500 victims exhumed from graves in Slovenia buried in Donji Macelj

The remains of five hundred victims killed after the end of World War II, exhumed ten years ago from four mass graves in Slovenia and taken over in May of this year, were buried today at the Memorial Church of the Passion of Christ in Donji Macelj. 

The memorial mass and funeral rites in front of the Church of the Passion of Christ were led by military ordinary Jure Bogdan. "The spirits of the past are eventually dragged out of the caves, pits and trenches where they were forgotten to face the present," said the military ordinary. 

“A mature society is not afraid of archives, scientific research or facts. We do not seek the truth for the sake of new divisions, but so that families can get answers, so that the names of the deceased can be returned where possible, and so that the community can gain a more just and peaceful memory,” he said.

The crimes of totalitarian regimes should be discussed based on facts, without fear or minimizing any crime, said Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Croatian Veterans, Tomo Medved.

“The victims will not be forgotten, and the crimes will not be kept quiet. We give memory to those who they wanted to erase, and so that such evil will never happen to anyone again,” Medved added.

“Five hundred people, five hundred of someone's sons, someone's husbands, someone's fathers, who unfortunately died mostly without clothes, with their hands tied with wire, killed with blunt objects, cold weapons, gunshot wounds, in other words, pure liquidations, and then thrown into pits, in Slovenia in this case. Unfortunately, we are witnessing thousands of such places in Slovenia, in Croatia, and we still have a huge task ahead of us,” said Deputy Parliament Speaker and President of the Commission for Determining the Fate of Victims of Crimes Committed after World War II, Ivan Penava. 

Mirko Ivanjek from the "Macelj 1945" association considers prayer and forgiveness important. 

“When I find myself in such places, I pray for those who were the perpetrators. I do not wish harm on anyone, and in the least they will have to face themselves before eternity, which would be a condemnation that I do not wish on anyone. In fact, I pray for them that they too will realize that this is not the way, that violence is never the way,” said Ivanjek.

81 coffins with the remains of the victims, symbolizing eighty-one years since the suffering, were laid in a common grave at the Chapel of the Passion of Christ in Macelj.

Source: HRT