engleski

Partisan and Communist Represion and Crimes in Croatia 1944-1946. Documents. Slavonia, Syrmia and Baranya. Condensed english translation

The consequences of WWII in the territory of Yugoslavia and Croatia were material damages on large scale, as well as huge human losses. The duration and intensity of the war in the territory of Yugoslavia and Croatia, including Slavonia, Syrmium and Baranya, coupled with the presence of conciderable occupying forces of the Third Reich and Hungary, as well as the activities of the Partisan and the Chetnik movements and the armed forces of ISC, caused large human losses, among soldiers and civilian population alike. Irreconciliable ideologies and political and military interests of the oposing parties in the international armed conflict and the civil war increased the number of lost lives. The after-war Yugoslav system and society evinced uncivilizedness and extreme ideological bias, dividing the human losses to politically correct and incorrect ones, i.e. the desirable and undesirable ones. When adducing a large number of human losses in Yugoslavia in WWII, neglected was the fact that part of them fell on the enemy side or fignting PLA and PU of Yugoslavia/the Yugoslav Army, or were their victims during the war or after it. Since after the break-up of Yugoslavia in early 1990s and the begining of democratization of the newly created successor states new, untill then unaccessible, archival holdings were opened up, historiography was given a possibility to deal with previously undesirable topics and problems from WWII and immediate after-war time, which had hitherto been depicted one-sidedly in the Yugoslav and Croatian historiography. Thus, many claims, data and documents about how the units of PLA and PUY/the Yugoslav Army treated captured enemy soldiers and civilian population during WWII and particularly at its end and immediately after it, were published in publicistic and historiography in the last couple of years. The stress of this collection, i.e the selection of documents lies on the Pannonian, Eastern part of Croatia and on the fate of the Germans of Slavonia, Syrmium and Baranya at the end of WWII and immediately after it. Namely, the exodus of Yugoslav and Croatian Germans surpasses in magnitude everything that happened in the South Slav territory in the more recent history. It was exactly the Volksdeutsche who suffered the largest demographical losses in Yugoslavia. From estimates, counts and censuses, it follows that the Yugoslav, i.e. Croatian Germans suffered the greatest real losses. However, the post-war Yugoslav Communist government, diplomacy and historiography steadily and without scruples, added the Volksdeutsche losses to the victims of Fascism and Nazism. War-crimes committed by part of the Yugoslav Germans, as well as thier illoyal behaviour during the occupation, were utilized as a reason and a justification for the inhumane treatement of the German minority at the end of WWII and after it. By the end of WWII the Yugoslav and Croatian German men were mostly recruited – as volunteers or by coercion – into German, Croatian and Hungarian military or para- military units, whereas predominantly the elderly, women and children remained at home. The German population which hadn't fled or hadn't been expelled by then, was exposed to arbitrariness of the victors during military actions and after their end. Namely, the treatment PLA and PUY/YA and «people's» authorities meted out to the Yugoslav Germans, to whom collective guilt was ascribed and certified, is a show-case of ethnic cleansing in Yugoslavia and Croatia at the end of WWII and right after it. However, it was not only the Volksdeutsche who had to bear the brunt of PLA and PUY/YA, but also real and potential political opponents from all national/ethnic groups. The Revolution presuposed and required victims. A wave of arrests and liquidations swept through the land as the Communist regime was being established in Croatia and elsewhere in Yugoslavia. Oponents or presumed opponents of the Communist authorities, regardless of their national/ethnic background were removed overnight, or after (often show) trials. Too broadly defined, real or imagined, collaboration with the occupiers was an excellent instrument for removing class and political enemies.

Partisan and Communist, Represion and Crimes, Croatia 1944-1946, Slavonia, Syrmia and Baranya

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