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George Orwell once stated:

Notes on the former Yugoslavia

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The former Balkan State Yugoslavia is indeed a complex affair. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall evidence has emerged that portrays this country in totally different light.

The region has had a truly tragic history since the creation of Yugoslavia in 1918.

Dictatorships:

Croatia and the Communist Party of Yugoslavia

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Croatia and the Communist Party of Yugoslavia is a subject that is not on today’s Western Scholars minds, at all. Yet the Communist Party of Yugoslavia had a profound effect on the region. So much so that it’s created today’s political and culture scene.

The events of post World War Two are of Biblical proportion. As stated by Joze Dezman[2] a noted Slovenian Historian (Slovenia a former republic of Yugoslavia).

  • Killing civilians and prisoners of was after Second World War is the greatest massacre of unarmed people of all times in Slovenian territory. Compared to Europe, the Yugoslav communist massacres after the Second World War are probably right after the Stalinist purges and the Great Famine in the Ukraine. The number of those killed in Slovenia in spring of 1945 can now be estimated at more than 100,000. Slovenia was the biggest post-War killing site in Europe. It was a mixture of events, when in Slovenia there are retreating German units, collaborator units, units of Independent State of Croatia, Chetniks and Balkan civilians; more than 15,000 Slovenia inhabitants were murdered as well. Because of its brevity, number of casualties, way of execution and massiveness, it is an event that can be compared to the greatest crimes of communism and National Socialism.

The events were best documented in the European Public Hearing on “Crimes Committed by Totalitarian Regimes" held in Brussels in April 2008. The commission was mainly the work of Brussels European Union and the Government of Slovenia.

Concerns

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A large proportion of information (books,articles) concerning the former Yugoslavia reminded me of the Yugoslavian encyclopaedias of the 1970s. The encyclopaedias were written in the same style as the Great Soviet Encyclopedia.

  • William Benton, (publisher of the Encyclopedia Britannica), stated that: "about the second edition of the encyclopedia that the encyclopedia had a political bias and claimed that its purpose was a propaganda weapon". Sections of the Yugoslavian encyclopaedias were used as a propaganda weapon to show the superiority of Titoism and the Socialist Yugoslavia to other societies and political systems. Former communist Yugoslavia was a Totalitarian political system.

European public hearing on “Crimes Committed by Totalitarian Regimes”& former Yugoslavia"

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  • Reports and proceedings of the 8th of April European public hearing on “Crimes Committed by Totalitarian Regimes”, organised by the Slovenian Presidency of the Council of the European Union (January–June 2008) and the European Commission, stated the following: Totalitarian machines

Let us mention briefly Fascism, National Socialism and Titoism in Italy, Austria and Slovenia (a former republic of Yugoslavia). Three Christian nations, with nationalist tendencies, were infected with totalitarianism. The descent into barbarism has comparable structural elements: [3]

  • Abuse of national sentiment to carry out racial and class revolutionary projects;
  • Cult of a great leader, who permits his fanatics to murder, steal and lie;
  • Dictatorship of one party;
  • Militarisation of society, police state – almighty secret political police;
  • Collectivism, subjection of the citizen to the totalitarian state;
  • State terrorism with systematic abuses of basic human rights;
  • Aggressive assumption of power and struggle for territory. (page 197.)

Wikipedia & former Yugoslavia article

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This is funny, Wikipedia states:

  • "The post-World War II Yugoslavia was in many respects a model [citation needed] of how to build a multinational state."
  • "The ethnic violence was only ended [citation needed] when the multiethnic Yugoslav Partisans took over the country at the end of the war and banned nationalism from being publicly promoted. "
  • "Most notable of the victories against the occupying forces were the battles of Neretva and Sutjeska."

Editor's notes: Victories?

  • "Yugoslavia solved the national issue of nations and nationalities (national minorities) in a way that all nations and nationalities had the same rights."

Editor's notes: Through the Way of the Cross, Bleiburg and Foibe massacres (1945/46)

Editors Notes: Well, one could say, what would you expect from a Totalitarian political system? It needs to do historical re-writes. Part of its existence is based on falsehoods. It's the nature of the beast. Now I'm not saying it's all pseudo historical but sections of it would have to be. The regime had to justify its existence. I suspect it's all derived from 19-century thinking, i.e., Marxism combined with extreme Nationalism & Darwinism. The theory of Evolution incorporated into history of Civilisation. It is based on the Great Union of Southern Slavs combined with Communism's grand plan for its people to evolve into a superior society (and a superior man) as a whole.

