Commemoration held at the Jazovka pit

On Monday an annual commemoration was held at the Jazovka pit in the Žumberak Mountains just west of the Croatian capital, Zagreb. The commemoration is held each year in honor of the victims of communist crimes committed at the end of and in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War.

At the end of the Second World War communist forces led by Yugoslav leader Marshal Josip Broz Tito murdered tens of thousands of Croatian civilians and soldiers, dumping their bodies in numerous mass graves. Among them is the Jazovka pit in the Žumberak Mountains, where more than eight hundred victims, including nuns and medical staff, were exhumed in 2020. A commemoration was held there on Monday to pay respects to the innocent victims dumped in mass and shallow graves.

Speaking after the commemoration the president of the Jazovka Ceremonial Association of Croatia, Frano Čirko, said that justice for these victims has been too long in coming: "All the exhumations that have been conducted in recent years and that are intensifying in number, because ninety exhumed mass graves in the last ten years is a lot. And this includes the Jazovka pit, must get their necessary political and legal epilogue, and that to this day is unfortunately missing."

Among those on hand to pay her respects was Anka Ivanek: "It is a place of both sadness and comfort at the same time. Comfort that the truth, no matter how much some people try to suppress it, is slowly coming to light. The truth will win out in the end."

Source: HRT