Prominent Bosnian actors, film and theatre directors sent a video message expressing their opposition to the announced commemoration for those killed in Bleiburg in 1945.
“They shall not pass,” declared some of Bosnia’s most renowned artists, including Jasna Zalica, Ermin Bravo, Senad Basic and Jasna Diklic, as well as directors Haris Pasovic, Pjer Zalica and Jasmila Zbanic.
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The artists reacted to the intention of Bosnia’s Catholic Archbishop, Vinko Puljic, to deliver a commemorative sermon for those killed in Bleiburg on May 16.
Amid a Yugoslav army offensive aimed at defeating pro-Nazi and anti-communist forces, tens of thousands of mostly pro-fascist Croat soldiers and their families fled in 1945 toward Austria to seek help from the British army, only to be turned back by the Brits right into the hands of anti-fascists.
In and around the Austrian town of Bleiburg, thousands of the so-called Ustashas were killed.
The Yugoslav forces saw the slaughter they committed as punishment for the tens of thousands of Jews, Serbs, Roma and anti-fascists killed by the Nazi-allied Croatian nationalists, called Ustasha, during WWII.
After the dissolution of Yugoslavia, Croatia began commemorating the Bleiburg victims with a large gathering near the Austrian town every year.
Croatian nationalists perceive the controversial annual event as a symbol of their suffering under communism.
Austrians, however, see it as a glorification of Nazism and have banned Ustasha flags and insignia at the gathering. The Catholic Church in Carinthia rejected last year a request from Croatia’s Bishops’ Conference to hold a Mass during the event, labelling it as a promotion of nationalist ideas.
The event in Bleiburg was cancelled this year due to the pandemic and the organisers of the event, the Honorary Bleiburg Platoon, said it will be held in different cities instead, among them in Sarajevo.
The artists argued that the commemoration is an attempt to rehabilitate the crimes committed by the Ustasha in Sarajevo.
