crimes committed by totalitarian regimes - Ministrstvo za pravosodje

Crimes committed by totalitarian regimes
Maribor, Celje and Dobrova) were used, also including Karst chasms and caves (in Kočevsko and
Primorska), abandoned mine shafts and hollows produced by coal mining (Zasavski rudarski revirji –
Zasavje mining grounds) and bunkers, as well as anti-aircraft shelters (Slovenska Bistrica). Under the
order of the then authorities, all such graves were levelled out and covered up.
Among the victims of post-war killings without a court trials in the territory of Slovenia were
members of all Yugoslav nations, but the majority were Croatians. The military units of the “ustaška”
Independent State of Croatia (Nezavisna država Hrvatska – NDH), together with a multitude of civilian
refugees, moved in May 1945 across the Slovenian territory towards Austria in order to surrender
themselves to the British. The majority succeeded in pushing through to Pliberk (Bleiburg) in Austrian
Carinthia, but the British military authorities forced them to surrender to the Yugoslav units on 15 May.
After their surrender, they were led on foot across Slovenia to Croatia and beyond. During the march,
they were killed en masse and exposed to great suffering, and therefore the Croatians named this march
the “Križni put” – the “Way of the Cross”. Mass killings of captured Croatian soldiers and civilian
refugees began in the Slovenian territory. The greatest number were killed and buried in the anti-tank
trench in Tezno near Maribor, where there are the largest mass graves of the post-war period, not only in
Slovenia but most probably in all of Europe. The extent of these mass killings is testified to by the fact
that during highway construction between 7 April and 22 June 1999, 60 meters of the former anti-tank
trench were dug up in the Tezno woods and 19 bodies on average were discovered per meter along the
length of the trench, totalling 1,179 bodies. 4
The same destiny that befell the Croatians who surrendered to the Yugoslav Army on the way to
Pliberk was also suffered by members of various military formations from Slovenia (“home guards” –
“domobranci”) and other parts of Yugoslavia (“četniki, nedičevci, ljotičevci”), and civilian refugees who
managed to reach Austrian Carinthia and there surrender themselves to the British. The British received
them and placed them in a camp in Vetrinjsko Polje, assuring them that they would be transported to
prison camps in Northern Italy. However, the British broke their promise and began to turn them over
to the Yugoslav military authorities in the second half of May. The latter transported them by train to
Slovenia, together with civilians who were also turned over by the British, and interned them in camps
in Št. Vid nad Ljubljano, Škofja Loka and Teharje, from where they were taken to be executed after
a few days. They did not even spare the wounded, the disabled and the sick. 5 The victims of post-war
killings without a court trial also included members of different military formations and civilian refugees
who were captured in Slovenia even before they managed to retreat to Austria. These victims were first
placed in camps and then the majority of them were killed. A special category of victims of post-war
killings without court trials were civilians who were arrested in their homes on the basis of lists already
compiled. Some were killed immediately upon their arrest and some were taken to concentration camps
and prisons and later executed.
Because documents that would detail the total number of victims of such post-war killings in
Slovenia are not available, the real figure is only assumed. 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. However, detailed
data are available for such victims in the territory of Slovenia. According to the most recent data from
the Institute of Contemporary History in Ljubljana, which is engaged in a research project to establish
the number of casualties in the Second World War and in post-war violence in Slovenia, the following
numbers of people were killed without a trial after the war:
– 12,431 “domobranci”
– 170 policemen from the Ljubljana region;
– 156 Slovenian “četniki”;
– 48 Slovenians mobilised into the German army;
– 21 members of Italian collaborator units;
– 1,076 civilians;
– 372 persons of non-identified war status.
4
Mitja Ferenc, Covered up and hidden from the eyes, Hidden graves 60 years after the end of World War II, Celje 2005, p. 55.
5
More about it: Without mercy, the wounded, the disabled and the sick post-war prisoners in Slovenia, Lovro Šturm (ed.), Nova revija,
Ljubljana 2000.
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