Way of the Cross – Croatia, the War, and the Future

Croatia: Tito’s Bloodthirsty Unpunished Genocide

May 12, 2023 by inavukic 6 Comments

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 8^th 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 8^th May 1945. These registers of deaths speak of 8^th 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 8^th 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 8^th 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 20^th century.

Zagreb was occupied, not liberated on 8^th 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

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Bleiburg Massacre, communist crimes, Communist crimes in Croatia, Croatia, Josip Broz Tito, Macelj, transition from Communism, Way of the Cross

Croatia: Where Are Monuments To Victims Of Communist Crimes?

April 23, 2023 by inavukic 5 Comments

Monument to victims of communist crimes, London, Twelve Responses to Tragedy (Photo: In Vukic)

Late March 2023 my post-Covid pandemic extended trip from Australia to Europe commenced in London, aiming to “hop” across United Kingdom, Switzerland and Austria to Croatia, my birth homeland! My aim was to catch up with friends I had not seen for over three years and to recharge my spirits by visiting memorial sites and other landmarks of humanity and justice universal note.

Justice for victims of repressive and totalitarian regimes has been one of the most important pursuits in life anybody could have. Victims of World War Two Nazi regimes have been and are continuously remembered, monuments to them rightly exist in every major city of the free world while former communist countries in Europe have, after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, set about raising monuments to victims of communist crimes within their own countries. In Croatia though such pursuits of justice appear to have been placed on government back burners, despite its responsibility and duty to uphold in every way the European Union’s condemnation of all totalitarian regimes, including communist one!

The raising of monuments to victims of communist crimes had and continues to encounter resistance particularly by those who argue that such monuments should not be raised because, they say unfairly, such monuments represent historical revisionism and that some victims of communist crimes were Nazis! How many of the 35 to 40 million victims of communist crimes in Europe and Russia were Nazis? They do not say but the number could run into thousands, not millions! And so, according to these anti-monuments-for-victims-of-communist-crimes persons the overwhelming number of innocent victims must suffer because of a relative few among them! Atrocious!

And so here I sit in my apartment in Zagreb, Croatia, pondering: where are the grand monuments to victims of communist Croatia? It’s been 32 years since Croatia seceded from communist Yugoslavia, lost thousands of lives, suffered brutal destruction, devastation, ethnic cleansing of Croats in the 1990’s war of Serb and Yugoslav Army aggression in the process. I search and search and there are none on city squares, parks or even street corners of the Capital! None in major cities or towns, either! None as central monument to victims of communist crimes. There are multitudes of black holes in the ground across the country, mass graves, bottomless pits into which communists had thrown hundreds of thousands murdered or living Croats who fought against communists in World War Two or simply rejected communism. Men, women, and children. And those after the War who did not want a communist regime. These pits are mostly located in secluded, hard to get to spots in forests or unkempt fields – far away from human eyes, most never visited bar several that caught the public attention thanks to historical research enabled by the modern independent Croatia. Thanks to the glory of God wildflowers bloom on shrubs and in the grass in warmer months of the year around mass grave sites.

And so, 32 years after its declaration of independence from communist Yugoslavia Croatia can only show one monument for victims of communist crimes and that one is not of national significance but rather local even though the monument is dedicated to local victims and communist Yugoslavia ones, secluded, and rather hidden from the masses that live in or visit Croatia. It is in the small town of Vodice of about 9,000 people on the coast, raised in 2015 not by the national government but by local council with the help of donations from citizens and patriotic community associations. I wrote about this back in 2015

The main sculpture in Vodice is a dome 2.2 meters high, built of white concrete combined with bronze. The motif of the sculpture is abstract, and the dominant element is water with components of light and sound. No names, no human faces engraved or sculptured on it!

Monument to Victims of communist crimes in Vodice, Croatia

On the second part of the monument – its annex, there is the inscription ‘Monument to the Victims of Yugoslav Communism’ next to the coat of arms of the Republic of Croatia and a cross, as well as patriotic verses. In addition to Croatian, the text part is also in English.

According to the data of the Commission for determining the victims of war and destruction of the city of Vodice, in the last two years of the Second World War, partisans, on the orders of the local communist authorities, murdered close to a hundred civilians from Vodice and neighbouring towns without any proven guilt. There are 53 victims from Vodice, 17 each from Gacelez and Cista Velika, while 15 are from Tribunj and the island of Prvic. Most of these victims were killed over the Golubinka pit near Tisnjanska Dubrava.

The murders took place in a particularly cruel manner. The victims were brought with their hands tied with wire, stabbed with a bayonet, and thrown into a thirty-meter-deep pit where they bled and died in horrendous pain. This scenario of such communist depravity and mass murders and purges was repeated hundreds of thousands of times in Croatia as part of communist Yugoslavia and yet all that official independent Croatia can so far muster for the victims is no monument to the victims funded from the government budget as a firm statement in respect of all those who had perished for rejecting communism! Appalling!

