By: Gašper Blažič
Although the Iška River Gorge is now a popular excursion spot near Ljubljana, a terrible tragedy occurred there just over 80 years ago: on May 17th, 1942, members of the Šercer Battalion attacked the local Roma population, killing nearly 50, including almost half children and a pregnant woman. Under the gunfire of communist fighters, three civilians of Slovenian nationality were also killed on that day, bringing the total number of victims to 53.
Details of this shameful event can be read HERE. Unfortunately, this is just one of many partisan murders, but what characterises it is that it was the first such mass attack. Beware, the first village guards, which regime historians insultingly and untruthfully describe as “the first collaborationist units”, appeared only a month later, in June 1942! This clearly indicates that any connection between the genocidal act in the Iška Gorge and collaboration is merely a transparent attempt at deceitful propaganda and justification of communist crimes. May 17th has thus become the Memorial Day of the Victims of Communist Violence, but, as we know, the current (Golob’s) government has erased this memorial day. But that is not all: more than 30 years after its formation and formal break with Titoism, the state of Slovenia still has not provided a decent burial and issued death certificates for the victims of communist massacres. And beware: these are the victims of the communist revolution, the first of whom fell in the fall of 1941 when Boris Kidrič, a high-ranking official of the Communist Party of Slovenia, issued orders for purges in his letters. Kidrič was saved from the Vienna prison by none other than the priest, professor, and patriot Dr Lambert Ehrlich. Ehrlich’s life also ended under the gunfire of a communist attacker, just over a week after the massacre of the Roma, specifically on May 26th, 1942.
Why am I citing these facts? Primarily because of the events in the building of the European Parliament in Brussels – the official seat of the parliament is in Strasbourg, where plenary sessions are held once a month. Earlier this week, an event took place in the European Parliament, as known, and due to the abolition of last year’s national memorial day for the victims of communism, a petition was launched addressed to the European Parliament. The petition was signed by around two thousand people, with the first signatory being the historian Dr Mitja Ferenc. The petition was submitted to the European Parliament, specifically to the Committee on Petitions, before the summer vacation in 2023. It is worth noting that the mentioned office receives a whole bunch of petitions almost every day, and only a few of them are included in the agenda of committee sessions. Because the Slovenian petition had a very high average number of signatures, the European Parliament Committee on Petitions placed it on the agenda of one of its February sessions as a high-priority item, which means that a representative of the European Commission was present at the session. Frankly, the initiator of the petition, MEP Romana Tomc, did not have high expectations from the consideration of the petition, just like all those who followed the event live, so to speak, on the spot. Perhaps only insofar as to inform the European public that despite all the resolutions and declarations adopted so far condemning totalitarianism in Europe and calling for the dismantling of its heritage, there is still at least one country where a certain political option considers itself a “proud successor” to the totalitarian regime. Let’s leave aside the current divisions between the formal “proud successors” and the factions that emerge from them. Namely, both Prime Minister Robert Golob with his ministers and the President of the Republic Nataša Pirc Musar represent Slovenia as an orderly, democratic, and civilised country on the world stage, although this is a typical case of Potemkin villages.
I never harboured illusions that Brussels or any supranational institution would solve our fundamental civilisational issues. And they will not now either. At this point, let me remind you how long the international community turned a blind eye when Yugoslavia was disintegrating, clinging to their vision of preserving a unified Yugoslavia with financial gifts (even after the recent death of lawyer Robert Badinter, who declared the end of the common state, they nurtured the illusion of the reassembly of the Yugoslav federation). The result of turning a blind eye to brutal human rights violations during the decades of “Tito’s Land” existence was terrible, with the Srebrenica genocide being just the tip of the iceberg (and this event could have been prevented). I should also remind you of the blindness of international politics to all of Putin’s previous brandishing of weapons. Nevertheless, an apparently peripheral event on Ash Wednesday, February 14th, 2024 (ten days before the second anniversary of the aggressive invasion of the Russian army into Ukraine), was actually very important, as shown by the reactions of defenders of revolutionary legacies. Due to the heated debate on the previous agenda item, the consideration of the aforementioned petition was delayed by an hour. Apparently, the Slovenian issue of the European left was not particularly interesting, and practically no one opposed the petition, despite a relatively minor comment by the proverbially articulate Danish Green MEP Margrete Auken that we should consider the victims of all fascist systems. The main point of all speakers who signed up to speak was that the current Prime Minister of Slovenia needs to be reminded of basic civilisation norms, such as the right to a grave, and that the top of the European Liberal Group (ALDE), where Slovenia has two MEPs, will also pay attention to him. So, a small step for the European Parliament but a big step for Slovenia.
