ZAGREB, 22 June, 2021 - Prime Minister Andrej Plenković said at the Antifascist Struggle Day commemoration on Tuesday that this year the government was organising the observation of that public holiday and that it would be the same in the future, noting that the turbulent time of war should be viewed in all its complexity.

"I am pleased to greet you on behalf of the government on the occasion of Antifascist Struggle Day here in Brezovica forest," said Prime Minister Plenković in his speech at the central Antifascist Stuggle Day commemoration at Brezovica Memorial Park near Sisak, adding that the holiday was established in 1991 at the initiative of then president Franjo Tuđman.

The prime minister recalled that at the beginning of summer 1914 Hitler's Germany had taken control of most of Europe and had begun its senseless and criminal policy in which about six million European Jews had been killed and that after the occupation of Yugoslavia, "the Quisling NDH regime" had been established in Croatia.

Croatia had largest resistance movement in Europe relative to its population

"In reality Croatia was divided into German and Italian occupation zones, while most of Dalmatia, Gorski Kotar and Primorje were annexed to Italy after NDH authorities ceded them to fascist Italy, and racial laws were passed against Jews, Roma and Serbs," Plenković said.

He pointed out that 80 years ago about 70 fighters, mostly Croatian, had established the first Sisak Partisan resistance movement in Brezovica forest.

"Among them was a young Janko Bobetko, who would become a Croatian Army General and Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces in the 1990s," the prime minister said.

He added that the Partisan movement in Croatia had 7,000 members, including many Croatian Serbs.

Plenković underscored that Croatia had had the largest resistance movement in Europe relative to its population.

"Last year we marked the 25th anniversary of the great victory in Operation Storm and the Homeland War, and then I said that we also mourned the victims of crimes committed by Croatia, which unfortunately happened, because a legitimate right to defence is not an excuse for crimes," the prime minister said.

Totalitarian regime in Yugoslavia betrayed antifascists

He added that regardless of the merits of Croatian Partisans, that turbulent time should be viewed in all its complexity.

Plenković said he was thinking primarily of the post-war crimes of the JNA (Yugoslav People's Army) near Bleiburg, Austria and the mass executions of disarmed soldiers and civilians along marches back to Yugoslavia, which he said was traumatic for many families, and which deepened the disastrous divisions in post-war Croatia.

He also underscored that the totalitarian regime in Yugoslavia had betrayed antifascists.

Here I'm thinking of post-war purges of political dissidents, such as the persecution of the Blessed Cardinal (Alojzije) Stepinac, who in his sermons publicly opposed the persecution of Serbs and Jews, and saved many of them from death, Plenković said.

Close divisions still present in society

Plenković said that the time had come for us Croatia a society to take a more sober view of the events of that time and to better evaluate the contribution of the Croatian antifascist resistance to Nazism.

"Only in that way will we close the divisions still present in our society and build the unity necessary to face the challenges ahead of us. Today we finally have a free democratic Croatia, a member of the EU and NATO, whose foundations are in the democratically expressed will of citizens and the victory of the defenders in the Homeland War, which also implies the value of antifascism," Plenković stressed.

He said that after the pandemic and last year's earthquakes, and in the context of increasingly rapid climate change, which would be by far the greatest challenge for the world in the future, Croatia needed unity and to look to the future more than ever.

"Therefore, it is up to all of us to rise to the task that awaits us," Plenković said.

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ZAGREB, 22 June, 2021 - President Zoran Milanović said on Tuesday, speaking on Antifascist Struggle Day, that "the truth is a deep water," that it could hurt, but that there was nothing painful in Croatia's truth and that in WWII Croatia was not just on the side of the winners but on the side of good, too.

"The truth is a deep water and shouldn't offend anyone, but it can hurt. However, in this truth of ours there is nothing painful, it is actually beautiful. Difficult, bloody, but beautiful," Milanović said in his address at the central Antifascist Struggle Day commemoration in Brezovica Memorial Park near Sisak.

The commemoration was organised by the government and was attended by Prime Minister Andrej Plenković for the first time. This was the first time he and Milanović attended an event together after months of conflict over the selection of a new Supreme Court president.

We are doing Sisak Partisans no favor if we constantly underline they were Croats

Talking about the establishment of the First Sisak Partisan detachment 80 years ago today, Milanović said it was formed by "77 Sisak communists, revolution fighters, fighters for a better order and change."

He said "we are not doing a favour" to those people by constantly underlining that they were Croats and that that was a Croatian struggle. "Yes... they were all Croats. However, they were first and foremost communists fighting for revolution, for a Soviet Croatia, not democracy."

"Those were heroes, heroes of calibre, but other people as well, adventurers who often crossed the line and committed an injustice. All that is our history, our truth. It doesn't offend, it shouldn't be better."

Croatia was on the side of the truth and good

Milanović said he did not come to Brezovica to "force my truth on anyone" but to point to things that put Croatia where it belonged.

"Croatia wasn't just on the side of the winners, Croatia was on the side of the truth and good, the majority of the Croatian people and Croatian Serbs. To point out all the time that they were winners and not losers is a risky look on life and destiny. It means that we could have lost had the Axis, for example, won the war. Would that have made our resistance any less worthy?"

Croatia was also on the side of risk, danger and courage, therefore Croatia, just as Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, and Montenegro, has a deep reason to celebrate Antifascist Struggle Day, Milanović said.

The Sisak detachment was not the first one formed in Europe, but there was a symbiosis of the antifascist struggle that took place in Žabno and then in Sisak a month later, on 22 July 1941, when Ustasha forces surrounded the Partisans, he said.