Yugoslavia had it all. Kids were all educated in this way and taught to love the great leader. I'm not making this up: Check this!

Communist Yugoslavia has gotten off lightly when it comes to history. I would love to get my hands on scholarly works prior to 1945/46 and compare notes to what was written afterwards.

I'm not alone in these matters, there are others who share my view.

Centre for History, Democracy and Reconciliation-Hague

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  • Myths and stereotypes of communism and nationalism which are still alive in our region (former Yugoslavia). Some historians still use these myths and stereotypes in their scientific work. CHDR will encourage researchers on the project "Myths in politics and modern history" to challenge these controversial aspects of the past which have been repeatedly manipulated for political purposes.

Link

Additional: There was some good academic work done during the Communist era ( & post Communist). Experience has taught me that these writings are usually hardish to obtain and the information is generally disregarded by hot headed Yugoslav nostalgia.

Media

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  • Press Agency: Columnist Says Silence on Post-War Killings Needs to End (Interview). Ljubljana, 1 April (STA) - Alenka Puhar, an author who has written extensively about Slovenia's Communist past (a former republic of Yugoslavia), has told STA in an interview that post-WWII killings need to be examined and discussed. "We need to talk about it and live with it, with this pain," she said.
  • EurActiv Network Croatian PM pays tribute to controversial war victims (Croatia a former republic of Yugoslavia).
  • New York Times-Lens: Unending Divisions of the Bosnian War by James Estrin-Srebrenica massacre.
  • BBC 4: Tito's Ghosts (Directed by Mira Erdevicki. Combining stunning archive with incisive interviews this documentary charts how every stage of Tito's life has left its mark on the former Yugoslavia/BBC 4:)
  • Ian Cuthbertson review of Tito's Ghosts on www.theaustralian.com.au
  • Josip Broz Tito, the hard man who managed to unite Yugoslavia after World War II, has long been regarded as somehow less awful than his fellow communist leaders. This French documentary makes it clear that even now, after Yugoslavia has disintegrated (mostly chaotically), Tito is still adored by some in the Balkans, with festivals commemorating his birthday and enthusiasts kissing his statue and declaring their love for him.
  • Turned back from Austria by the Allies and handed over to Tito's forces, they were executed in the woods without trial. Investigations in Slovenia have found evidence to suggest the dead were naked, or partly naked, and tied with wire when they were killed.The graves existence was an open secret for decades, yet they were not documented and not commonly discussed. Some in the Balkans said it was important to remember that many thousands of innocents, including women and children, were killed by the Nazis and their collaborators.
  • Yet Tito, internationally feted unifier of Yugoslavia, wrought violence on many fronts. His purges were merciless, and his forces rounded up thousands of suspected opponents and sent them to a prison on Goli Otok (Barren Island) where they were beaten, tortured and killed.

Sir Floyd's notes on Wiki's article Bleiburg Massacre!

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Wikipedia's older version of the article on the Bleiburg massacre,[4][5] is an article that reads as if it was written by the former Communist Party of Yugoslavia. It has a dated writing approach that is reminiscent of the propaganda of the former Communist Yugoslavia. The Yugoslav regime was desperate to keep the massacre a secret however this all changed after the break up of Yugoslavia. These events happened after the end of World War Two. It has been written that the massacre was a revenge [6] against the war crimes that were committed by the Nazi element of the retreating Axis Forces.[7] This is true, but it is only part of the picture. The communists executed, without trial, a huge number of people that were deemed guilty by association only. [8]

Update: Currently Wikipedian Editor Joy and others are attempting to make the article read as less biased. The article has been renamed 'Bleiburg Repatriations'.

Note: Reference information below: Milko Mikola- Crimes Committed by Totalitarian Regimes. Chapter 3. Mass killings without court trials. (Page 163-164)

  • The Main Headquarters of the Yugoslav Army had already called attention to respecting the Geneva Convention on 3rd of May in its order on the treatment of prisoners of war. However, despite this injunction, both prisoners of war and civilians were killed on mass at the end of May and in the first half of June 1945 in Slovenia. Tito’s telegram on respecting the Geneva Convention was later revoked; however, it could only be revoked by the person who issued it in the first place, i.e. Tito himself.
  • It is estimated, mainly on the basis of graves discovered up to now, that around 100,000 captured members of different military formations and civilians from all parts of Yugoslavia were killed without a court trial in Slovenia.[9]

According to the scientific research of Z.Dizdar, Partisan General Aleksandar Rankovic (head of the military intelligence post WW2, the infamous UDBA[10]) was only answerable to Josip Broz Tito. Aleksandar Rankovic played a major role in these executions and the only person who could give Rankovic such an order was Tito. The executions were very similar to the Soviet Purges and the massacre of Polish troops by the Soviets.

