Croatian Parliament Speaker Vladimir Seks, who chairs the committee in charge of organising the 60th anniversary of the victory of the anti-fascist coalition, said that at the time of its formation the 1st Sisak partisan unit had 39 members, and after several days it had 79 members, of whom most were Croats.
"Despite the fact that they were members of different parties and had different beliefs, they were united in the fight against the occupying forces," Seks said, adding that the unit formed in the Brezovica forest was the cradle of Croatian and European anti-fascism and that Croatia was the cradle of European anti-fascism.
He went on to say that the independent and democratic Croatia of today was founded on anti-fascism and that of all the 60 allies in World War II Croatia had the highest number of victims in relation to its entire population.
He recalled that the Sabor adopted a declaration on anti-fascism demonstrating the permanent commitment of the Croatian people to anti-fascism.
The first woman member of the Sisak unit, Katica Kusec, spoke about the formation of the first organised armed anti-fascist unit in Europe at the time.
The commemoration was also attended by President Stjepan Mesic's envoy Sinisa Tatalovic, a government delegation, and numerous other delegations of state and local authorities, political associations and the Zagreb Jewish Municipality.