On 11 May, 1945, in only fifteen minutes 13,000 ethnic Germans and Austrians, mostly women, children and the elderly, were expelled from their homes in Croatia to detention camps in Valpovo, Josipovac and Krndija and deserted areas in Slavonia, Baranja, Srijem and Backa, German community leader Nikola Mak said at the commemoration in the eastern town of Valpovo.
Mak said that between 3,000 and 4,000 Germans and Austrians had died as a result of difficult conditions in detention camps, and that 1,500 internees died in the Valpovo camp alone. Thanks to the priest Peter Fischer, who was also detained in that camp, data are available on the death of 1,076 people.
By paying tribute to those innocent victims, we pay tribute to all innocent victims of the fascist regime, said Mak, who was seven when he was detained in the Valpovo camp.
This terrible crime against humanity was covered up for 45 years and nobody expressed regret over it, Mak said, adding that there was suspicion that lists of detainees and original camp documents had been intentionally destroyed.
Mak recalled that the expulsions were carried out under a decision adopted by the Antifascist Council of the National Liberation of Yugoslavia (AVNOJ) on 21 November 1944, which took effect on 11 May 1945.
"We were collectively declared guilty of Nazi crimes and it was in the name of those crimes that genocide was committed against us," Mak said.
The commemoration at a local cemetery was attended by Valpovo town and Osijek County officials, a parliamentary representative, German Deputy Ambassador Laurids Holscher, and the vice-president of the World Association of the Danube Swaben, Rudolf Reimann.
They all voiced regret over crimes committed against innocent civilians, condemning every crime regardless of its perpetrator.
Attending the commemoration at the cemetery were also representatives of Germans and Austrians from Osijek County, Vukovar, Zagreb and Split. Many of them were detained in the Valpovo camp and went through suffering and tribulations although they were only children or young boys and girls, and many of them lost their parents and entire families.
Wreaths were laid and candles lit in front of a monument to the German and Austrian victims.