Post war victims of Tito’s communists final receive a dignified burial

The final funeral and burial of the remains of 36 victims exhumed at the Mostišće site in Varaždin County was held in Možđenec near Novi Marof on Saturday. All told there are a total of nine mass grave sites dating from the post war period in the Novi Marof area alone.

The remains of the 36 Croatian post-war victims were the recently uncovered from two mass graves in a forest near Novi Marof. They were the murdered by Tito’s communist forces in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. They were killed without trial and buried without in two unmarked mass graves.

Deputy Prime Minister and Veterans' Affairs Minister Tomo Medved was on hand to pay his respects to the innocent, emphasizing that the incumbent Croatian Government will continue to condemn all totalitarian regimes. Medved added that even 80 years after the fact, dignity must be restored to the victims who ended up in mass graves.

“The message here is about our focus on finding victims of the Second World War, and especially those of the post-war period. To find them, anthropologically process them, prepare them for burial, and organize their burial, just as we did here today,” Minister Medved said.

The funeral was also attended by the Deputy Speaker of Croatian Parliament and the President of the Commission for Determining the Fates of Victims of Crimes Committed Immediately after World War II, Ivan Penava. Clearly distraught, Penava, commented on the juxtaposition of finally bringing peace to the murdered, and coming face-to-face with the horrific truth of their demise: “On the one hand … finding their remains and giving them a dignified burial … after spending decades in unmarked pits, beaten and murdered without trial, without justice, killed in a brutal way ... the minister provided us with the details; shot in the head, or blunt force trauma to the head, naked, barefoot, bound with wire. It shakes you to the core ... obviously, as a human this can't leave you with any positive emotions...”

Source: HRT