Monument to victims of communist crimes, London (Photo: Ina Vukic)

Prior to arriving in Croatia, I visited London, United Kingdom. I was utterly gladdened to have been shown for the first time in my life the monument to victims of communist crimes in the middle of the Yalta Memorial Garden, South Kensington. I was touched deeply by the monument even though the victims have not and are not receiving due justice. To me, a symbol of reverent respect for multitudes victims that fell under communist brutality even if the February 1945 Yalta conference included the mass murderer Joseph Stalin of Russia in the Allied plan to shape post-war Europe and permit self-determination, etc.! Despite that, post-Yalta conference communist purges, murders of innocent political opponents to communism raged like wildfire and the fact hidden from the world for decades upon decades.

Monument to victims of communist crime, London (Photo: Ina Vukic)

The sculpture consisting of 12 conjoined heads of men, women and children placed on a column of the Twelve Responses to Tragedy monument to communist crimes’ victims in the Yalta Memorial Garden, South Kensington, London.

While the above Vodice, Croatia, has no mention of the part its Parliament played in its raising, because sadly there was none, the monument in South Kensington, designed by Angela Conner, dedicated by the Bishop of Fulham on 2^nd August 1986 to replace the previous memorial dedicated by the Bishop of London on 6^th March 1982, has the following inscription: “This memorial was placed here by members of all parties in both houses of parliament and by many other sympathisers in memory of the countless innocent men, women and children from the Soviet Union and other east European states who were imprisoned and died at the hands of communist governments after being repatriated at the conclusion of the second world war may they rest in peace.”

In this London dedication I saw included the horror of the Bleiburg Massacres of hundreds of thousands of Croatians who were n May 1945, as the War ended, fleeing from communist Yugoslavia only to be forcefully repatriated and, hence sent to sure and most cruel death by the hand of communists. It was not written there but for all those who know facts of history the dedication becomes immediately etched in one’s heart, and small gestures of mercy for justice for the victims, surface there.

Yes, Lest We Forget, but also, let’s build monuments to victims of communist crimes. These are overdue debts of humanity towards fellow innocent human beings.

The mass liquidations that the Yugoslav communists carried out without trial on civilians and members of the defeated armies after the end of the Second World War, colloquially known as the Ways of the Cross and Bleiburg Massacre, have become in Croatia the occasion for annual confrontations between the families of the victims and the patriots with those on the political left, former communists, and their loyal descendants. The former will often point out the signs of the totalitarian and defeated Independent State of Croatia without any problems, while the latter will find justification for communist crimes and the horrific massacre of civilians. Such confrontations and public displays of injustice towards victims has become the taxic cancer that stifles due and proper successful transition from communism into real democracy. Ina Vukic

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Bleiburg massacres, communist crimes, Communist Yugoslavia, Croatia, monuments to victims of communist crimes, transition from Communism, Way of the Cross, Yalta Memorial Garden London

Remembering the Bleiburg Massacres and Communist Yugoslavia Crimes Against Croatian Patriots

May 16, 2021 by inavukic 12 Comments

Map of Mass Graves of victims of communist Yugoslavia crimes in Croatia and Bosnia & Herzegovina compiled in 2017 by Croatian association of historians “Dr Rudolf Horvat”, PHOTO: Screenshot 15 May 2021 https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1acZrR00vSr3kkgGXBZUsSL0Dbk&ll=43.93469114726703%2C18.12258350000001&z=7

Today, in Croatia, the communist Yugoslavia legacy of lies, deception, silence, denial of communist crimes and secrecy conspire against Croatia’s well-being and against the future for which rivers of Croatian patriotic blood was spilled during the 1990’s Homeland War. Without full disclosure of the crimes and criminals, without lustration and/or disabling former communists and their followers from power in Croatia, the political future of the country as a functional democracy remains uncertain and unlikely. Indeed, without a lustration the region within which Croatia sits remains politically unstable and widespread corruption is set to continue undermining livelihoods of the people and peace.

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This year, this month of May, marked the 76^th Anniversary of the end of World War Two. At the end of World War II, despite the victory of the Allies in Europe and the official defeat of fascism, the secret genocidal killing continued as organised groups of Yugoslav communist Partisans, starting on 15^th May 1945 at Bleiburg Field in Austria under the very noses of the British forces administering that part of Europe after the War, sought and pursued revenge against those who fought for and wanted an Independent Croatia. Most of the refugees reaching Bleiburg left the Croatian capital of Zagreb on 7 May 1945. A column of people approximately 70 kilometres long was reported by Radio London to be moving north to Austria from Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, people scrambling to leave Yugoslavia, “overtaken by a fear of the Partisan units” (Portmann, M. [2004], Communist Retaliation and Persecution on Yugoslav Territory During and After World War II [1943-1950], pp 130-134).

Josip Broz Tito’s communist Yugoslavia killing machine started the brutal genocide there at Bleiburg and continued under the pretence of repatriation, forced repatriation to communist Yugoslavia of those who were fleeing it. This genocidal mass murder of Croatian patriots continued as the so-called death marches, the Way of the Cross, in that forced repatriation process as well as communist purges continued for several years to come. The British records indicate that up to 700,000 unarmed men, women and children were massacred by the Yugoslav Partisans, forcibly repatriated and their bodies dumped, as we now know, in over 1700 mass graves.

