“This unfortunate and uniquely uncultured attitude towards the dead must be overcome as soon as possible, and the relatives must be allowed to have the final say, as is the case in cultured societies. No bigshot, not even the mayor of Ljubljana, has the right to simply impose his will and to take sides in this matter.”
Lojze Peterle, President of the first Slovenian government, published a think piece about the speeches made by the speakers on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. At separate commemorative meetings, he pointed out that “at some point, we as a country will have to state clearly, in a truthful, respectful, cultural and European manner, that these were victims of the communist revolution, and condemn this act. This should have happened long ago by consensus, not by overriding.”
He attributed the first responsibility for the attitude towards the (un)reconciled past to the President of the Republic, Nataša Pirc Musar, and accused Mayor Zoran Janković of putting himself above the victims by denying them a burial in Ljubljana.
You can read his statement in its entirety below:
“Let’s leave the pit of division – we are all relatives of the murdered
On the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second War, I heard several speakers recalling the victory over fascism and Nazism. I also heard speeches from those who do not consider communism to be totalitarianism. I had the impression that we were still celebrating different things and that, in a way, the war was still going on.
I also heard the President of Slovenia choosing her own date to pay tribute to the victims of the Macesna Gora massacre and avoiding the opportunity to pay tribute to them together with the rest of us. This unusual, almost private move has been met with a lot of justified criticism, especially for ignoring the relatives of those who were killed there, but I try to see it in a positive light. The President did, after all, pay tribute to those who were killed, and it is not the first time that she has said that what happened there was a crime. I do not want to see her action as a concession to the ‘other side’. I remember how, when I was young, we spoke in whispers about the Rog massacre, and how the police chased away those who wanted to light candles at Rog for those who had been killed there. Then there was talk of a mistake, and then there was Kocbek’s late reference to Rog.
However, some attempt at a common relationship was made on the 8th of July 1990, at the so-called reconciliation ceremony, at which the President of the Presidency, Milan Kučan, and the Archbishop, Dr Alojzij Šuštar, spoke. This was not, of course, a “reconciliation”, since the President did not represent the partisans, and the Archbishop did not represent the Home Guard, but both called for reconciliation among the living. It seems that their appeal was overheard. What followed after this ceremony was not “We did it, now it’s time for peace”, but the not yet completed discovery of mass murder sites and hidden gravesites, accompanied by a great deal of prevarication and a lack of respect for the truth.
When I read the speeches, I see that we continue to be accompanied by a difference in terminology. President Musar spoke of “victims of massacres” under the Macesnova gorica, while bishop Saje spoke of “victims of revolutionary violence” and the need for truth.
We can hold joint or separate commemorative meetings, at some point, we as a country will have to state clearly, in a truthful, respectful, cultural and European manner, that these were victims of the communist revolution, and condemn this act. This should have happened long ago by consensus, not by overriding
I would have liked to have seen the President of the Republic, the Speaker of the National Assembly, the Prime Minister, the relatives of those who were murdered, and the Church invited to a joint reconciliation ceremony – so that the President did not have to order an invitation to a ceremony at a lower protocol level. The first responsibility for the attitude towards the (un)reconciled past goes to the President.
The dead are dead, we need to reconcile the living, as a nation that has suffered the tragedy of division. With the lead of a disordered relationship, it is difficult to look to a common future. A thousand mass murder sites cry out for a common response. Myths and delusions cannot help us; they can only deepen the divide. Words matter here. For example, the phrase “at the end of the Second World War” is misleading, because the uninformed might think that it was “a little before and a little after” the war, as it were. The fact is, and this is essential, that the mass killings took place after the war and in an extrajudicial manner. The transports from Vetrinj and the killings took place after the end of the war.
I cannot imagine that this common reconciliatory attitude could take place before the burial of the identified thousands who are now waiting to be buried in a second location – in plastic bags.
This unfortunate and uniquely uncultured attitude towards the dead must be overcome as soon as possible, and the relatives must be allowed to have the final say, as is the case in cultured societies. No bigshot, not even the mayor of Ljubljana, has the right to simply impose his will and to take sides in this matter. If such arbitrariness is allowed to Janković, why should it not apply to all mayors. The burial of the victims of the Communist revolution must not become a matter of political bargaining or technical urbanism. I have also heard proposals for a burial in Teharje. For half a century, industrial waste has been dumped on the victims there. This is not about waste or “leftovers”, it is about our people.
I often remember the words of Mehmedalija Alić, who was severely affected by the tragedy in Srebrenica and who paved the way to the dead in Huda Jama: “Us miners never leave anyone in the cave”.
Let us leave the pit of division already.
If we consider ourselves a nation, then we are all relatives of all those who were murdered.
The longer they are unburied, the more alive they become.”
Lojze Peterle
