Mass graves in Slovenia were created in

Slovenia Slovenia ( ; sl, Slovenija ), officially the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene: , abbr.: ''RS''), is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast, an ...

as the result of extrajudicial killings during and after the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. These clandestine mass graves are also known as "concealed mass graves" ( sl, prikrita grobišča) or "silenced mass graves" () because their existence was concealed under the communist regime from 1945 to 1990.Ferenc, Mitja, & Ksenija Kovačec-Naglič. 2005. ''Prikrito in očem zakrito: prikrita grobišča 60 let po koncu druge svetovne vojne''. Ljubljana: Muzej novejše zgodovine. Some of the sites, such as the

mass graves in Maribor Mass graves in Maribor were created in Maribor, Slovenia, during and after the Second World War. The three known mass graves in Maribor itself and six additional mass graves in the immediate vicinity include some of the largest mass graves in Europe ...

, include some of the largest mass graves in Europe. Nearly 600 such sites have been registered by the

Commission on Concealed Mass Graves in Slovenia The Commission on Concealed Mass Graves in Slovenia ( sl, Komisija za reševanje vprašanj prikritih grobišč) is an office of the Slovenian government whose task is to find and document mass grave sites from the Second World War and the period imm ...

, containing the remains of up to 100,000 victims. They have been compared by the Slovenian historian

Jože Dežman Jože Dežman (born 26 September 1955) is a Slovenian historian, museum curator, philosopher and editor. He served as the director of the National Museum of Contemporary History in Ljubljana. Since March 2012, he has been the director of the Arch ...

to the

Killing Fields The Killing Fields ( km, វាលពិឃាត, ) are a number of sites in Cambodia where collectively more than one million people were killed and buried by the Khmer Rouge regime (the Communist Party of Kampuchea) during its rule of t ...

Cambodia Cambodia (; also Kampuchea ; km, កម្ពុជា, UNGEGN: ), officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochinese Peninsula in Southeast Asia, spanning an area of , bordered by Thailand t ...

Background

Many of the mass graves were created during the war, but the larger sites date from after the war. The wartime graves vary from those of soldiers killed in battle to groups that were targeted by the Partisans due to their ethnicity (e.g.,

Romani Romani may refer to: Ethnicities * Romani people, an ethnic group of Northern Indian origin, living dispersed in Europe, the Americas and Asia ** Romani genocide, under Nazi rule * Romani language, any of several Indo-Aryan languages of the Roma ...

) or other civilians murdered for political reasons. The postwar graves from the

Bleiburg repatriations The Bleiburg repatriations ( see terminology) occurred in May 1945, after the end of World War II in Europe, during which Yugoslavia had been occupied by the Axis powers, when tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians associated with the Axis ...

contain the remains of suspected collaborators, soldiers, and civilians that fled towards Austria in May and June 1945, as well as groups targeted because of their ethnicity (e.g., Gottschee Germans,

Hungarians Hungarians, also known as Magyars ( ; hu, magyarok ), are a nation and ethnic group native to Hungary () and historical Hungarian lands who share a common culture, history, ancestry, and language. The Hungarian language belongs to the Urali ...

, and

Italians , flag = , flag_caption = The national flag of Italy , population = , regions = Italy 55,551,000 , region1 = Brazil , pop1 = 25–33 million , ref1 = , region2 ...

). and civilians that were the victims of political

purge In history, religion and political science, a purge is a position removal or execution of people who are considered undesirable by those in power from a government, another organization, their team leaders, or society as a whole. A group undertak ...

s or marked as "class enemies" to eliminate potential opponents to the new regime. After the war, the communist authorities denied that the executions had taken place. Attempts to reveal the events were suppressed, evidence was destroyed, and no exhumations took place. People were forbidden from visiting the graves, and many were hidden under waste. After the collapse of Yugoslavia, researchers in Slovenia started writing about the executions and exhumations were undertaken. However, some left-wing parties, in particular the

Social Democrats Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote so ...

, have been accused of stalling such investigations.

List of graves

This table includes mass graves and individual graves registered by the

.Lokacije prikritih vojnih grobišč at Geopedia.si. Služba za vojna grobišča, Ministrstvo za delo, družino in socialne zadeve, December 2009.
Some names are synonyms. The label "soldiers" includes prisoners of war.

References

{{Reflist, 2 Aftermath of World War II in Slovenia Massacres in Slovenia World War II prisoner of war massacres Massacres in Yugoslavia Political repression in Communist Yugoslavia Yugoslav war crimes Communist terrorism

Background

List of graves

See also

References