Croatia: Slovenia: Austria:

Invitation to the Symposium

The entire southern Carinthia from Bleiburger field to Viktringer field overcrowd with masses of refugees. The Viktring field at 15.05.1945 with the view to the monastery building

(Luftbilddatenbank Dr. Carls GmbH – All rights for Austria.

Source of Originals: National Archives and Records Administration

(NARA) in Washington DC)

The massacres of Bleiburg and the tragedy of Viktring field

The fate of the military and civilian refugees in

the area of Austrian-Yugoslav border in May and June 1945

Saturday, May 11th 2013 from 15:00

Sunday, May 12th 2013 from 09:00 clock At Stift Viktring (Gymnasium) – Barocksaal

Stift-Viktring-Straße 25, A-9073 Klagenfurt (Celovec)/ Viktring (Vetrinj) / Austria

A crossborder and multidimensional „project for contemporary history

/Bildungsprojekt Zeitgeschichte in Kärnten“

Programme

Saturday, May 11th 2013

15:00 – 15:45 Clock Welcome and Introduction Mag. Dr. Florian Thomas Rulitz (Austria / Leader of the education project and symposium of contemporary history in Carinthia)

Univ. Doz. Dr. Tamara Griesser-Pečar (Slovenia / SCNR-Institute) Univ. Prof. Dr. sc. Josip Jurčević (Croatia / Institute Ivo Pilar)

Joze Dezman (Director of Arhiv Slovenia)

Words of Welcome: Christian Scheider (Mayor of the city Klagenfurt/(Celovec))

Dr. Valentin Inzko (High European Union Special Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina)

Msgr. Dr. Josef Marketz (Vicar of the Diocese of Gurk (Carinthia) for Catholic Education Centre Sodalitas (Austria)

Greeting words from representatives of Official Carinthia, the City of Klagenfurt,

The Republic of Slovenia and The Republic of Croatia

Presentation: Mag. Christian Wehrschütz

15:45 -19:00 Clock

Univ.-Prof. i.R. Dr. Heinz Dieter Pohl: Ideas on equal reappraising of Nazi- and communist crimes in the Alps-Adriatic region.

Ivan Ott (Contemporary witness and author) My way from the Viktring Field via Bleiburg to the Yugoslavian concentration camp Teharje/Tüchern in May 1945.

Mag. Dr. Florian Thomas Rulitz: The massacres of Bleiburg Field and Viktring in May 1945. Hidden crimes against the humanity on Austrian State territory.

Mag. Christian Wehrschütz: The Yugoslavian succession states and their lacks of reappraising the communist crimes.

Programme

Sunday, May 12th 2013

08:30 – 11:30 Clock

Univ. Prof. Dr. sc. Josip Jurčević: The „Massacres of Bleiburg“ as the greatest mass killings in the history of the Croats.

Jože Dežman: The tragedy of Viktring in May 1945 – crimes against the humanity in Slovenia after the Second World War.

Univ. Doz. Dr. Tamara Griesser-Pečar: „A British-Yugoslavian horse trade in Klagenfurt ?“ The Agreement of Yalta and the delivery of refugees to Yugoslavia in May 1945.

Univ. Doz. Dr. sc. Zlatko Hasanbegović: The Muslim victims of the massacres of Bleiburg.

Dr. Damjan Hančič: The mass graves in the area of Kamnik/Stein and in Gorenska/Oberkrain.-

. 11:30 – 13:00 Clock

Lunch break with buffet, after it Catholic memorial mass in the church of Viktring/Vetrinje

13: 00– 18:00 Clock

Roman Leljak: The victims of the massacres of Bleiburg and Viktring in the Slovenian south Styria/ Štajerska/Untersteiermark.

Dipl. Ing. Zvonko Springer (Contemporary witness): The dead march (križni put) across Yugoslavia.

Bože Vukušić: The UDBA-terrorism against Croatian emigrants in Austria and Germany after the Second World War.

Mijo Jurić: Experienced pursuit by the YU secret service in Austria. The secret services OZNA und UDBA as a long range of the communist regimes.

Dr. Malte Olschewski: Tito between mass murders and mistresses-psychological aspects of Josiip Broz Tito and the of partisans killings austrian of may 1945.

