The original article that Janak1929 posted at the beginning of the this thread about Bleiburg was apparently written by Suzanne Brooks-Pincevic, author of
Britain and the Bleiburg Tragedy: An Artist's Impression ( ISBN 0473052725 (0-473-05272-5)
and originally posted at
http://amac.hrvati-amac.com/index.php?o ... &Itemid=84
There is some information about Bozo Vukusic (apparently a Croatian journalist or intellectual who is considered somewhat of an apostate from the politically-correct Croatian extreme-nationalist canon) at the "Za Dom Spremmi" website at
http://www.freewebs.com/zadomspremni/truth6.htm
Sid wrote
The main problem in discussing Bleiburg is that it has become a totem for more extreme Croatian nationalists whose emotional commitment to their cause is such that they cannot relinquish unlikely higher figures and are determined to blame even those only peripherally involved, such as the British, for what was an undoubted Yugoslav Communist crime.
My point is simply this: Nobody seriously argues that there weren't mass deaths of Croats at the hands of Yugoslav Communists. However, this is going to get obscured in diversionary arguments if implausibly high figures are presented or the focus is shifted onto secondary parties.
The basic facts are that a large number of Croats were killed by Yugoslav Communists but we don't yet have a precise figure. However, we can say that half a million is improbably high because censuis material doesn't support it..
Which are all cogent observations.
Some additional writings from C. Michael McAdams about WWII Croatian "myths and realities" are at
http://www.mcadams-croatia.net/myth/index.htm
Couple of Junak1929's points I wanted to comment on:
Junak stated that McAdams was a Harvard scholar, which is incorrect. McAdams attended UoP (University of the Pacific), John Carroll University and U Colorado. He taught at the UCSF extension campus at Sacramento, CA, before retiring in 2000 (see
http://www.mcadams-croatia.net/biography.htm)
Well, I know for a fact that the Independent State of Croatia was a signatory. Obviously something is fishy with these lists considering the fact that there was no such "serbian republic" at that time as you mentioned.
As I mentioned, "v2.0" of Croatia is a signatory, but "v1.0" (the NDH regime of WWII) was not. I think the International Committee of the Red Cross is pretty much as authoritative a source as one can get on international humanitarian treaties.
David Thompson mentioned that by July 1945 the US Army ended the practice of automatically repatriating surrendered troops/displaced persons from Yugoslavia. Having just finished
Operation Keelhaul The Story of Forced Repatriation I wanted to point out that prior to that the US Army classified members of Axis armed forces or nationalities serving in the Wehrmacht as candidates for deportation. I also wanted to point out that Epsein's book mentions that Austria continued to deport Yugoslav nationals into the 1950's, viewing them as economic rather than political refugees.
However the HDZ and the Tudman administration played their cards right. The serbocommunist propaganda machine was 60 years ahead of any Croat anywhere in the world, the Milosevic regime started to frighten the Serbs in the Krajina region with all these tall tales about an Ustasa revival...
What does this have to do with Bleiburg? We keep confusing events in the 1990's with the events of 1945.
Every year more and more Croatian youth are found at Bleigburg, these kids, even the girl in the photo who I personally know are not nazis or antisemites etc.
They are just pro-Croatian kids who see parallels between their grandfather's battle and the battle of their fathers in the 90s
But they wear black clothing with Ustase insignia that for many people are affiliated with fascism, intolerance and genocide. Surely you can admit that some people have a negative impression of such symbolism.
yes people do openly wear Ustasa symbols - I would have too if I was there. To me that symbolizes that that very fight won out - even though Bleiburg certainly did occur and effected almost every other Croatian one way or another, the fact that a Croatia exists - the main principle of the Ustasa movement, and the fact that young people live in a democratic society in which they can honor their forefathers however they please, to me is an accomplishment from the dark tito-era.
It seems illogical to me to wear the insignia of a racist authoritarian WWII Axis puppet regime as a symbol of the victory of a moden-day democratic country.
As I mentioned, recently the current President of Croatia called the Bleiburg rally an "Ustase orgy"
http://oslobodjenje.ba/index.php?id=599
there's an interesting comment from a poster at the B92 website (see
http://www.b92.net/eng/news/comments.php?nav_id=59435) with the comment
And you have to like Mesic's comments on a Ustasa orgy. He may be an idiot on other issues but he is one of the few politicians in Croatian with the guts to face down the extreme right wing.
I believe some of Mesic's relatives may have been killed by the Ustase during the war.