By: Andrej Sekulović
A list of all recorded victims of wartime and post-war violence in Slovenia has been published online. MEP Romana Tomc and historian Dr Mitja Ferenc have once again highlighted in the European Parliament the right to remembrance and a grave for the victims.
Post-war extrajudicial killings remain a deep historical wound for Slovenia. Politics and mainstream media treat the issue of mass graves as secondary, even though Slovenia is essentially a vast hidden burial site. The red executioners of the Slovenian nation are still regarded as great heroes and even saints in human form – not only by the most fervent leftists but also in history textbooks. This ensures that the red myth stays alive while anything that could threaten it is systematically undermined. Nevertheless, this year saw a step in the right direction. The Institute of Contemporary History has decided to publish a complete database of war and post-war casualties from World War II online. The database is now fully accessible and well-organised at https://www.sistory.si/ww2. Anyone can check the records for their relatives, acquaintances, or others known or suspected to have fallen victim to the communist victory. The database will continue to be updated, and the institute invites the public to contribute to its expansion.
Complete database of victims published
The Institute of Contemporary History is the curator and author of this database, documenting war and post-war victims. To mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, the institute decided to make the database publicly available. The research data is presented clearly, and a search function allows users to look up victims by name, surname, place of birth or death, and other details. The database is published on the History of Slovenia – Sistory portal and includes wartime and immediate post-war casualties from the territory of present-day Slovenia. The list, containing over 100,000 names, highlights the vast scale of wartime and post-war atrocities. It systematically records both military and civilian casualties who had residency rights in Slovenia during and immediately after the war and lost their lives due to war, its consequences, or post-war communist violence and executions.
The victims’ identities are verified through personal data regarding their deaths, as well as primary and secondary archival sources, including newspapers, magazines, documentary materials, civil society records, and materials from “two parliamentary commissions investigating post-war mass executions, legally questionable trials, and other irregularities, in addition to reference literature and oral testimonies”.
The result of years of effort
The published database is the result of more than a decade of dedicated research. It stems from work conducted between 1997 and 2012, spanning four large research projects.
- Victims of World War II and Its Aftermath – National Database (1997–2002).
- Fatalities Among the Population in the Territory of Slovenia During and Immediately After WWII (2002–2006)
- Verification of WWII and Post-War Victim Lists Using Birth and Death Registers (2006–2009)
- Review of Death Registers to Determine the Number and Structure of WWII and Post-War Victims (2010–2012)
Following these projects, the database continued to be expanded with input from both the general public and experts. This effort was supported by the Research Infrastructure Programme for Slovenian Historiography. To further improve the database, the institute recently held a workshop guiding people on how to contribute missing information or add new victims. If you have relevant data, visit https://www.sistory.si/ww2 to learn how to include it in the database.
The right to a grave and remembrance
Many victims of Partisan violence still lack a proper grave and recognition in Slovenian national memory. To address this, MEP Romana Tomc, together with historian Dr Mitja Ferenc, launched a petition in the European Parliament in 2023. It demands that victims of communist crimes – as well as those of other totalitarian regimes – be granted the right to a grave and remembrance. The Petitions Committee in Brussels first reviewed the initiative over a year ago. It was revisited earlier this year, but no concrete action was taken, as the committee decided to keep the petition open. According to Romana Tomc, this means the issue is far from resolved, and they will continue to push forward. The petition gathered almost 2,000 signatures, sparked by the Golob government’s decision to abolish the Day of Remembrance for Victims of Communism.
Condemning the crimes is essential
Romana Tomc also called on Members of the European Parliament to send a special mission to Slovenia to witness firsthand the injustices that the current government is inflicting on the victims of communism, as well as the overall situation. She also urged the Parliament to adopt a resolution calling on the Slovenian government to condemn communist crimes and ensure that the victims are granted the right to a grave and remembrance. Dr Ferenc also spoke in Brussels, highlighting the violation of two fundamental universal rights enshrined in the European Union’s ethical code: the right to remembrance and the right to a dignified burial. He emphasised that, when speaking of a dignified burial, he was referring to the remains of victims who, under communism, were denied graves. He added that, while Slovenia remembers the victims of fascism, it does not equally acknowledge the victims of communist violence.
Numerous victims without rest
Ferenc further pointed out that after the war, tens of thousands of prisoners of war of various nationalities – including Slovenes, Serbs, Montenegrins, Croats, Germans, Hungarians, Italians, and others – were extrajudicially executed in Slovenia. The regime denied all these victims “the right that even Antigone fought for – the right to a grave.” Their relatives were deprived of the right to know and to mourn. The mass graves of executed soldiers and civilians were deliberately concealed until the democratic changes, with all traces wiped away. He emphasised that after the fall of socialism, it was expected that the Slovenian state would “identify the execution sites, order exhumations, reveal the truth about the victims, and bury the remains in communal graves or return them to their families”. However, to this day, only about ten gravesites have been fully or partially exhumed, despite the fact that more than 700 burial sites and nearly 1,600 execution sites have been documented. It is disgraceful that, 80 years after the end of World War II, the remains of victims still lack proper graves and are stored in warehouses. MEP Romana Tomc expressed regret that it was even necessary to submit a petition, which would not have been needed had the Golob government responded to the European Parliament’s appeals or not abolished the Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Communism. She also stressed that it is incomprehensible why the successors of the former regime continue to deny these atrocities, refuse to condemn the crimes of their predecessors, and deny the victims their right to a grave and remembrance.