MARIBOR MARIBOR, Oct 22 (Hina) - A commemorative service was held on Sunday at the cemetery of Dobrava in the north-eastern Slovene city of Maribor to honour the memory of Croatian soldiers and civilians killed in the wake of the
Second World War. According to some reports, a few ten thousand people, who were trying to flee the then Communist-led Yugoslavia and reach western Europe, were killed in the 'Stazun' Forest near Maribor on their route out of the country. The remains of 1,179 victims - mostly (pro-Fascist) Ustashis and soldiers (called 'Domobran') of the 1941-1945 Independent State of Croatia who were apprehended by Partisans and killed - were unearthed last year while a by-pass around Maribor was being constructed. Corpses were found in an about two-kilometre-long section of a 70-metre-wide anti-tank ditch. The remains were re-buried in the common ossuary, built with the financial assistance of
MARIBOR, Oct 22 (Hina) - A commemorative service was held on Sunday
at the cemetery of Dobrava in the north-eastern Slovene city of
Maribor to honour the memory of Croatian soldiers and civilians
killed in the wake of the Second World War.
According to some reports, a few ten thousand people, who were
trying to flee the then Communist-led Yugoslavia and reach western
Europe, were killed in the 'Stazun' Forest near Maribor on their
route out of the country.
The remains of 1,179 victims - mostly (pro-Fascist) Ustashis and
soldiers (called 'Domobran') of the 1941-1945 Independent State of
Croatia who were apprehended by Partisans and killed - were
unearthed last year while a by-pass around Maribor was being
constructed.
Corpses were found in an about two-kilometre-long section of a 70-
metre-wide anti-tank ditch.
The remains were re-buried in the common ossuary, built with the
financial assistance of the Slovene Road Management, at the Dobrava
cemetery in July last year when the first commemorative service was
held.
Prior to today's commemoration, a Mass was said for the dead in a
nearby church.
Representatives of the Domobran war veterans' association,
families and relatives of the killed and members of the Croatian
Catholic mission in this Slovene city, laid wreaths and lit candles
before the common grave.
(hina) ms