WWII-era mass grave found in Slovenia

Article from: Agence France-Presse

A mass grave in Slovenia believed to hold up to 300 victims killed after World War II by the former communist regime has been discovered in the country's east.

“We've found the mummified remains of between 200 and 300 people,” Marko Strovs, head of the government's military graves department, told journalists.

He added the victims appeared to be “killed with gas” since there were no visible signs of wounds from firearms.

Investigators and historians on Tuesday removed concrete walls built after World War II to close off the Huda Jama cave near Lasko, some 90 km east of the capital Ljubljana. They then discovered the remains.

The investigation of the Huda Jama cave started last August as part of a long-running probe of more than 500 suspected mass graves throughout Slovenia.

They are believed to contain the remains of pro-Nazi collaborators who sought to escape from the former Yugoslavia's communist regime in 1945. Slovenia was part of Yugoslavia before becoming independent in 1991.

The identities of the victims in Huda Jama remain unclear.

However, accounts from local residents indicate they were pro-Nazi collaborators from Slovenia or Croatia, according to the head of the Slovenian Research Center for National Reconciliation, Andreja Valic.

“Current information, based on oral testimony, indicate that the slain people could have been Slovenian or Croatian citizens,” Valic told Slovenian news agency STA.

State prosecutor Barbara Brezigar also visited the site and described seeing the remains as “horrible.”

“It is one of the most shocking things you could see in your life,” Brezigar told journalists.

She said any investigation into the crimes will be difficult since most of those responsible are likely dead.

Judicial forensic Joze Balazic, who took part in the excavation of the mass grave, said at the entrance piles of military shoes were found.

“It seems that they (the victims) had to undress and take down their shoes before they were killed. We did not see any small-size or children's shoes,” Balazic told reporters suggesting most of the victims were soldiers.

Most of the bodies were found in a 15m long and 2.5m wide underground passage situated some 400m from the entrance to the cave.

He added that there are another two passages in the cave where more bodies could be found but that these will only be investigated in a month's time, after the first one discovered on Tuesday is documented and a way through is opened.

Strovs explained the good condition in which the remains were found was due to the fact that the cave had been sealed with several walls of concrete separated by layers of barren soil.

“At the end, we came to a long passage that was all in white. Soon we understood the white mass were the bodies that had been all covered with lime,” added Strovs, the head of the government's military graves department, of the gruesome discovery.

In July 2007, Slovenian authorities began exhuming a mass grave in the Tezno forest, northeastern Slovenia, where another 15,000 victims slain after World War II by the former communist regime are believed buried.

Source: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25141765-2703,00.html

State Department International Religious Freedom Report 2009 - Slovenia

The Constitution provides for freedom of religion, and other laws and policies contributed to the generally free practice of religion. The Government generally respected religious freedom in practice. There was no change in the status of respect for religious freedom by the Government during the reporting period.

WWII-era mass grave found in Slovenia

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