ZAGREB, CROATIA (AP) - A prosecutor in Croatia has lifted the veil on a painful episode of Balkan history: the execution of thousands pro-Nazi soldiers and civilians at the end of World War II.
The Croatian state attorney has asked that a case be brought against an elderly former major in the communist-run Yugoslav army on suspicion of ordering 13,000 people put to death.
It marks the first legal procedure ever in Croatia regarding postwar killings carried by the victorious antifascists, or partisans. And part of the evidence may be the accused’s own autobiography.
Simo Dubajic, 86, is suspected of ordering the executions _ mostly of Croatian pro-Nazi soldiers, but also civilians _ between May 26 and June 5, 1945. Dubajic is believed to be living now in Belgrade, in neighboring Serbia, and the Croatian state attorney has asked that he be detained, a spokeswoman said Tuesday.
The allegations relate to a cataclysmic period at the end of the war. As partisans poured into the cities and villages of Yugoslavia, thousands of troops loyal to the Nazis, accompanied by frightened civilians, tried to flee. But many were caught and executed.
Martina Mihordin, a spokeswoman for the attorney’s office, said Tuesday that Dubajic’s victims were killed near Kocevski Rog in neighboring Slovenia and buried in natural pits. Most of the remains were recovered in recent years, but no one has ever been tried for the killings.
The people allegedly killed by Dubajic’s unit managed to reach Austria, but the allies turned them around and forced them back toward Yugoslavia.
The state attorney’s office said Dubajic’s unit was tasked with the liquidations. Dubajic is suspected of crimes against humanity and war crimes against prisoners of war, Mihordin said.
Postwar communist authorities are believed to have ordered the execution of thousands of troops loyal to fascists from across the former Yugoslavia, but many civilians also fell victims to the revenge killings.
Croatia was a pro-Nazi state during World War II, and neighboring Serbia, Slovenia and Bosnia also had troops opposing the antifascists. Those countries formed communist-run Yugoslav federation, which disintegrated in bloody wars in the 1990s.
The post-World War II killings were a taboo topic in the former Yugoslavia and they remain a sensitive issue today.
Croatian nationalists often use them to diminish the crimes committed by pro-Nazi Croatian forces during the war. Others vehemently deny that any such executions took place, saying the claims are meant to blemish the partisans.
Croatian media have speculated that part of the attorney’s evidence against Dubajic is his autobiography, “From Kistanje to Kocevski Rog,” published in Belgrade in 2006, in which he reportedly admits the killings.
A leading daily, Vecernji List, quoted Dubajic as saying in 1990: “I did participate in liquidation of people, as I was commanded to do so. I am telling this today because I realized that conscience is stronger than victory.”
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