The responses of other Slovenian MEPs, especially those from ALDE and the Socialists, did not actually disappoint me. They spoke about it being a typical pre-election move by the SDS. This is a typical reaction of defenders of preserving and developing revolutionary legacies – when things get tough in front of the European public, they act foolishly. I highly doubt that the four MEPs from the transitional left are so foolish not to know how SDS is generally cautious about using “ideological issues” in pre-election campaigns. Discussions about recent history have never been a favourable pre-election topic, at least not for the conservative side, as the general indoctrination of the Slovenian public is too strong for SDS to highlight this issue as a priority in the campaign before the European Parliament elections. That is why the author of these lines asked Romana Tomc and Dr Mitja Ferenc about the possibility of pre-election abuse of this issue at the press conference in Brussels on Tuesday, February 13th. However, Romana Tomc explained that she did not choose the date for the consideration of this petition herself. It can be expected that in the next few months, especially in May during the formal pre-election campaign, candidates from other parties will throw this in her face, saying she is shaming her homeland. But who shames their homeland more in front of the world: those who do not care about fundamental civilisational questions or those who publicly point out such ominous practices? Antigone or Creon?
And another point: even MEP Ljudmila Novak, who regrets (!) that the petition has even reached the agenda of the Petitions Committee, has not been able to disappoint me for some time. Even before that, I placed her alongside the left-wing quartet of Slovenian MEPs (Grošelj, Joveva, Nemec, Brglez), and I hope that after June this year, she will no longer be in the European Parliament or anywhere else in Slovenian politics. Because she has missed many opportunities to remain silent. Because this bottomless pit has a deeper bottom, this phenomenon would be commented on in the style of the legendary footballer by the outgoing Minister of Justice Dominika Švarc Pipan. In other words: Ljudmila has long been on Kreon’s side.
So: if MEP Romana Tomc had viewed these questions, such as the right to a grave and memory, through the spectrum of sheer pre-election opportunism, then this petition would never have reached the goalkeeper, let alone the Petitions Committee of the European Parliament. And, after all, the success of this petition also lies in shifting the focus of the issue of victims of communist violence in the desired direction. Therefore, the choice of the date for the national day of remembrance for the victims of communism was an even more painful slap in the face for the defenders of revolutionary legacies. Perhaps someone will remember that just a few years ago, when the debate touched on the victims of the revolution, it was only about the killed members of the Home Guard in 1945, with which the story easily ended up in the category of settling accounts of all European countries with their collaborators, without highlighting the essence: the communist revolution. Which was not brought to Slovenian soil with Soviet tanks but had its indigenousness, which even the notorious Stane Dolanc was proud of. And, after all, many of its “heroes”, such as Mitja Ribičič and Ivan Maček, boasted about the revolution.
Indeed, the truth about the revolution would also take the wind out of the sails of those on our western border who believe that in Istria they killed only Italians and that there are no Slovenians in the karst caves – this also applies to those in Kočevska and Notranjska regions, where the liquidators dumped thousands of bodies of people of different nationalities. Because historical falsifications are the food through which neo Titoism and neofascism feed each other. Enough for the wise.