ZAGREB, 5 June 2022 - A mass and other religious services were held in Macelj on Sunday to commemorate the 77th anniversary of the killing of numerous defeated soldiers and civilians by the Communist regime in early June 1945 in that Croatian town near the border with Slovenia.
The War Veterans' Affairs Ministry State Secretary Darko Nekić said in Macelj today that investigations into what happened to victims of the Second World War and to those killed in the aftermath of that war were one of the major tasks of the ministry.
According to some estimates, in Macelj and nearby forests around 13,000 people were killed in early June 1945. With the 1,163 identified victims, including 21 priests, Macelj is so far the biggest site of Communist crimes in Croatia. A score of mass graves have been exhumed at Macelj so far.
Nekić said that the ministry and the Macelj 1945 association were intensively working on shedding the light on those crimes.
The official said that over the last 18 months, nine locations have been searched for remains of the victims, and at one of them, the remains of 84 people have been unearthed.
For more, check out our lifestyle section.