Programme

Ivan Ott Is reporting after 68 years as contemporary witness at the former location of his internment about his experience at the refugee camp

Viktring and surviving Massacres of Bleiburg and of the Tito- KZ-Teharje / Tüchern.

During the symposium will be open the bilingual (Slovanian-German) ehibition „Hot traces of a cold war“ - Vroče sledi hladne vojne / Heiße Spuren des

Kalten Krieges.

Presentation: Florian Thomas Rulitz (Österreich), Tamara Griesser-Pečar, Jože Dežman (Director of the Slovenian National Archives), Josip Jurčević (Kroatien). Responsible for the cross-border a nd mu l t id im ens iona l Alps-Adria-Symposion: Catholic Education Centre Sodalitas Katholisches Bildungshaus Sodalitas Österreich | Dom prosvete v Tinjah, study centre for national reconciliation in slovenia | Študijski center za narodno spravo v Ljubljani Institute of Social Sciences in Zagreb | Institut društvenih znanosti v Zagrebu, Mohorejeva Celovec- Hanzi Filipic)

For information phone: 0043/650/271 40 40 / bildungsprojekt2013@gmail.com

With friendly sponsoring:

REPUBLIKA SLOVENIJA

MINISTRSTVO ZA IZOBRAŽEVANJE, ZNANOST, KULTURO IN ŠPORT ARHIV REPUBLIKE SLOVENIJE

Programme

Symposium and Exhibition about the MASSACRES OF BLEIBURG and the VIKTRING FIELD

Cross-border and cross-institutional Alps-Adriatic-Symposium.

„The massacres of Bleiburg and the tragedy of the Viktring Field“

The fate of the military and civilian refugees in the area of the Austro-Yugoslav state-border in May and June 1945 in relation to the Austrian Province of Carinthia

Also a survivor of the Tito concentration camp Teharje/Tüchern and the massacres of Bleiburg and further a contemporary witness interned in May 1945 on Viktring Field are reporting at the symposium.

Welcome ladies and gentlemen !

At the first cross-border and cross-institutional symposium concerning the topic „The massacres of Bleiburg and the tragedy on Viktring field” which will be held by the historians Mag. Dr. Florian Thomas Rulitz (Carinthia historian), Univ. Doz. Dr. Tamara Griesser-Pečar (Slovenia/ SCNR-Institute), Jože Dežman (Rector of National Archives Slovenia)and Univ. Prof. Dr. sc. Josip Jurčević (Kroatien / Institute Ivo Pilar Zagreb) in the Baroque Hall of the abbey Stift Viktring discuss fourteen experts, victims and other interested parties the latest historical findings about the fate of the military and civilian refugees in the Austro-Yugoslavia border area in May and June 1945 and the consequences for the Province of Carinthia.

Historians have found that the Yalta agreement is obsolete in the delivery of Yugoslav refugees. Several documents are indicating, that the British have used the refugees for a horse deal. In the Klagenfurt negotiation rounds of 15, 19 and 20 May was negotiated the surrender of the refugees versus the withdrawal of Yugoslav partisans from Carinthia. The refugees paid with their blood and lives for the further remaining of South Carinthia in Austria.

Particularly noteworthy is the planned victim’s eyewitness report of the Tito victim Ivan Ott. He will report as eyewitness, interned victim and survivor

Programme refugee of the camp Viktring, the massacres of Bleiburg and the Tito concentration camp Teharja/Tüchern.

Also the bilingual exhibition „Vroče sledi hladne vojne / Heiße Spuren des Kalten Krieges/Hot Traces of the Cold War“ is presented at the event.

Despite his international reputation especially within the anti-authoritarian and partly Marxism-critical anarchist left as a kind of “Cuddly Socialism”, it was the “Titoism” with its totalitarian features which was the ideological basis of the Second Yugoslavia –due to its revolutionary radical state-owned collectivist program often enough with totalitarian features. Nostalgia with regard to overcome authoritarian-collectivist regimes is not anomalous in this country. It is probably due to their social fundamentalism to the cozy warmth of the cold separation of bourgeois individuality canceling collectivity. They serve a very original people’s needing of belonging to a “We” like to a herd.