Uprising with Serb brothers and sisters to preserve humanity

After that, the fighters went to the Banija region "to rise up to arms, together with our Serb brothers and sisters, to preserve humanity."

"Communist agitation on the one hand while on the other, because at that time the Croatian people wasn't ready for an uprising, the Serb people in Croatia, our brothers in arms in that war. Together with Croatian officers, they carried that people's uprising. It happened in Kordun and Banija."

Speaking of the role of Croats in WWII, Milanović said that joining the antifascist struggle was "an act of incredible bravery" for them because they lived in relative comfort in comparison with Serbs and Jews, who were persecuted and killed in the Nazi-styled 1941-45 Independent State of Croatia.

He said there were still people in Croatia, not just a few, who did not approve of celebrating Antifascist Struggle Day, "but that's how it is in a political system." He also underlined the fact that the whole state leadership was at today's commemoration.

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ZAGREB, 22 June, 2021 - Independent Democratic Serb Party (SDSS) president Milorad Pupovac said on Tuesday that adopting amendments to the Criminal Code to ban Ustasha insignia and the salute "For the homeland ready" was a civilisational issue for all political actors in Croatia.

Adopting amendments to the Criminal Code is a civilisational issue for all political actors in Croatia do that it can get rid of the legacy of World War II, especially the consequences of the Ustasha rule from 1941 to 1945," Pupovac said ahead of Antifascist Struggle Day commemoration in Brezovica.

Asked whether adopting the amendments to the Criminal Code would be a condition for the SDSS to support the government, Pupovac said that no one should set any conditions about that.

"We can only discuss how to do it," he said.

He said that the president of the Zagreb Jewish Community Ognjen Kraus convened a new meeting for Friday to discuss further steps towards resolving the issue of the Ustasha salute "For the homeland ready", adding that the final version of the bill of amendments to the Criminal Code was being prepared.

Pupovac welcomed the fact that the government was the organiser of this year's central Antifascist Struggle Day commemoration in Brezovica, stressing that this was very significant.

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ZAGREB, 22 June, 2021 - President Zoran Milanović attended a concert by the Croatian Navy Orchestra held in commemoration of Antifascist Struggle Day in Split on Monday evening, where he said that without harmony among the Croatian people there cannot be any progress.

"Without that harmony among the Croatian people, there cannot be any progress. We are few and only with joint effort, regardless of how worn out that may sound but it is worth repeating, can we go on further and can we progress," Milanović underscored.

This gathering here today, peaceful, civilised, civic, leftist, as well as traditionally Dalmatian, is an indicator that this is a normal and peaceful society that needs only a little to agree on some matters, he said.

He announced that he would attend the Antifascist Struggle Day commemoration in Brezovica on Tuesday, where the first antifascist uprising took place. 

Milanović said that he had come to Split "because of his grandfather and his brother and his grandmother and her brothers who did not go to war as antifascists, because they did not know what that meant."

He named those killed in the First Split Detachment comprising young communists from Split, saying that from today's comfortable perspective, that is difficult to comprehend.

"We do not have people like that today. They were the spark that lit the uprising, the people's uprising... I know that this day, these days, this holiday bothers some people in Croatia. I know that there was injustice, murder, unreason, because every revolution is rough, raw, unjust and quite often, if it doesn't eat them, it harms its children but that was the price they had to pay," he confirmed.

He recalled that the First Split Detachment comprised young communists from Split. "To be fair, they weren't fighters for democracy, they were revolutionaries, fierce, sometimes unjust," said Milanović.

He added that fifty years later some other people, Croatian fighters for freedom in the Homeland War, were prepared to courageously enter into battle, risking their lives.

Recently-elected Split Mayor Ivica Puljak attended the commemoration. It is our permanent obligation to create a society of equal opportunities in which freedom and mutual respect is accessible to everyone, he said.

"We always have to remember the fact that Croatia was founded on the values of antifascism and the Homeland War. In the hope that the contemporary challenges bring us even closer and strengthen our efforts to build a tolerant country open to everyone and to promote good on behalf of our future and the future of our children, I congratulate everyone on Antifascist Struggle Day," said Puljak.

The commemoration in Split was organised by the City of Split and Split-Dalmatia County as well as the county and city associations of antifascist fighters and antifascists, and the Association of Homeland War Veterans and Antifascists.

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ZAGREB, June 22, 2020- Croatia observes Antifascist Struggle Day on June 22 in memory of the formation of the first armed antifascist unit in Croatia and occupied Europe in World War Two - the 1st Sisak Partisan Detachment - formed in Brezovica Forest near Sisak on 22 June 1941.

Of the 77 fighters who formed the first Partisan unit, 38 survived the war. Most of them were from the wider area of Sisak and were mainly members of the Communist Party. They set up the unit on 22 June 1941 when Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union despite the previously signed Molotov–Ribbentrop non-aggression pact.

Three distinguished members of the Sisak Partisan Detachment were its commanders Vlado Janjic-Capo and Marijan Cvetkovic, as well as Janko Bobetko, who was later a general of the Croatian Army during the 1991-1995 Homeland War.

An estimated 500,000 Croatians participated in the anti-fascist resistance movement during the Second World War, including 230,000 armed fighters.

After it gained independence from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Croatia started observing Antifascist Struggle Day on 22 June as a public holiday.

The main commemoration is organised by the Croatian Alliance of Antifascist Fighters and Antifascists and the Sisak city authorities in Brezovica Forest every year.