Note: NKVD executed tens of thousands of Polish political prisoners in 1939-1941/ Katyn massacre.

Concerning these events (forced marches-referring to Bleiburg & Way of the Cross massacres), The European Public Hearing on “Crimes Committed by Totalitarian Regimes" stated:

  • The victims of these events were estimate to be 100 000.
  • 581 mass graves. [11]
  • There were a large number of civilians.
  • Many of the victims were also women.
  • There were a large number of regular POW army units.
  • Concentration and labour camps were established in Slovenia (a former republic of Yugoslavia) under communist rule after the end of the World War Two in Slovenia.


Scientific Journal - An Addition to the Research of the Problem of Bleiburg & Way of the Cross:

  • An Addition to the Research of the Problem of Bleiburg & Way of the Cross. This paper dedicated to the 60th anniversary of these tragic events represents a small step towards the elaboration of known data and brings a list of yet unknown and unpublished original documents, mostly belonging to the Yugoslavian Military and Political Government 1945-1947. Amongst those documents are those mostly relating to Croatian territory although a majority of concentration camps and execution sites were outside of Croatia, in other parts of Yugoslavia. The author hopes that the readers will receive a complete picture about events related to Bleiburg and the Way of The Cross and the suffering of numerous Croats, which is confirmed directly in many documents and is related to the execution of a person or a whole group of people and sometimes non-stop for days.[12]

Notes

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  • European Public Hearing on CRIMES COMMITTED BY TOTALITARIAN REGIMES, organised by the Slovenian Presidency of the Council of the European Union (January–June 2008) and the European Commission.[13]
  • Edited by Peter Jambrek.[14] Published by Slovenian Presidency of the Council of the European Union Crimes and other gross and large scale human rights violations committed during the reign of totalitarian regimes in Europe: cross- national survey of crimes committed and of their remembrance, recognition, redress, and reconciliation.
  • EUROPA EU. Press Releases-Brussels

