Slovenian Mass Grave Could Be Europe's Killing Fields

Der Spiegel ^ | August 21, 2007 | staff

[Diocletian]

Slovenian officials estimate that a mass grave found near Maribor will most likely prove to be the largest in Europe, surpassing even that of Srebrenica.

A mass grave in Slovenia could turn out to be the largest in Europe, bigger even than that of Srebrenica. Exhumations in Tezno, a residential district of Slovenia's second-largest city Maribor, are likely to uncover the remains of thousands of victims of purges carried out immediately following World War II, according to Slovenian government officials. "It just might be that the greatest crime of the period following World War II will be uncovered in the mass grave in Tezno, one that even surpasses that of Srebrenica," Joze Dezman, head of the Commission on Concealed Mass Graves, told Slovenian state radio recently. Dezman referred to Tezno as "the murderous epicentre of Europe," according to the English-language newspaper The Slovenia Times. He also compared Slovenia's 540 estimated post-war graves to Cambodia's infamous "killing fields," the mass graves of victims of Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge regime. Slovenian officials believe the grave might include the remains of roughly 15,000 Croat members of the Croatian Home Guard, known as the Domobrani, and forces of the pro-Nazi Ustashas regime, who were trying to escape from Yugoslavia at the end of the war.

[Diocletian]

*

[scan59]

Pity. Even with WWII over the slaughter continued.

[montyspython]

Tito being compared to Pol Pot...

Would one really consider this post WWII though? This is too close to separate it from WWII events.

[zek157]

No tears from this quarter for the Ustasha.

[Diocletian]

Yeah, it’s too close to separate it from WW2. There are at least another 30 sites that the Slovenes haven’t allowed access to yet. They’re being a bit of a hurdle.

[Diocletian]

The majority of the victims were non-Ustasha.

[dfwgator]

Paybacks are a bitch.

[montyspython]

Slovenians are good at that.

[Diocletian]

They’re still holding billions of dollars owed to depositors in the Ljubljanska Banka from before 1991.

[kosta50]

No doubt, executions took place. The question is to determine the actual number. Speculations only serve to raise political points and prejudice the outcome. Let's stick to the facts. They should be damning enough.

As for the emotional Slovenian male drama queens, they need to reserve their comments until facts are established. Someone please give them brown paper bags so they can hyperventilate.

[Diocletian]

No doubt, executions took place. The question is to determine the actual number. Speculations only serve to raise political points and prejudice the outcome. Let's stick to the facts. They should be damning enough.

I totally agree. The same should be done when discussing the massacre of Serbs in NDH. Facts, not emotions.

[BenLurkin]

thousands of victims of purges carried out immediately following World War II

Marxism in practice.

[montyspython]

Very tough order though, most people try to reconcile facts with emotional discourse.

Still thought it was funny equating Tito and Pol Pot, good stuff.

[montyspython]

"As for the emotional Slovenian male drama queens, they need to reserve their comments until facts are established. Someone please give them brown paper bags so they can hyperventilate."

That one brought on a good chuckle...

[Diocletian]

There's a great scene in "The Death of Yugoslavia" where the 1990 LCY Congress was being held and the Slovene Party was trying to push for reforms and was threatening to leave the Congress altogether.

The scene then turned to Milosevic with the interviewer in 1997 and Slobo just laughed and said: "We already knew that the Slovenes were going to leave since they checked their bags out of the hotel already and left them in the lobby. The Slovenes are so cheap that they wanted to save the money and not pay for an extra day."

[montyspython]

LOL!!!

[Verginius Rufus]

Ivo Goldstein, Professor of History at the University of Zagreb, puts the number of refugees who tried to flee through Slovenia to Austria at the end of the war at between 100,000 and 150,000, and says they included not only Ustashas and Domobrans, but also Croat civilians, Slovene collaborators and civilians, Serbian Chetniks and civilians, and German soldiers. The British turned them over to Tito's forces. Some of them were war criminals but others were just civilians who didn't want to live in a Communist dictatorship.

The estimate for the number of people killed in various parts of Yugoslavia in the aftermath of the war is 250,000, which Goldstein says may be exaggerated.