crimes committed by totalitarian regimes - Ministrstvo za pravosodje

Crimes committed by totalitarian regimes
Andreja Valič
Is it wise to discuss themes that hurt?
1. Case study – living in three totalitarian regimes
Her name was Ivana Rustja. She was born in 1901 in a small village near Gorizia, which at that
time was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. When World War One started, her family and everyone
in the village were deported because of the nearby Isonzo front.
After the First World War, the village and the whole territory of today’s western Slovenia became
part of Italy, where in 1922 Mussolini and the fascists came into power. Ivana had to learn Italian and
she was only allowed to speak her mother tongue at home and in church. All newspapers, schools, names
and surnames had to be Italian, and Slovenians were prosecuted only because of their nationality.
In 1924, Ivana married Victor, a young general practitioner. A proud Slovenian intellectual, who
had studied in Prague and Graz, Victor became suspicious of the fascists. Put under continuing pressure,
Ivana and Victor decided to immigrate to Yugoslavia. After they left Italy, they weren’t allowed to
return to their homes even for the funerals of their parents.
Ivana and Victor found their new home in the northern part of Slovenia, which was occupied by
German troops in 1941 when the World War Two started on the Slovenian territory. Ivana, Victor and
their four children had to speak German in public, their surname and names were changed into German,
all newspapers and books were printed in German, a young German teacher permanently stayed in their
house, their children went to German schools, and their oldest son was mobilised into the German army
and sent to France.
After the Second World War, communists took power in Yugoslavia and Slovenia. Victor was a
Slovenian patriot, a good Catholic and a doctor who helped people regardless of their political opinion.
The new communist authorities decided that Victor was a dangerous person. Likewise, more than 15,000
other Slovenians, so called “enemies of the state”, mostly young men, women and children, were killed
after World War Two without trials in more than 500 places in Slovenia.
Victor was killed in May 1948, in a stormy night when he cycled to one of his patients. The
official cause of death was “an accident”, although everyone in the neighbourhood knew the names of
his communist murderers. Ivana was left alone with four sons. She had to accept the false story of the
accident; otherwise her sons would not be allowed to go to the university, and who knew what might
happen to them. Ivana never married again. She died in 1994.
This is the story of my grandmother and my grandfather. Their whole story in detail was revealed
to me and my brothers only after the fall of the communist regime in Slovenia in 1990.
My generation learned at school about the fascism and nazism that caused so much suffering in
the Slovenian territory, but we knew almost nothing about the communist violation of human rights. Most
of the stories were hidden, untold, swept under the carpet, probably because it was safer that way. Many
people in Slovenia have been telling their stories from the totalitarian communist regime even now with
fear and anxiety. Victims and their prosecutors have been united in the dreadful conspiracy of silence …
Slovenians went through the turmoil of deep historical changes in the 20 th century and we survived
all three totalitarian regimes, as the case of my grandparents has shown.
After World War Two, until 1991, Slovenia was one of the six republics in communist-led
Yugoslavia. During this period, massive violations of human rights were a basic component of the
system. At the end of the Second World War, over 15,000 Slovenians were killed without trial by the
new communist authorities. In the following years, pressure was applied on many people to conform
with the wishes of the communist regime, costing many their freedom, their dignity and for some much
more.
In the late 1980’s, a period of deep economic and political crisis occurred. When Yugoslavia
dissolved into several new states, Slovenia emerged in 1991 as a democratic, vibrant new state, and
developing a healthy and active civil society. After independence in 1991, human rights became one
219