A commemoration marking the 68th anniversary of the suffering of soldiers of the 1941-45 Independent State of Croatia (NDH) and civilians was held at Bleiburg field in Austria on Saturday and on that occasion Virovitica-Podravina County Prefect Tomislav Tolusic of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) said that "ideological descendants of criminals who committed crimes in the aftermath of World War II are today still trying to rewrite history".
"Ideological scions of those same criminals responsible for Bleiburg and the death marches are again trying to conceal their crimes, downplay them, and push them into oblivion as well as to smear the victims. The members of that same batch do the same not only with Bleiburg but also with the Homeland Defence War," Tolusic said at the commemoration at which he held a speech on behalf of the sponsor of this year's commemoration -- an association of county and municipal authorities from Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In 2012, the Croatian Parliament, in which the four-party coalition led by the Social Democratic Party (SDP) has the majority, decided to cease sponsoring the Bleiburg commemorations in May.
Josip Djakic, an HDZ parliamentarian, said today in Bleiburg that such a move by the majority in the parliament proved that they would like to push the Bleiburg victims to the margins.
While nations throughout Europe mourn their victims and remember them in a dignified manner, they (the current government in Croatia) ceased sponsorship of this commemoration, Tolusic said.
As of last year, the commemoration is no longer held under the auspices of the Croatian parliament and as of this year, parliament is no longer financing it either.
It is believed that tens of thousands of NDH soldiers and civilians were killed at Bleiburg in May 1945. They wanted to surrender to the allies, but the British army turned them over to the Yugoslav army. Some were killed in the field and many died in the following months on marches back to the then Yugoslavia known as the Way of the Cross marches.
The Croatian state leadership decided last year to visit Tezno, Slovenia and lay wreaths for the victims of those marches, "all those who lost their lives without being guilty or tried," as President Ivo Josipovic said on that occasion. Tezno is the site of one of more than 500 mass graves in Slovenia.
According to Austrian police, this year shortly below 6,000 gathered for the Bleiburg commemoration.
Split-Makarska Catholic Archbishop Marin Barisic, who led Mass, recalled that after the cessation of armed conflict had been signed in Europe in May 1945, the truce had not been respected in Bleiburg and the sites of the death marches.