Croatian children were among those who fled communist Yugoslavia in May 1945 and were brutally massacred

On Bleiburg Field in southern Austria, the great deception began on 15 May 1945. According to records of the British Foreign Office Headquarters 5^th Corps, 200,000 Croatian and Slovenian soldiers and military personnel, as well as 500,000 civilians headed to Bleiburg at the end of World War II seeking asylum, expecting that the British would abide by the principles of the Geneva Conventions and provide them sanctuary to protect them from Partisan reprisals. They expected deadly reprisals from the communist Yugoslavia regime because, refusing to endure the oppression and brutalities against Croatians within any Yugoslavia, they fought for an independent Croatia during WWII.

Historical writings after WWII show that the great majority of the people the British forced back from Austria, Bleiburg, were simple peasants. They had no murders on their hands. They had not been Croatian Ustashas or Slovenian ‘Home Guards’. Their only fear was of communism and the reputation of the communists. The British forces pursued an unforgivable act by sending these refugees back to communist Yugoslavia knowing they were sending them to certain and brutal death.

Croatian civilians, children, women, unarmed soldiers fleeing communist Yugoslavia in May 1945

According to the testimony of a Partisan soldiers: the orders came from the staff of the 11th Dalmatian Brigade that the most reliable communists, both officers and soldiers were to be chosen for a confidential task… They (communists) created a special unit of them, which amounted to seventy people. Every day between 10 to 20 trains arrived at the station full of people. They didn’t receive any food or water. The overwhelming majority of them were collapsing. Most were men. A smaller proportion were women who were raped in the pit before they were shot… Two hundred boys from 14 to 16 years of age. Everyone was killed. All killed. In two pits. There were 30,000 to 40,000 killed in 8 days… The Partisans went to Lake Bled on vacation on Sundays after eight days of killing, then came back for another round. From Kočevja alone we sent over twenty freight cars of clothes. Daily we sent two to three freight cars of personal effects of the dead (Tolstoy, N. [1986], The minister and the massacres, London: Century Hutchinson Ltd., pp. 198-200). Yugoslav communists created many extermination squads that operated at local levels across Yugoslavia but the relatively greatest number of them operated within Croatia for a number of years, even within the WWII Jasenovac camp which Tito’s communists kept open until 1952 where, according to new and emerging research of historical archives and facts, extermination of anti-communist Croats occurred constantly.

Croatian refugees fleeing communist Yugoslavia in May 1945

Killing civilians and prisoners of war after the Second World War is the greatest massacre of unarmed people of all times in that territory. Compared to Europe, the Yugoslav communist massacres after the Second World War are probably in size and ferocity second only to the Stalinist purges and the Great Famine in the Ukraine. Because of its relatively short time, the number of murdered innocent people, the way of execution and massiveness, the so-called Bleiburg Massacres (that encompass murders at Bleiburg and the years that followed) is an event that can be compared to the greatest crimes of communism and National Socialism. Communist Yugoslavia’s leader Josip Broz Tito, under whose command the State-ordered purges and massacres of Croats occurred, stands listed among the World’s top 10 mass murderers of the Twentieth century.

And yet today’s powers that be in Croatia fail to legislate a ban on communist Yugoslavia symbols, insignia and celebrations! They barely pay a lip service to the commemoration of Bleiburg massacres and the State-owned or controlled mainstream media barely give it a mention. It would be a reflection of absolute truth that this appalling situation in remembering the victims of the communist Yugoslavia totalitarian regime exists because those who committed these crimes are and were among families of many today’s persons who hold positions of power or some form of control.

All of the crimes committed in Tito’s name from 1940 to 1980 were repeated again during the 1990’s war when Croatia, Slovenia and Bosnia and Herzegovina sought to secede from communist Yugoslavia. The message of the Serb-led Ovčara massacre at the outskirts of Vukovar, the message of ethnic cleansing of Croats from two thirds of Croatian sovereign territory, the message of thousands of rapes, tortures and murders committed by Serbs and Yugoslav forces, is identical to the message of the horrible massacres of more than 1700 mass graves and pits filled with the remains of brutally massacred Croats and Slovenes. Communist Yugoslavia hid these crimes, and it was only in early 1990’s when Croatia became an independent state, even if it was still in the midst of brutal Serb aggression and war of defence, that historical archives opened up and research into truth began without fear of communist reprisals.

Today, in Croatia, the communist legacy of lies, deception, silence, denial of communist crimes and secrecy conspire against Croatia’s well-being and against the future for which rivers of Croatian patriotic blood was spilled during the 1990’s Homeland War. Without full disclosure of the crimes and criminals, without lustration and/or disabling former communists and their followers from power in Croatia, the political future of the country as a functional democracy remains uncertain and unlikely. Indeed, without a lustration the region within which Croatia sits remains politically unstable and widespread corruption is set to continue undermining livelihoods of the people and peace. Ina Vukic