On the occasion of the European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism, Croatian prime minister Andrej Plenković accompanied by the vice-prime minister and minister of interior, Davor Božinović, the minister of Croatian veterans, Tomo Medved, and special adviser for social issues, Zvonko Kusić, lit a candle at the memorial for the fallen Ustasha soldiers on the cemetery Mirogoj in Zagreb. The memorial was erected by the Ustasha emigration and supported by the then Croatian government in 1994
The memorial, before which the delegation of the government bowed down to, consists of a relief depicting a caravan of vanquished Ustasha soldiers and containing recognizable Ustasha symbols, i.e. on the soldiers’ caps. Moreover, on the relief one can see the unlawful checkerboard coat of arms in the ‘upper left square white’ version which does not contain a crown over its shield. The inscription under the memorial says: “To the Croatian victims in Bleiburg and on the crusades 1945” that ought to present the fallen Ustasha warriors as victims even though they refused to surrender even one week after the capitulation of Nazi Germany.cution.
On the same cemetery, one can also find several mass graves, among which is also the grave of hundreds of children from the Kozara region who are considered as youngest victims of the Ustasha persecution.
The fact that the official governmental delegation also visited the tomb of the communist people’s heroes, which is as well placed in the Mirogoj cemetery, can be seen as a particularly pathetic and perfidious attempt of equating fascism with communism – which, by the way, is the sole purpose of this memorial day invented a decade ago. This is because it is clear that the mere purpose of “honoring” both antifascists as well as fascists at the same time is to legitimize the commemoration of the Ustasha army.
