Product DescriptionIn 1945 Slovenia, 6,000 civilians and 12,000 members of the anti-Communist Home Guard, the “domobranci”, fearing punishment for their wartime resistance to their Partisan enemies, fled to southern Austria. But there, the British 8th Army loaded them into trucks, purportedly to take them to Italy, only to deliver them straight back to Tito’s Partisans. The Partisans tortured and then executed them. The remaining civilians were spared due to the brave revolt of the British Red Cross and Quaker aid workers. John Corsellis witnessed and took part in these protests and in this book reconstructs the survivors’ stories. These are vivid tales of wartime cruelty, of the revival of battered communities in refugee camps, and of emigration to Argentina, the U. S. , Canada and Britain. In this unique volume, the authors call on more than half a century of research and an unsurpassed knowledge of the Slovene migrant communities around the world to tell their stories.
Slovenia, 1945: Memories of Death and Survival after World War II
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John Corsellis & Marcus Ferrar, Slovenia 1945 Memories of death and survival after World War mondialeLes authors refute the worst and the largest massacre in Europe, committed after the Second World War happened at Srebrenica, where in April 1993 Serbs killed 7 at 8 thousand Bosnians. Indeed, the largest massacres took place in May and June 1945 in Slovenia, which was one of the six republics of Yugoslavia until 1991, when this common condition collapsed. Slovenia, with nearly 2 million citizens and 20. 256 km ², is wedged between the north-eastern Italy and southern Austria. On this point, a small region of 513 mass graves, with some 200,000 victims have been discovered (by January 2007). Very few of these victims were traitors, or real war criminals. Most of them were opposed to the communist revolution, which began after June 22, 1941, when Germany attacked the Soviet Union. At first the Communists do not reveal their real objectives – to seize power after the war. They acted under the guise of fighting against the Germans, Italians and Hungarians, who occupied Yugoslavia two months ago. But their true intentions soon became clear when they started to kill the honest and patriotic Slovenes, simply because they opposed communism. Apart from a few acts of sabotage, or killing a few enemy soldiers, the actions of supporters of the Liberation Front (ED) often caused more harm to the local population as their enemy. In their reprisals against the populations of neighboring villages, the occupying Germans and Italians were killed hostages, or sometimes the entire adult male population, the rest sent to a concentration camp and burned the entire village. After nearly a year of such suffering, the Slovenian population, supported by the Catholic Church has asked the occupants for weapons to defend themselves against the Communist partisans. When they got the arms, they formed the “village guards”, later renamed “Home Guards” (Domobranci) and it meant the beginning of a civil war, with many crimes and victims on both sides. Although supporters kept attacking the occupants, it appeared that the fight against foreign invaders have become important secondaire.La most of the 200,000 victims were from other parts of Yugoslavia, they were fleeing communism to Austria where the war neared the end. The authors have focused their narrative to 18,000 Slovenes: Members of Home Guards and their families, who at that time represented approximately 1% of the Slovenian population. They first managed to escape during Karavanke, for refuge with British troops in Viktring, Bleiburg and other towns of southern Austria. But by mid-May 1945, the British had to send them and their families back to Yugoslavia, where the majority of these 12,000 returned, including women and children were murdered in a manner unusually cruel. There was no judicial process. The bodies of those killed were buried in trenches and tanks thrown into abandoned mines or many karst caves in south-western Slovenia. Those who failed to escape before the end of the war, or who have not even tried, because they written by Home Guards, were arrested and their fate is the same. To a lesser extent the killing, which touched a lot of rich people, so far in 1946. Thus, the total number of deaths of Slovenes murdered after the war, some 18,000 to 25,000. Since their graves were kept secret for 45 years of communist rule, their exact number will never connue.Les remaining 6000 Slovenians in Austria finally got their refuge in Argentina , where President Juan Peron had received as one. After 1991, when the communist system was abandoned in Slovenia, several of them – or their children – have returned, be surprised that the monuments of those who were guilty of their Tests remain motionless revolutionaries once all-powerful – now only liberators. It will take a long time before the ex-communists, who cleverly turned the capitalists themselves, will definitely lose the pouvoir.Depuis book was written by two Englishmen, their narrative is impartial. Therefore, this work is recommended to anyone who is looking for an unbiased report on the events, what happened here just after the war. As a Quaker relief worker and British troops in Viktring, the first author has direct experience with persons who were returned to Yugoslavia and the lucky who remained in Austria.The ‘reviewer has experienced first labor concentration camps in Italian Gonars and Treviso. It is embedded in the signal troops after the war he has seen how inhumanely the troops, who were returned, and members of their families, who were treated after their arrival in Slovénie.Peter Staříč, PhD, BSEE, Ljubljana, SlovénieRating: 5 / 5
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