Re:Spomenik - Futuristic Communist Yougoslavia monuments
by drats on Sunday October 24, 2010 @03:58PM
(#1827074)
Your family has some serious history. I consider the guns that killed Arch Duke Ferdinand to be some of the most important objects in the physical world (outside the much more important realm of ideas). I visited the war museum in Vienna where they are kept, alongside the car the duke was riding in and his uniform, a year ago. All the events of 20th century as we know it are shaped by a few objects in that room. Sure some will say they are "merely" the sparks that lit the potential energy in the powderkegs of history but, nevertheless, they are the sparks that did it.
Re:Spomenik - Futuristic Communist Yougoslavia monuments
by rospaya on Monday October 25, 2010 @03:06PM
(#1831122)
> Anyway, we weren't allowed to visit again until '01. When we did, we attempted to visit Jasenovac, but the police had road blocks on every road approaching the site in a wide radius. We were blocked from approaching the site from two different directions, and on the second attempt were essentially told to go away and that there was 'nothing to see here'.
This isn't likely. Croatia got a progressive government in 2000., that openly endorsed visiting Jasenovac and fought right-wing elements that wanted to forget that shameful period.
Tudman was an autocrat, but Jasenovac only suffered in funding and public events there, you could visit any time you wanted and I learned about Jasenovac in school during the 90's, about the same what says in the article.
Also, Tudman had the crazy idea to mix both Partisan and Ustase (Nazi collaborators) victims and soldiers. Luckily that didn't happen.
Anyway, we weren't allowed to visit again until '01. When we did, we attempted to visit Jasenovac, but the police had road blocks on every road approaching the site in a wide radius. We were blocked from approaching the site from two different directions, and on the second attempt were essentially told to go away and that there was 'nothing to see here'.
The Croatian government has since become a lot more progressive, but there is still a large element of denial for what is essentially the Auschwitz of the Balkans.
The old Yugoslav government of Tito also didn't acknowledge what took place at Jasenovac - which is a large part of the reason why the rest of the world doesn't know about it. Tito pushed it all aside in the name of moving forward with 'brotherhood and unity'.
And btw, a lot of the monuments that you see in this post, at least those that were dedicated to the partizans and 'the workers', have since been heavily graffitied and vandalized. The local populations took their anger for the former state out on these huge monuments that were built at large expense.