. Of course, he gives no credible or factual source because there is none! The fact that there are sources based on research that give an entirely different picture, overwhelmingly discrediting the atrociously concocted estimates he helps spread does not seem to interest him.

Expectedly so, Stojanovic, goes on to quote communist Yugoslavia’s last president and president of Croatia between 2000 and 2010, Stjepan Mesic, as if wanting to justify the horrendous communist crimes against Croats: “Innocent people died in the (WWII) concentration camps, in Bleiburg, the Ustasha army capitulated and they were not innocent victims.” By using this Mesic quote one cannot but conclude that Stojanovic obviously subscribes to the communist depraved thinking that an unarmed, white-flag-waving enemy soldier needs no court ruling to be proven guilty of any crimes, need not be afforded the due treatment as POW, let alone the fact that those murdered at Bleiburg were murdered after WWII had ended! Let alone the fact that both Mesic and Stojanovic and multitudes of pro-communists fail to emphasise that civilians (women, children, elderly) as well as ex-Croatian soldiers were slaughtered in masses, dumped into mass graves and pits, at Bleiburg and along the Way of the Cross, throughout Slovenia and Croatia.

Communist purges by Yugoslav communists occurred because of power-hungry intolerance towards differing political opinions or orientation. All anti-communists were murdered, incarcerated or tortured, forced to flee the country to avoid persecution and ostracising or simply existed as socially inferior citizens of communist Yugoslavia. And Stojanovic has the gall to write about the Ustashe regime as being murderous and fascist. One would expect a fairly balanced article from a source such as Associated Press or New York Times, but no – all we get as a token gesture of balance in this article is this:

“During her pre-election campaign, the leader of the small Independents for Croatia far-right party, Bruna Esih, said Bleiburg represents a ‘symbol of sacrifice, suffering and freedom’”. But then, it’s a poor token gesture of balance because immediately after those words Stojanovic lets the readers know that “many in Croatia disagree.” Forgets conveniently to inform the public that those disagreeing with Bruna Esih’s words are in fact former communists who still hold power in Croatia and in whose interest it is to keep communist crimes under the carpet or to justify them, using fascism as excuse, but in that, proving to us the horrible truth that the communist regime had no tolerance for human rights to varying political allegiances or opinions.

Bruna Esih, President pf Independents for Croatia Party
(Neovisni za Hrvatsku)
Photo: narod.hr

Stojanovic goes on to write and says: “The memorial in Bleiburg, sponsored by Croatia’s parliament, has developed into a festival of right-wing extremism. Anti-fascist groups from Croatia, Slovenia and Austria have requested the event be banned and plan to protest on Saturday. Since last year, Austrian authorities have banned Ustasha flags, their black uniforms and insignia with letter ‘U’ at the gathering, and the local Austrian Catholic Church refused to take part in prayers held in the vast field surrounded by mountains.” He ends his article with this: “Anyone has the right to mourn their loved ones, regardless of who they were or how they ended up,” said Franjo Habulin, head of the Association of Antifascist Fighters of Croatia. “However, no civilised European country has the right to participate in commemorating the fall of fascism.”

Again, Stojanovic fails to mention that the same Franjo Habulin continues to lead events celebrating communist Yugoslavia, which as far as civilised Europe he refers to is concerned, has placed communism at the same level as fascism when it comes to condemnation of totalitarian regimes. Stojanovic does not even bother to tell the public that WWII Croatia was not a country ruled by Fascism in the full sense of its definition; it appears the innuendo that it was fascist suits many a communist regime apologetics where the victims of communist crimes are concerned. While facts tell us that Ustasha regime in WWII (whose prime goal was Independent Croatia) made profound mistakes, both on political and human life level, and imposed terror over groups of people, it was a time of war in which all sides (including the communist whose prime goal was to retain Croatia within Yugoslavia) made similarly profound mistakes and imposed terror over groups of people. Just because one side won the war, and the other didn’t, justifies nothing and especially not the crimes that brought about so many victims.

This weekend is a weekend of large significance for Croatians who have fought for, supported and cherished the independence of Croatia throughout time. It is the weekend that commemorates communist genocide against Croatians, the hundreds of thousands of innocent Croatian victims murdered by the communist Yugoslav partisans and authorities particularly from 14 May 1945 at Bleiburg, dumped tortured or murdered into mass graves along the so-called “Way of the Cross” through Slovenia and Croatia (so far some 1700 mass graves unearthed). While Stojanovic’s numbers of victims of Croatia’s WWII Ustasha regime are politically mounted estimates by communists and are increasingly proven to be wrong through research, the numbers of communist crimes victims are not estimates – the already unearthed hundreds upon hundreds of mass graves of Croatian victims speak loudly for themselves even though their voice is cruelly subdued by communist operatives or their apologetics. Lest we forget Bleiburg! Ina Vukic

Croatia: Catholic Church set on ending distressing injustice for victims of communist crimes

A gentle hand moves the tortured remains of victims of communist crimes in Gracani near Zagreb, Croatia Photo: Borna Filic/Pixsell

Croatian authorities have late this month uncovered a yet another horror that befell innocent people in Croatia at the hand of WWII and post-WWII Communists.

