A traditional commemoration for the victims of extrajudicial killings in the woods of Kocevski Rog, southeast, was held on Sunday at a mass grave of several thousand members of the Domobranci militia who were liquidated by partisan units in June 1945.
The 16th commemoration marking 60 years since the Kocevski Rog killings took place at a chapel. The chapel, designed by architect Janez Kozelj, was entrusted to the local perish by the government last year.
The memorial service began at 11 AM with a mass to be celebrated by Ljubljana Archbishop and Slovenian Metropolitan Alojz Uran.
According to some sources, around 11,100 Domobranci officers and soldiers as well as 500 to 600 civilians were sent back to Slovenia from Austria's Carinthia between 27 and 31 May 1945.
They were returned by the British allies and received by the Yugoslav army. The majority are believed to have been killed at Kocevski Rog and thrown into several caves in the forests, the most known being the Jama Pod Krenom cave.
The first commemoration in memory of these victims and post-war killings in general was held at Kocevski Rog in July 1990. The event, known as the reconciliation ceremony, was addressed by Milan Kucan, the then president of Slovenia.
At the time Kucan stressed that such a symbolic act of reconciliation "could have or should have happened before". Yet, new times had to come first for the Slovenians who were at the opposite sides in WWII to be able to reconcile with "our past" in order to "let it become history".
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