New Blajburg in Zagreb: Restoring the graves of NDH soldiers at the Mirogoj cemetery

75 years ago, with the arrival of the communist government, about 50 graves of members of the infamous NDH army were destroyed in Mirogoj, whose formations killed a huge number of Serbs, Jews, Roma and Croatian anti-fascists. The Zagreb city administration is now being asked to restore their graves, and various associations are calling for the right to a dignified burial and grave marking.

The late mayor of Zagreb, Milan Bandić, promised that the city would financially support the renovation of Mirogoj. New left-green coalition "we can" who leads Zagreb for this item says that there is no place for it in the budget for 2022.

In the parliamentary committee, the only one who voted against was Katarina Peović, an MP from the left-oriented Workers' Front. Thus, at her suggestion, the term "Croatian army" was removed from the conclusion, which would have turned the Ustasha into a military formation that was not collaborationist.

The Croatian Home Guard Association erected a monument that has stood undisturbed at this cemetery for almost nine years. It just says "In honor of the long memory of members of the Croatian army". Not a word about the NDH and the role of the Ustasha and the Croatian Home Guard in it. Just a few hundred meters next to it, there is a monument to German soldiers with the message "The dead of this cemetery warn for peace".

The Alliance of Anti-Fascists (SABA) warns that this is another attempt at historical revisionism, which aims to rehabilitate the Quisling forces and the Independent State of Croatia (NDH).

Although the decision to renovate the graves of NDH soldiers is not final, this news echoed in the Serbian media with the headlines "Shame in Zagreb: Ustaše cemetery is being renovated".

SP/Novosti/Al Jazeera