After the collapse of communism in Eastern and Southeastern Europe this nostalgia was soon visible in various ways: In addition to the periodic electoral successes of the Communists, often in mimicry of “social democratic” parties, they promoted extreme forms of nationalism. For example in Russia they refer to the allegedly “Great Past” also and especially to the leading under communist “Commanders” and proved herein once more the many potential points of contact of all ideological quite “left” and quite “right” policy. Their unifying bond is shortened told her belief in the blessings of a powerful state. The same has occurred in the former Yugoslavia and there is a longing for the authoritarian good old times in the form of a Tito-nostalgia. In the successor states –with few exceptions- the representatives of the various nationalisms, the warmongers of the late eighties and the nineties were members of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia with the corresponding character in regard to the practice of political business. Also for this reason an exhibition is remarkable which was originally located in Ljubljana but now will be situated in (Stift) Viktring abbey near Klagenfurt from May 11 to 12 May 2013, with the object of the repressive aspect of the “cuddle socialism” in the Slovene populated area on both sides of the former Austro-Yugoslav state-border. The announcement to this exhibition together held with a symposium by academic leaders of the contemporary historical research about Austria, Slovenia and Croatia on the Tito period is published with a responsible section of Dr. Rulitz and his work (Rulitz Florian Thomas, Der UDBA Terror gegen die kroatische

Programme politische Emigration-Bleiburger Ehrenzug- im österreichischen Kärnten, in Joze Dezman/Hanzi Filipic Hgg – The UDBA terror against the Croatian political emigration -Honorary Bleiburg Guard- in Austrian Carinthia, see Jose Dezman/Hansi Filipic) and because Rulitz has created the symposium at Viktring as leader of the “Kärnten Bildungsprokekt 2013 – Zeitgeschichte in Kärnten” (“Carinthian education project in 2013” - about contemporary history in Carinthia)

Together with the leading of the Carinthia historian Dr. Florian Rulitz for the cross-border and multi-institutional symposium entitled “The massacres of Bleiburg and the Viktring Field” are responsible the institutes for education and contemporary history from Austria (Katholisches Bildungshaus Tainach/Tinje – Catholic education centre Tainach/Tinje represented by Mag. Hanzi Filipic and Joze Kopeinig)), Slovenia (Study Centre for National Reconciliation, Ljubljana represented by Univ.Doz. Tamara Griesser Pecar, Maribor, and Leader of National Archives Jože Dežman) and from Croatia (Ivo Pilar Institute for Social Sciences, Zagreb, represented by Univ. Prof. Dr. sc. Josip Jurcevi.Zagreb,) Mohorjeva Celovec Hanzi Filipic) The Experts:

Mag. Dr. Florian Thomas Rulitz: Fachspezialist in Fragen der Partisanenverbrechen in Kärnten- Carinthia Historian, Leading Manager of the Symposium and the Education Project for Contemporary History. http://www.scnr.si/sl/author/damjan/ (Predstavitev znanstvene monografije dr. Floriana Thomasa Rulitza Vetrinjska in „Bleiburška tragedija“ na SCNR)

Moderation: Mag. Christian Wehrschütz ORF- (Austria Television)- Balkans correspondent in Belgrade and an acknowledged expert and connoisseur of the entire Balkan. Univ.-Prof. i.R. Dr. Heinz Dieter Pohl: Introduction Lecturer by the expert for Carinthia conflicts of language, nationality and identity (Alpen Adria- Universität Klagenfurt-Celovec)“Opfer sind Opfer” – Victims are all the same- Ideas on equal reappraising of Nazi- and communist crimes in the Alps-Adriatic region.

Univ. Prof. Dr. sc. Josip Jurcevic: University Zagreb(Agram) and Institute Ivo Pilar /

Programme Die Joze Dezman: Rector of the National Archives for Slovenia, Institute Centre for contemporary history and National Reconciliation.

Univ. Doz. Dr. Tamara Griesser-Pecar: Faculty of Advanced Social Studies, Nova Gorica); University Maribor – Slovenia and SCNR Studies Centre of National Reconciliation Ljubljana (SCNR)

Univ. Doz. Dr. sc. Zlatko Hasanbegović: University Zagreb and Institute Ivo Pilar

Dr. Damjan Hančič: Lecturer at the Center of Studies for contemporary history for National Reconciliation Slovenia (SCNR)

Mag. Hanzi Filipič: Historian of Hermagoras Publishing House / Mohorjeva Družba in Klagenfurt (Celovec)

Bože Vukušić:.Historical-intelligence trained by CIA Central Intelligence Croatia, Expert for staff problem solution for the UDBA murder investigation of the German Criminal Police as well as head commissioner of the Croatian Parliament for mass Communist genocide in Croatia.

