DOCUMENTS RELATING TO THE MASS-KILLING OF CROATS IN COMMUNIST YUGOSLAVIA DURING 1945
SUPPLEMENTS: THE TRAGEDY OF THE SLOVENES MASSACRE AND EXPULSION OF THE GERMAN MINORITY IN JUGOSLAVIA
The present volume deals with the mass-killing of Croats in 1945, planned and effected by the Communists. Both the Croats and the foreign authors have designated these crimes: The Tragedy of Bleiburg, since the chief killings were carried out among the mass of the soldiers and civilian Croat refugees massed outside the city of that name in Austria and on the Slovenian frontier. In that place, on the 15th of May, 1945, the British Eighth Army declined the surrender of some 120.000 Croat soldiers, as well as political asylum to an equal number of civilian refugees fleeing from the communists. The communist repression acquired the character of mass-slaughter, especially in the case of the Croats, and with all the features of genocide.
This was because the Croats, in 1941 when Yugoslavia broke up had reestablished a National State, organized the army, and, for 4 years, succeded in reestablishing fought against the communist guerillas and again, in 1945, against the invasion from Serbia which had the direct backing of the Red Army.
Upon the conquest of Croatia in 1945, the communists imposed their own regime, and, in violation of national principles of self- determination, absorbed the Croats into the multi-national state of Yugoslavia, under Serbian supremacy, though Serbia scarcely represent a fourth part either of territorial extension or of population. The Croats were persecuted as declared anti-communists and defenders of their national independence.
For these reasons, the present subject has a double interest, both as an example of communist methods of conquest, as of communist strategy toward national problems.
The present volume, apart from the preface, introduction and many documents which consist chiefly in evidence of eye-witnesses contains a historical, political, legal and moral analysis of the mass-killings referred to, followed by extensive details and a recapitulation of political-military events connected with the subject. As a supplement are included descriptions of the slaughter of the Slovenes and the German ethnical minority.
PREFACE
Dr. Eduardo Augusto García, Diplomat and Argentine Jurist, erstwhile President of the Organization of American States (OAS), offers this edition to the Latin-American public and emphasises that the accounts and statements by eyewitnesses present an living and undeniable testimony of the barbarities employed by the communists against a noble people who fought for their liberty. "It is well worthwhile taking the trouble to read these descriptions here in Argentina and Americas, where we enjoy the protection of laws and institutions that protect the individual's liberty and dignity without ideological, religious or racial discrimination, so that the difference between communist and democratic regimes may clearly be seen; between slavery and liberty; between humiliation and dignity; between what we have and what is sought to be imposed upon us by Moscow and Peking".
INTRODUCTION
This is signed by the LATIN AMERICAN CROAT INSTITUTE OF CULTURE, which organized this edition in cooperation with the editors and staff of STUDIA CROATICA, a quarterly magazine devoted to political and cultural topics and under the patronage of the same. The documents were collected and made available by the Committee for the Investigation of the Tragedy of Bleiburg, whose offices are in Cleveland, U.S.A. (Pres. John Prcela), and by the committees of the same name situated in Rome (under the direction of Prof. Krunoslav Draganovic) and in Buenos Aires (organized within the Latin American Croat Institute of Culture). The Buenos Aires committee has selected the documents from a total of over 200), classified the material and drafted the description and legal political analysis.