ZAGREB, June 22, 2019 - About 300 people gathered at the Jazovka pit near Sošice near the Slovenian border, about 70 kilometres west of Zagreb, to commemorate victims of communist crimes committed in the aftermath of World War II.
The ceremony was addressed, among others, by Ante Deur, the envoy of President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović under whose auspices this year's memorial pilgrimage took place. His speech was interrupted by loud whistles and abusive language from those gathered.
Whistles began when Deur said that President Grabar-Kitarović was continuing the first Croatian president Franjo Tuđman's policy of national reconciliation under the slogan of unity. "It is obvious how difficult it is to build unity. We need to make extra effort to consolidate our unity on what is historically unquestionable, and that is the idea of nation-building."
Ivan Vukelić of the Hrvatski Obredni Zdrug (HOZ) organisation, which organised the commemoration, said that "the false holiday of the 1941 anti-Croatian and Yugoslav communist uprising" was being celebrated today in Brezovica Forest near Sisak.
He said that this national holiday commemorated "Croatian Stalinists who on this day, together with Chetnik and Italian fascists, started killing all Croats. Those people there who call themselves anti-fascists, with full state honours, are having an orgy over the bones of several thousand Croats killed."
Vukelić claimed that 1,500 pits similar to Jazovka had been discovered so far, including 600 in Slovenia. He said that HOZ had called for establishing an independent institution to exhume the victims and give them a decent burial.
Vukelić said that HOZ was demanding lustration and constitutional changes, insisting that the 1991-1995 Homeland War be recognised as the only source of Croatia's statehood. He said that all references to the World War II anti-fascist struggle should be removed from the future constitution.
Commenting on the boos and whistles during Deur's speech, MP Zlatko Hasanbegović told reporters that "obviously some people gathered here are not satisfied with the President's actions, but that is not crucial, because this is a commemorative and not a political party gathering."
This is a reminder to all Croatian politicians that in their activity they must follow the will of the Croatian people as the measure of all things, he said.
"The key message is that any flirting with any relic of Yugoslav communism, even in the form of apocryphal anti-fascism, is unacceptable and contrary to the fundamental fact that the modern Croatian state rests solely on the national will of our generation and the victory in the Homeland War. Any Croatian state is a negation of any Yugoslavia, a democratic order is a negation of communism. These blatant facts cannot be downplayed by any manipulation of the term anti-fascism," Hasanbegović said.
He added that Yugoslav communism was the only form of anti-fascism which the Croatian people had known in 1945, as opposed to other European nations.
More news about the Second World War can be found in the Politics section.