References

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  1. ^ The State of the Language by Christopher Ricks & Leonard Michaels
  2. ^ International Law Observer Responding to post-Second World War totalitarian crimes in Slovenia Posted on June 22, 2009 by Jernej Letnar Cernic
  3. ^ European Public Hearing on “Crimes Committed by Totalitarian Regimes" Reports and proceedings of the 8 April European public hearing on “Crimes committed by totalitarian regimes”, organised by the Slovenian Presidency of the Council of the European Union (January–June 2008) and the European Commission. Page 197. Joze Dezman: COMMUNIST REPRESSION AND TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE IN SLOVENIA Additional chapter: COMMUNIST REPRESSION Of “INTERIOR ENEMIES” IN SLOVENIA
    • In the greater part of this paper, the author deals with individual repressive measures that Communist rule imposed in Slovenia in the period from the end of the war in 1945 until the beginning of the 1950s. In this period, the Communist authorities in Slovenia implemented all the forms of repression that were typical of states with Stalinist regimes. In Slovenia, it was a time of mass killings without court trials, and of concentration and labour camps.
    • Property was confiscated, inhabitants were expelled from Slovenia/Yugoslavia and their residences, political and show trials were carried out, religion was repressed and the Catholic Church and its clergy were persecuted. At the beginning of the 1950s, Communist rule in Slovenia abandoned these forms of repression but was ready to reapply them if it felt threatened.
    • Thus the regime set up political and show trials against certain more visible opponents later. In the case of an “emergency situation”, even the establishment of concentration camps was planned in Slovenia in 1968, where around 1,000 persons, of whom 10 % were women, would be interned for political reasons. Page 161
  4. ^ Webster's Quotations, Facts and Phrases by Inc Icon Group International
  5. ^ Identity Politics in the Age of Genocide: The Holocaust and Historical by David B. MacDonald. Page 168.
    • The Partisans also carried out massacres, best known being at Bleiburg (Austria), where retreating Croatian and Slovenian forces and thier families were massacred.
  6. ^ www.enotes.com "Yugoslavia." Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity. Ed. Dinah L. Shelton. Gale Cengage, 2005. eNotes.com. 2006. 26 Jun, 2010 Yugoslavia: Genocide & Crimes Against Humanity-Mark Thompson.
    • The killing continued after the war, as Tito's victorious forces took revenge on their real and perceived enemies. British forces in Austria turned back tens of thousands of fleeing Yugoslavs. Estimates range from 30,000 to 55,000 killed between spring and autumn 1945.
    • Native German and Hungarian communities, seen as complicit with wartime occupation, were brutally treated; tantamount in some cases to ethnic cleansing. The Volksdeutsch settlements of Vojvodina and Slavonia largely disappeared. Perhaps 100,000 people—half the ethnic German population in Yugoslavia—fled in 1945, and many who remained were compelled to do forced labor, murdered, or later ransomed by West Germany. Some 20,000 Hungarians of Vojvodina were killed in reprisals. Albanian rebellions in Kosovo were suppressed, with prisoners sent on death marches towards the coast. An estimated 170,000 ethnic Italians fled to Italy in the late 1940s and 1950s. (All of these figures are highly approximate.)
  7. ^ Encyclopaedia Britannica: History & Society-Independent State of Croatia
  8. ^ Balkan Strongmen: Dictators and Authoritarian Rulers of South Eastern Europe by Bernd Jurgen Fischer. Page 283
  9. ^ European Public Hearing on “Crimes Committed by Totalitarian Regimes"
  10. ^ Titoism in Action: The Reforms in Yugoslavia After 1948 by Fred Warner Neal. Page 214. Second chapter: In a totalitarian state, personal freedom and human rights invariably most at the hands of unrestrianed police activity. That Yugoslavia was no exception was admitted by Aleksandar Rankovic, himself head of secret police or State Security Administration. This organization is known in Yugoslavia as UDBA.
  11. ^ www.jutarnji.hr U 581 Grobnici je 100.000 žrtava. English version-The Jutarnji newspaper reported on the 01/10/2009 commissions find, in all it is estimated that there are 100 000 victims in 581 mass graves
  12. ^ Hrcak Portal of Scientific Journals of Croatia by Mr Dizdar's Scientific Journal - An Addition to the Research of the Problem of Bleiburg & Way of the Cross.
  13. ^ European Public Hearing on "Crimes Committed by Totalitarian Regimes” Slovenian Presidency of the Council of the European Union (January–June 2008) and the European Commission
  14. ^ Council of Europe-Parliamentary Assembly
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(Selected as "Book of the Year" 2005 in the Times Literary Supplement by John Bayley, literary critic, retired Oxford University Professor and widower of Iris Murdoch. The authors wrote to Prime Minister Tony Blair asking for Britain to make a gesture of regret to Slovenia for sending back the surrendered soldiers.) SLOVENIA 1945: Memories of Death and Survival After World War II.

Quote link: This book tells how the British Army in Austria forcibly repatriated surrendered Slovene anti-Communist soldiers to their deaths in 1945. Authors John Corsellis and Marcus Ferrar appealed to the government for a British expression of regret to Slovenia. Sixty two MPs signed an Early Day Motion in the House of Commons calling for this. Then British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw wrote personally to the authors, and the head of a U.K. Parliamentary delegation to Slovenia did subsequently express regret.

SLOVENIA 1945 – sample reviews:

  • It has contrived wholly to avoid all the clichés of the genre …it presents us with a range of individuals as vividly seen and as sharply characterised as the multifarious inhabitants of War and Peace or A Dance to the Music of Time – 'Book of the Year' choice by John Bayley, literary critic, Times Literary Supplement, December 2005
  • An accessible, engaging read – The Catholic Herald.
  • This excellent book …raises a number of questions of profound historical and moral interest – The Tablet.
  • Part of a healing process …it is inspiring – The Friend.
  • Promises to contribute to our collective understanding of a terrible period of European history. It is right …that we too remember the tragedy which befell the Slovene people – Jack Straw, British Foreign Secretary.
  • A valuable contribution to upholding the common values Slovenia and Great Britain share as members of the European Union – Janez Jansa, Slovene Prime Minister
  • Impossible to put down – Cardinal Aloysius Ambrozic, Archbishop of Toronto.
  • A wealth of precise information and balanced judgments presented in a clear and pleasant style … a serious and objective work – Cardinal Franc Rode, Vatican
  • An exciting and moving read – Michael Nelson, former Gen Mgr, Reuters.
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