Kočevski Rog massacre

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Kočevski Rog massacre was a series of massacres in Slovenia in late May 1945. This was shortly after World War II. It happened near Kočevski Rog. Thousands of members of the Slovene Home Guard and their families were executed by special units of the Yugoslav Partisans.[1] They were thrown into various pits and caves, which were then sealed with explosives. Several thousand (between 10,000 and 12,000, according to certain sources)[2][3] war prisoners died in these executions. They had been repatriated by the British military authorities from Austria, where they had fled.

The Russian British author Nikolai Tolstoy wrote an account of the events in his book The Minister and the Massacres. British author John Corsellis, who served in Austria with the British Army, has written a historic book of these events, called Slovenia 1945: Memories of Death and Survival after World War II.[4]

Boris Karapandzic writes that there were 12,000 Slovenian "home guards", 3,000 Serbian volunteer troops, 1,000 Montenegrin "chetniks", and 2,500 Croatian "home guards".[5] Karapandzic's report is confirmed in a subsequent book by a group of scholars.[6]

References[change | change source]

  1. European Public Hearing on “Crimes Committed by Totalitarian Regimes" Ref: Milko Mikola Crimes Committed by Totalitarian Regimes. Chapter 3. Mass killings without court trials Page 159.
  2. Encyclopaedia Britannica: Slovenia (Word War Two)
  5. book's title: KOCEVJE -Tito's bloodiest crime, year 1958
  6. Tudi mi smo umrli za domovino / Slovenia 1941-1948-1952: anche noi siamo morti per la Patria-translation: also us died in defense of homeland-by various authors, published in Trieste, year 2005, in Sloven language with Italian translation