Addressing the gathering, Milanovic said that the kind of anti-fascist uprising like the one at Brezovica on 22 June 1941 was unique, having happened even before the Communist Party of Yugoslavia organised an uprising.
The 1st Sisak Partisan unit was mostly made up of Croats, as well as of a large number of Serbs. It was owing to the unity of Croatian Communists and the Serb people that the anti-fascist Partisan movement became a massive, people's movement in the fight for freedom, said Milanovic.
"That is Croatia's history, we must look at it with our eyes open and discuss it openly, we must not indoctrinate our children and youth but teach them to think and ask questions," said the PM.
He added that these were very important things that made it possible for Croatia at the end of World War II to end up not on the side of the winners, but on the right side.
"Good had to beat evil and Croatians have always been on the right side, on the side of good, which naturally does not mean that they are born better than others because they are not. But it is a fact that they chose the more difficult path both in 1941 and in 1991. Croatia's path has been the more difficult one in the last 100 years and everything we have achieved we have achieved on our own, with nobody cutting us any slack, and we are entitled to that. That is our justice and the Partisan movement had a historically invaluable role in that," said Milanovic.
He added that it had taken Croatians a lot of time to learn the basic lesson of history and coexistence - to live together, share the same destiny, "that this is a state of the Croatian people where all minorities, including the largest, Serb minority, have all rights, that they respect, love and build that state."
"That this is our state, not the one from 1941. That was never our state," he stressed.
The PM said that the last 100 years in Croatia were marked politically by three men - Stjepan Radic, Josip Broz Tito and Franjo Tudjman, who, he noted, was a Partisan and anti-fascist too and who did not hide that fact and was not ashamed of it.
"That is the truth, whether you like it or not. What happened in 1945 cannot be compared with what happened in 1991 or 2001. Everyone who means well will tell their children so, but the main message remains - Croatia today is a modern, democratic, law-based country where all citizens have the same rights regardless of their ethnicity. That Croatia would hardly exist today if it had not been for the then Partisan movement's leadership, it would definitely not exist if it had not been for Croatian defenders and those who in 1991 led it selflessly to victory. Long live modern Croatia, long live Croatian anti-fascism. Let us love and build our Croatia," Milanovic said.
Earlier in the day, wreaths were laid at the Brezovica memorial park by President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, PM Milanovic, Parliament Deputy Speaker Dragica Zgrebec, Zagreb Mayor Milan Bandic, delegations of the Croatian Academy of Arts and Sciences, embassies in Croatia, Sisak county and town delegations, and the Association of Anti-Fascist Fighters and Anti-Fascists and the Anti-Fascist League.
The 1st Sisak Partisan unit, formed on 22 June 1941, was the first armed anti-fascist unit in Croatia and occupied Europe in WWII.
The Nazi Germany that day attacked the Soviet Union in an operation code-named Barbarossa, thus breaching the Ribbentrop-Molotov non-aggression pact between Germany and the Soviet Union.
Due to the new circumstances, members of the Communist Party in Sisak found themselves in danger and withdrew from the town to its surroundings, first to the village of Zabno and later to the Brezovica forest. There they formed a unit which carried out sabotage operations, primarily on railroads.
The unit had 77 members who were led by commander Vlado Janjic Capo and commissar Marijan Cvetkovic. Croatian Army general Janko Bobetko was a member of the Sisak Partisan unit as well.
Thirty-eight members of the unit survived the war.
The establishment of the Sisak Partisan unit marked the beginning of an organised anti-fascist struggle in Croatia, in which more than 500,000 Croatian citizens participated.
The units of the National Liberation Army included around 230,000 Croatian fighters and there were 52 brigades, 17 divisions and five of the total of 11 corps in Croatia's territory in WWII.