Mijo Jurić: Author and persecuted member of priest-seminary, Victim of persecution of (UDBA) in Austria

Dr. Malte Olschewski: The Carinthia Balkan specialist has written already in his dissertation of 1967 (“The psychological warfare of Tito partisans in Carinthia and Slovenia”) about the crimes of the Communist fighters. Olschewski was now correspondent. From 1982 he was a member of the Eastern Europe Balkan editorial staff. Several books from the Karavanke mountains to the Kosovo: The history of the wars in Yugoslavia. At the Symposium in Stift-Viktring on 11.05.2013

The contemporary witness Ivan Ott

talks about the refugee camp Viktring

after 68 years at the location of his internment.

He is an important contemporary witness about the massacres of

Bleiburg and surviving of the Tito-Concentration Camp in

Teharje/Tüchern.

Programme

There is a second contemporary witness

Dipl. Ing. Zvonko Springer:

He is a contemporary witness and surviving of the death

march in May 1945, on the run to the „Gate of Freedom in the Austrian

Bleiburg" and of the Torture - and Death march (križni put- Croatian

Calvary) across Yugoslavia.

and Mijo Juric from Vienna

What expects the interested visitor, if he decides to visit the exhibition and the symposium?

The history of a borderline and also the stories about it. Namely the organizers try to illustrate how the history of this borderline was interwoven intimately with the biographies of individuals. The state-border between Austria and Yugoslavia in 1945 till 1991 was a border between two opposing political systems with their respective models of society.

First: The escape and delivery of anti-Communist Slovenes in the spring of 1945 and her killing. Now they were members of military or paramilitary units such as “Slovenian Home Defense” and civilians under the collective charge of collaboration with Nazi-Germany.

Second: Themes concerning the permeability and impermeability of the Austro-Yugoslav state-border. The cross-border activities of the anti-Communist Slovenian emigration beginning with the sale of illegal Yugoslavian literature up to the activities of armed groups in the forties and early fifties on Yugoslav territory presumably supported by emigrant groups in Austria are also discussed. But also occurrences relating to the hermetic barrier of the state-border until 1960 and for example the permission on the Yugoslav border guards to be allowed to shoot illegal border-crossers will be discussed. (Side note: It is thought that at the Austro-Yugoslav border between 1945 and 1991 are more people are killed than at the infamous Berlin Wall)

Programme Third: There is an additional focus of the exhibition to the documentation of the Slovenian minority in Carinthia 1945-1991. There were and are presently in the Austrian Province-State Carinthia strong German national trends.

The Carinthia Slovenes, who were close to the majority-Catholic conservative meaning came through the agitation of organized German nationalism in Carinthia into the paradoxical situation of being denounced in their own country as sympathizers of Titoism. However, from the perspective of the common one-dimensional left-right scheme for the Second Yugoslavia they were made to members of the so called “enemy center”, that means to political enemies.

At the same time Tito’s Yugoslavia tried to maintain the Slovenian population in Carinthia for his politics and above all to inflame the conflict between the ethnic groups.

An example: In the same period, in which the pogrom instincts of the Carinthia ”Wir-Gruppe” (“We-Group”, they followed –replaceable- to German national ideas) sublimated to bilingual road-sign-storms (Ortstafelsturm), on the other side the agents of UDBA committed several attacks on facilities of the organized German nationalism.

By Christian Planteu Journalist by the Churchpaper Sunday in Carinthia (Journalist bei der Sonntag-Kirchenzeitung)

Programme

Vabilo na simpozij

Posnetek Vetrinjskega polja oz. taborišča s samostanom z britanskega letala z dne 15. maja 1945

Avtorske pravice do rabe te slike: Luftbilddatenbank Dr. Carls GmbH – pravice do fotografij za Avstrijo: Izvirna slika je v: National Archives and Records Administration

