The central celebration will be held in Zagreb's "Vatroslav Lisinski" concert hall on Saturday. The event, organised by the Croatian Parliament, the City of Zagreb and SABA, will be held under the auspices of President Stjepan Mesic.
SABA president Kresimir Piskulic said that the entire civilised Europe celebrated the 60th anniversary of the victory over fascism and that SABA members were proud to have been on the side of the winners in World War II.
Speaking about events at Bleiburg after WWII, when partisan units executed captured members of the army of the Independent State of Croatia and other prisoners, Piskulic said he regretted that the national liberation movement was stained with the death of innocent victims and that SABA had expressed regret about that on a number of occasions, and now wanted to do it for the last time.
The crime committed by partisans at Bleiburg is not the main topic of WWII, Piskulic said, wondering who of the critics of anti-fascism had apologised for the millions of victims of fascism. "The war with the Ustasha ended for us with their defeat and we see no reason why we should reconcile with them," Piskulic said, adding that the Ustasha movement should be judged by historians.
Ivo Marinovic of SABA said that the contribution of Croats to the National Liberation Struggle (NOB) was huge and that Croatian communists and left intellectuals had been the first to start the fight against fascism. "From 1990 to 2000 we witnessed revision of the preamble to the Constitution which says that anti-fascism is part of modern Croatia," said Marinovic, supporting the Declaration on Anti-Fascism that was recently adopted by the parliament and the fact that the Croatian Party of Rights (HSP) recently laid a wreath at the Jasenovac Memorial Area.