The fall of the Berlin Wall triggered Yugoslavia's violent collapse and since then Tito's post-Second World War genocide has been exposed in the media. However, the mainstream media rarely mentions the Croatian identity of Tito's victims, and due to the legacy of Yugoslav propaganda, grieving Croatian people are still being vilified. Justice and closure remain illusive.
The author's mission is to expose Tito's ruthless genocide by analysing Croatian, British, American and Yugoslav sources in order to reach some definitive conclusions. Because so many conflicting and inaccurate versions exist about the Bleiburg tragedy, a single Bleiburg narrative is long overdue. The granite monument to Croatian victims at the Bleiburg field may survive the weather over time, but in contrast, the facts about the post-war events at Bleiburg, Austria are gradually disappearing into the dustbin of history.
Questions answered in this book include details about the negotiations at the Bleiburg castle, how and why Croats ended up in Bleiburg, why the post-war surrender to Yugoslavs at Bleiburg is exclusively Croatian, how many Croats were at the Bleiburg field, and how many were killed there, and why Tito's Bolshevik Yugoslav Army is responsible for the post-war 'Death Marches' and genocide of Croatian people. Maps of the post-war region indicate the retreat routes of the Croats, and the occupation of Carinthia, Austria by the Yugoslav Army.
The exclusively Croatian surrender on 15th May 1945 was distinct from other surrenders in post-war Austria. The Bleiburg surrender negotiations are the main focus of this book. At the Bleiburg castle, although the Yugoslav officer gave a guarantee that the unarmed Croatian soldiers and civilians would be treated according to international law this guarantee was broken. Inside Yugoslavia, after the end of World War Two, over half a million unarmed Croats were sent on 'Death Marches' and massacred.
Croatian, British, American and Yugoslav sources are compared and contrasted to determine how the Bleiburg Tragedy happened. Myths are dispelled and a single narrative emerges in the conclusions of this book. Tito's betrayal of his western Allies is revealed in the context of a bloody Bolshevik revolution. Tito's consolidation of power included the strong Yugoslav occupation of southern Carinthia, Austria and the liquidation of his Croatian opposition, and other smaller repatriated anti-Communist groups, inside Yugoslavia.
Top ranking Serbian cadres in Communist Yugoslavia acknowledged the Yugoslav-perpetrated crimes against humanity. For example, Djilas remarked that Croats had to die so that Yugoslavia could live; and Rankovic admitted that 586,000 'Enemies of the People' were liquidated. This genocide did not escape the attention of world leaders at the time. The American President Truman remarked that Tito killed more than 400,000 of his opponents to establish himself as dictator, and according to Churchill, Tito's tactics marked the beginning of the 'Iron Curtain'. However, during the Cold War, most anti-Yugoslav news was censored.
Since the end of the Cold War and violent collapse of Yugoslavia, Tito's post-World War Two genocide is slowly being re-exposed due to the discovery of hundreds of post-World War Two mass graves. In 2014 in the U.K.'s Daily Mail Online's list of the world's most murderous regimes, Tito is listed to have slaughtered 570,000 of his political opponents. Once again the ethnic identity of his victims is not mentioned in the mainstream media. Unbelievably, no one has been held accountable for these crimes against humanity. That is why the Srebrenica genocide happened, and why it was such a shock to the world.
The legacy of the Bleiburg Tragedy for the small nation of Croatia has been catastrophic. The memorial at Bleiburg, a place of an annual gathering for tens of thousands of Croatian people, has become symbolic for the Yugoslav genocide against Croatian people. Although Croatia has been independent since 1992 false Yugoslav propaganda persists. History is not written by the victims. Grieving Croatian people are still being vilified. Justice and closure remain elusive.
About the Author: Canadian born Jean Lunt Marinovic has published over 100 articles about the history and collapse of Yugoslavia in the Australian-Croatian media since the 1980s. The Croatian Viewpoint website features some of those past articles. For her Bachelor of Arts Jean studied Communist politics with a focus on the Yugoslav brand of socialism, and also included a unit of basic Croatian language. Involvement in the Australian-Croatian community has included family and cultural activities. Jean also represented Croatian parents on the School Council of Saturday School of Modern Languages, and was co-founder and Coordinator of the Australian-Croatian World Congress's Croatian Exhibit at the Victorian Immigration Museum.
