On this day
15th May 1945 the biggest genocide of the Croatian people started, known commonly as the Bleiburg massacre (also known as the Bleiburg genocide, tragedy, crime, Croatian holocaust, Way of the Cross and Croatian death marches). During the last days of the Second world war in Europe with the closing and fear of mass killings by the Partisans and the Soviets, the Croatian government and army decided to retreat to Austria where they will surrender to the Allies (UK) who unlike the communists respected the rules of war and the Geneva convention. With the government and army the bulk of the retreating columns was compromised by civilian refuges, mostly being rural and urban population who feared Partisan massacres. Specially targeted was the intellectual, artistic, nobility, economical and clerical percentage of the population which the Partisans held as enemies of the revolution and Marxist idea. In the castle overlooking the Bleiburg field which was that day full of refuges the Allied delegation led by Brigadier Patrick T.D. Scott gave the order to lay down arms and gave them up to the Partisans deliberately breaking international laws and customs of war. The Partisans started mass killing right away with most of them being in Slovenia. They organized death marches from Austria until the Southern and Eastern border of Yugoslavia, during which organized and brutal mass massacres commonly happened. The exact number of killed people ranges up from 600 000-700 000, deliberately changing the demographic compromise of Yugoslavia and completely destroying Croatian intellectual and social compromise which would set back Croatia for decades to come. In couple of days Croatian nobility lost more people than in hundreds of years fighting the Ottoman invaders.
