Bleiburg Repatriations - The March Back

The March Back

After the immediate repatriation of the soldiers at Bleiburg was complete, the Yugoslav 3rd Army received new orders from Josip Broz Tito on 17–18 May, while the rear Yugoslav forces were left in charge in transporting the prisoners back. Some of the NDH troops escaped capture at Bleiburg, but a large amount of prisoners were sent on a forced march back through Slovenia, where some of them were immediately subjected to a number of summary executions, and were disposed of either in former tank trenches or in natural pits. Most captives survived, but were harassed and sent to labor camps, and after a while released, but stripped of human rights.

Captured military personnel in the columns were subjected to forced marches over long distances, through Croatia and Serbia, under inhumane conditions.

Ferlach Rosenbach Lavamünd Tezno trench Kucja Valley Kočevski Rog Macelj Barbara Pit Harmica Gornji Hrašćan Known incident locations on the map of Slovenia marked in red, with the Austrian locations indicated above.

The repatriated from the Rosenbach location were transferred from the Austrian border to an internment camp at Šentvid, Ljubljana, and then moved to the area of Kočevje. Some of the interned at Šentvid also died at Kucja Valley. Slovenian historian Mitja Ferenc wrote that these repatriations started on 17 May, and liquidations of Croatians lasted until 26 May. After that, the Serbs were shot, and then the Slovenes, in a process that lasted up to 5 June. In 2006, Dubajić published a book where he talked about the massacre of Croatian soldiers at Kočevski Rog.

In 1992, 1163 bodies were excavated from 23 mass graves in the forests of Macelj, leaving around 130 possible mass grave locations unexplored.

In 2007, the Commission on Concealed Mass Graves in Slovenia analyzed the Tezno trench and found human remains at a length of 740 metres; the exact number of victims could not be determined, but Dr. Mitja Ferenc estimated a minimum of 15,000 casualties. In 2009, the Barbara Pit was uncovered in Slovenia, holding 726 human remains. The same year, more pits were uncovered on two locations near the Croatian-Slovenian border, one near the village of Harmica and the other near Gornji Hrašćan, estimated to hold a total of around 4,500 bodies.

Regarding Partisan treatment of Ustaše prisoners, Croatian historian Jozo Tomasevich notes:

Considering the nature of the struggle among the various competing forces during the Second World War in Yugoslavia, the Ustaša atrocities against the Serbian population in the territory of the Independent State of Croatia and against all pro-Partisan Croats, the fact that the Ustaše adhered to the Nazis to the bitter end, and finally the fact that the Ustaša leadership wanted to put its troops at the disposal of the Western Allies for possible use against Yugoslav and other Communists, no mercy on the part of the Yugoslav Partisans toward these troops could have been expected.

Throughout the war, the status of prisoners from the regular army of the NDH, the Croatian Home Guard (domobrani), was relatively benign – Partisans would have merely ridiculed the captured domobran soldiers and then released them to their homes if they didn't want to join the uprising. However, on 13 January 1945 Ante Pavelić ordered for the domobrani to be merged with the Ustaša military, which put the entire force of est. 280,000 men at risk of death if captured.

The bulk of the NDH leadership escaped as early as 8 May, fleeing to Western Europe and Latin America, including Ante Pavelić, and the Yugoslav Partisans were only able to capture a small part of the senior military officers.