(NARA) v Washingtonu, DC

Pliberški pokol in vetrinjska tragedija

Usoda vojaških in civilnih beguncev v avstrijsko-jugoslovanskem obmejnem območju

maja in junija 1945

Sobota, 11. maja 2013, od 15. ure Nedelja, 12. maja 2013, od 9. ure

Vetrinjski samostan – Baročna dvorana

Stift-Viktring-Straße 25, A-9073 Klagenfurt/Viktring -Celovec/Vetrinj, Avstrija

Program

Sobota, 11. maja 2013 15.–15.45: Pozdrav in uvod: Florian Thomas Rulitz (Avstrija) Tamara Griesser-Pečar (Študijski center za narodno spravo, Ljubljana) Josip Jurčević (Inštitut za družbene vede Ivo Pilar, Zagreb) Jože Dežman Pozdravne besede: Christian Scheider (župan mesta Celovec) Valentin Inzko (visoki predstavnik za BiH in posebni pooblaščenec EU za Bosno in Hercegovino) Jože Marketz (vikar krške škofije) 15.45 do 19.: Heinz Dieter Pohl: Razmišljanja o enakopravnem zgodovinskem spoprijemanju z nacionalsocialističnimi in komunističnimi zločini v prostoru Alpe-Jadran Ivan Ott (priča in avtor): Moja pot z Vetrinjskega polja preko Pliberka v jugoslovansko koncentracijsko taborišče Teharje v maju 1945 Florian Thomas Rulitz: Kraji pobojev od Vetrinjskega do Pliberškega polja maja 1945. Zamolčani zločini proti človekovemu dostojanstvu na avstrijskem ozemlju Christian Wehrschütz: Države naslednice Jugoslavije in njihov odnos do zločinov komunističnega totalitarnega režima Moderacija: Christian Wehrschütz (dopisnik Avstrijske radiotelevizije /ORF/ v Beogradu)

Program

Nedelja, 12. maja 2013

8.30–11.30:

Josip Jurčević: „Pliberški pokol“ kot največji množični poboj v zgodovini Hrvatov

Jože Dežman: Totalitarni epicentri regije Alpe–Jadran v luči pomladi 1945 na Koroškem

Tamara Griesser Pečar: „Britansko-jugoslovanska kravja kupčija v Celovcu?“ – Jaltski sporazum in izročitev beguncev maja 1945 v Jugoslavijo

Zlatko Hasanbegović: Muslimanske žrtve „pliberškega pokola“

Damjan Hančič: Množična grobišča v okolici Kamnika in na Gorenjskem

11.30–13.:

Odmor z bifejem, nato spominska sv. maša v samostanski cerkvi 13.–18.:

Roman Leljak: Žrtve vetrinjske in pliberške tragedije v Slovenski Štajerski

Zvonko Springer (priča): Križev pot (pohod smrti) po Jugoslaviji

Bože Vukušić: Udbovski teror proti hrvaškim emigrantom v Avstriji in Nemčiji po drugi svetovni vojni

Mijo Jurić (priča): Kako so nas v Avstriji nadzirali in preganjali udbovski agenti

Malte Olschewski: Tito med množičnimi umori in priležnicami – psihološki vidiki osebnosti Josipa Broza-Tita

Contemporary Witness Report and Exhibition

Ivan Ott Ott bo predaval o svojih doživetjih v begunskem taborišču v Vetrinju ter doživetjih kot zapornik titoističnega koncentracijskega taborišča na Teharjah. V času simpozija bo na ogled dvojezična (slovensko-nemška) razstava „Vroče sledi hladne vojne/Heiße Spuren des Kalten Krieges“. Organizacija simpozija: Florian Rulitz Thomas (Avstrija), Tamara Griesser-Pečar, Jože Dežman (Slovenija), Josip Jurčević (Hrvaška). Nosilci simpozija: Katoliški dom prosvete iz Tinj/Tainach, Študijski center za narodno spravo iz Ljubljane, Inštitut za družbene vede Ivo Pilar iz Zagreba, Arhiv Slovenija, Mohorejeva Celovec- Hanzi Filipic Vprašanja in prijave: 0043/650/271 40 40 in bildungsprojekt2013@gmail.com Za podporo se zahvaljujemo:

REPUBLIKA SLOVENIJA MINISTRSTVO ZA IZOBRAŽEVANJE, ZNANOST, KULTURO IN ŠPORT

ARHIV REPUBLIKE SLOVENIJE

Contemporary Witness Report and Exhibition