crimes committed by totalitarian regimes - Ministrstvo za pravosodje

Crimes committed by totalitarian regimes
known about these camps in Slovenia. For the Slovenian Communist authorities, they were officially
non-existent and could not be discussed in public for half a century. In Slovenian history, these camps
are still not called “concentration” camps; usually only the expressions “camps” or “gathering camps”
is used. Historians tried to avoid the expression “concentration camps” mainly because of associations
with Nazi concentration camps, but their ‘avoidance’ is inappropriate because it does not correspond to
the historical facts. Proof that these were indeed concentration camps in the true meaning of the word is
most authentically found in rare documents preserved from that time, which use those very words. The
expression “concentration camp” is met when we read the documents of OZNA which established those
camps. That expression was also used by party officials and the highest representatives of Slovenian
authorities at that time.
The treatment of internees also shows that these were in fact concentration camps. Testimony
shows that the way these internees were treated did not differ much from the way that internees in
Nazi concentration camps were treated, because they were exposed to the cruellest forms of physical
and psychological violence. 1 The cruellest treatment of internees was recorded in concentration camps
for members of the Slovenian Home-guard and civil refugees who had been returned to Slovenia from
Austrian Carinthia. For most of them, their only exit out of these camps was at the place of their
execution, for which reason they may justly be called “death camps or destruction camps”. Many
internees from certain other concentration camps in Slovenia were taken to places of execution and
many internees perished in these camps due to the poor and miserly rationed food, poor hygienic
conditions and contagious diseases.
Establishing Communist concentration camps in Slovenia was directly related to the “cleansing”
campaign that OZNA began to implement with the aid of those units belonging to the Corpus of National
Defence (KNOJ) immediately after the war ended. 2 The victims of “cleansing” were for the most part
the members of the German and (partly also) Hungarian national minorities and those Slovenians who
were suspected of collaboration with the occupation forces and were placed on OZNA lists. By the end
of 1944, OZNA had at its disposal, records and lists for a total of 17,750 persons. 3 Subsequently, these
records and lists continued to be supplemented. The majority of those people placed on these lists were
destined for arrest or even liquidation. Within the framework of implementing the “cleansing” campaign,
OZNA, in cooperation with the members of KNOJ and the National Militia, took most arrested persons
to prisons or straight to concentration camps, while some of them were liquidated immediately after
arrest; only very few arrested persons were released. The report of the OZNA officer in charge of the
district of Celje on 29 May 1945 states, for example, that in all 15 counties of that district, a total of
1,004 persons were arrested, of whom 272 were sent to concentration camps. In the county of Celjecity,
OZNA arrested 563 persons by the end of May, of whom 159 were sent to concentration camps. 4
With regard to the people who were interned in these concentration camps, the Communist
concentration camps in Slovenia can be divided into the following three groups:
– Concentration camps for members of the German national minority;
– Concentration camps for members of the Hungarian national minority;
– Concentration camps for Home-guards and civilians.
2.1. Concentration camps for members of the German national minority
Establishing concentration camps for members of the German national minority in Slovenia was
directly related to implementation of their expulsion. 5 In compliance with the thesis on the collective
responsibility of the entire German national minority for Nazi crimes committed upon the members of
1
The accounts of former internees of the Communist concentration camps in Slovenia are published in the publication Milko Mikola
(ed.), Documents and Testimonies on Post-war Concentration Camps in Slovenia, 1 st and 2 nd part, Ministry of Justice of the Republic of
Slovenia, Ljubljana 2007, 2008.
2
See Jera Vodušek Starič, “Taking Power After the War and the Role of OZNA – Settlement of Accounts”, in: Collection of papers
Slovenia in 1945, Ljubljana 1996, pp. 93–110.
3
Ljuba Dornik Šubelj, Department for the Protection of the Nation for Slovenia, Ljubljana 1999, p. 119.
4
ARS, Unit for dislocated material II, SOVA microfilms, series V-1, U 0000007, Work report by OZNA for the city of Celje, 30 May 1945.
5
Implementation of the expulsion of members of the German national minority from Slovenia after the Second World War is dealt with by
Tone Ferenc, “‘Germans’ in Slovenia during the Second World War”; and a paper by Božo Repe, “‘Germans’ in Slovenia after the Second
World War”. Both papers were published in the publication “Germans” in Slovenia from 1941 to 1945, Scientific Institute of the Faculty
of Philosophy, Ljubljana 1998.
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