Authorities have exhumed a new mass grave (so far over 900 have reportedly been discovered in Croatia) with the remains of 30 people executed at the end of World War II near Croatia’s capital Zagreb.

The victims are believed to be cadets of a military academy of the WWII Independent State of Croatia.

The grave is quite shallow, some bones were found only 35 centimeters (13 inches) below the ground. According to the evidence so far collected the victims were young (“coming of age” years) and were brought to the forest in Gracani at the outskirts of Zagreb between 13th and 15th of May 1945, and slaughtered.

As Croatian TV HRT reported these findings are irrefutable evidence of execution with a large amount of bullets and cartridges found at the mass grave.  Several skulls had traces of bullet holes, while some of the victims had their hands tied up with metal wire.

In July of this year, 36 victims of the communist regime were found in another grave discovered in the same area and with the newest discovery that makes 20 mass graves and 783 victims of communist crimes in the area of Gracani.

At least the remains of the latest victims found of communist crimes are afforded the dignity of their bones being temporarily kept in the mortuary at Zagreb’s cemetery Mirogoj, until the planned interment in a common grave at St Michael’s in Gracani. Their remains are handled with dignity, which cannot be said for the remains of victims in numerous other known mass graves and pits across the country.

Among these neglected mass graves Butina pit near Lumbarda on the Island of Korcula, where remains of victims of communist crimes lay strewn among discarded rubbish and garbage, comes to mind.

Butina Pit communist crimes mass grave on the Island of Korcula, Croatia – October 2012

Section inside Butina Pit, post-WWII communist crimes mass grave on Island of Korcula, Croatia – October 2012

As with all victims of communist crimes – for which no one as yet has answered in Croatia or former Yugoslavia – this is how their last moments on this Earth were for them as the WWII ended (excerpt from witness statement published in an article “Way of the Cross to the Sea” by Croatian Herald, Australia on 26 October 1990):

“…The commissar and commander, both Montenegrian, with a few soldiers from Ulcinj took those people into the forest, where a pit called ‘Butina pit’ was. There they stripped them naked and started slaughtering them. Some local people helped them in this. I remember the name of one of them … As they continued doing this the dawn started to break and then they started to throw the people into the pit alive. Then they fired into the pit with machine guns and threw bombs into it. The same man from Dubrovnik told me that there were people still alive in the pit and that cries for help could be heard. The soldiers were afraid that we’d hear that and in fury attack them and that’s why they turned us away. The same person opened up a large school hall for me and showed me the victims’ clothing. There, the Partisans rummaged all night, searching for valuables. Later they ordered the man from Dubrovnik, a man from Herzegovina and me, to fold the clothes into bales and tie them with rope. The man from Herzegovina found in one of the pockets a picture of the Heart of Jesus and a family photo of a victim from Konavlje. He took it in the hope to give it to the victim’s family later. I do not know if he managed to do that… I took several photos too, in the hope to show to somebody later but the friend from Dubrovnik warned me: there’ll be a search and if they find this on you, your head will go… I fled Yugoslavia in 1957 … and now live in New Zealand”.

The fact that the current Croatian government announced the closure of the independent Office for the investigation of mass graves of communist crimes within barely two months of its coming to power (February 2012) says a great deal about its attempts to minimise those crimes and to dilute them by attaching them to its political patronage and the Ministry for war veterans. So as things stand now the Office for the discovery, the marking and the maintenance of graves of communist crimes after WWII is within war veterans ministry. The war veterans from Croatia’s 1990’s Homeland war have indeed a great deal to be unhappy about – are there among them WWII communist war veterans who have participated in the horrendous spree of communist crimes after WWII, or their descendants who do not necessarily want justice for the victims – i.e. condemnation and prosecution of those crimes even if the perpetrators may be dead?

How on earth in that cluster can victims of communist crimes receive justice!? Certainly even the name of that Office gives no suggestion that the ministry of war veterans intends to pursue full justice for these victims; it just talks of uncovering, marking and keeping the graves tidy!

This lot in the Croatian government is no different to their late, pro-communist, colleague Ivica Racan who, as Prime Minister in 2002, closed the Commission for war and post-war victims and attached its work to the Ministry of Science.

As the government keeps fiercely resisting the putting together of a complete list of WWII and post-WWII victims of communist crimes the Croatian Catholic church has October 29 announced its initiative to start the process of recording every victim fallen. According to Vecernji List, the Catholic Church in Croatia is commencing with the collection of details of victims of communist persecutions by having every parish priest collecting information about local victims.

This is the Church’s reply to the government’s avoidance of dealing with the problem of communist crimes and to its closing of the Office for the victims of communist crimes.

This initiative arose in the Commission for martyrology of the Bishops’ Conference at its recent meeting in Zagreb, under the leadership of Bishop mons. Mile Bogovic from Gospic-Senj district.

It’s announced that the Croatian martyrs website (hrvatski-mucenici.net) will soon have available for download the needed forms and material people can fill in and send to the appropriate parish office.

As the victims of the Holocaust are written on a list so too the victims of communist crimes should be. It is only a small measure of justice, but humane justice nevertheless.  Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps. (Syd)

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