Translated by Dr. Dorothy McClellan

This is the entire speech of the Franciscan that everyone is talking about. 

He also quotes a famous statement that became 'a sign of a time, an attitude and a misery'

Here in this place of historical memory, there are more questions than answers, more ‘Why?’ than ‘Because’, more ‘How is it possible?’ than ‘Is it impossible?’ Eighty years have passed since the tragedy that left hundreds of thousands of innocent people dead and missing... 80 years of silence about this crime. Oh, how painful that time was:

•  The pits became dumps. Man was reduced to garbage.

•  Factories, homes, even schools and playgrounds for children were built on mass graves.

•  The murderers were declared national heroes. They are still celebrated.

•  “The atomic bombs dropped on Japanese cities killed more than 240,000 people, which ended the war, and after the end of that same war, a massacre was committed in the Slovenian forests against many more people: Croatian prisoners, women, children, the elderly and soldiers” (A. Ž.)

WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THAT?

The old man was afraid to tell the truth to his children. Children became people in the darkness of ignorance!  Whispering became the only transmitter of truth!  A time of silence and waiting for opposing ideas to disappear, to die? Many longed for the death of an idea to mean the death of its consequences, but its consequences became a system of division, attack and lies. The fate of a person depends on what ideas his or her life are based on!  So, we ask ourselves: Who shapes our point of view? Therefore, the question is: How do we build the future when the past is not clear to us?

Therefore: What you tell your children and grandchildren is important! A family story can be part of a national story, but it can also be part of our own deception that we are more inclined to believe because everyone believes it.  

However: If a person tells the truth, he is not afraid of its interpretations. Truth is always the strongest foundation! It is divine. It can bear all its burdens. But truth is also the greatest victim of all delusions, all violence, all evil and all communism, Nazism and otherisms that are too many to count here!

Without fear, truth is strongest! Regardless of the consequences, the truth can carry all its burdens. Great people are always ready to admit mistakes, seek and offer forgiveness. That's the only way to move forward. On the contrary, war continues. The truth is always its greatest victim. And who wants that?

Yes, even today we are wondering:  What is Europe like after the Second World War? When will this old lady face those years? It's as if her fate is in chaos. Again today! She seems to live in Kafka's paradox that says that some insects are transformed into people, and no one noticed their transformation. Now they have become the measure of our existence. Is that really so? When a man changes his face, anything can occur!

However, people who are enlightened by the truth know that the solution to a problem is always to face the truth. As the great writer said: “War does not end when the last shots stop, but when all the bones are dug up…” (Ismail Kadare). That indeed “death demands respect”. Every death demands respect because it speaks of peace to life.

SELF-EXAMINATION

This year we celebrate anniversaries and memories: Church and national, historical and sacrificial. 1100 years of the Croatian kingdom, 80 years of the tragedy of Bleiburg and the Stations of the Cross. The Stations of the Cross, pits and execution sites are a Croatian story that is denied its existence. 35 years since the beginning of the path of freedom. Oh, how important it is to look ourselves in the eye! Where did we sin? History is long, but so is the long list of Croatian delusions, traitors, ideologies, criminals, and order-givers. Oh, what a high price the ordinary Croatian man whose names we read in this cemetery paid. Oh, how AG Matoš summed it up: “We have more traitors than all of Europe put together, but we treat them in a very strange way… Croats cherish their traitors as their greatest national treasure.” (AG Matoš, 1901)

Oh, how much there has been throughout history, from the Croatian nobility, kings and bans to our centuries and days.

The Croatian people survived the centuries of suffering and those two weeping centuries of recent history.

They survived the Turks and all kinds of attacks from the East and the West.

They survived poor leaders, sold souls, weak characters.

They survived lost battles and planned betrayals.

They survived all possible associations and Yugoslavisms of various Croatian heads.

They survived Orionism, autonomism, and all dictatorships that end in isms.

They survived the tragedies of the 20th century:  Bleiburg, the crossroads, the Bare Islands, Gradiška, Zenica, emigrant murders, Ozna and UDBA, departures and relocations, silence and divisions.

Our brave women, mothers and grandmothers survived a time when all their men were killed and they were left in poverty, stone and suffering, and their only strength was the eternal whisper: "Hail Mary..."

We also survived the beginning of the 21st century. Croats survived and outlived all the misery contained in the famous statement: “Locate, identify, arrest, transfer.” It became a sign of a time, an attitude, and misery.

The Croatian people survived all the sales and trade. Salespeople are often the best and most loyal. Salespeople of all possible colors. As if the idea that says: “It is easier to deceive people than to convince them that they have been deceived” was in effect. (Mark Twain)

The Croatian people survived attacks “for home”, “for family”, “for faith”, attacks on everything that was “FOR”. 

They also survived strange attacks on the white and red fields of the coat of arms of their history and present. It is as if some are counting the red and white blood cells of a nation.

Foto: David Knez

We also survived all possible imaginary divisions and many prohibitions. They forbade Marko to sing, Ivan to remember, Ljuba to speak the truth, Zvonka to live in freedom, Ante to defend his own, Kati to look for her son, Mari to bury her husband...

The more prohibitions that were imposed, the freer the Croatian people became. This is always a life lesson. Because in prohibitions and persecutions, freedom becomes stronger, the spirit becomes firm, and the heart resolute. The Croatian people survived many upbringings and re-educations. An educational philosophy was developed to perfection, which the Polish dissident Bronisław Wildstein defined as the "pedagogy of shame". Yes, shame was constantly imposed on this Croatian people, shame of the past, shame for this and that, shame because we are tied to this or that, shame because we wanted a state, shame because we want to BE.

We must say as a people, enough is enough! Enough is enough because imposed “shame” is not shame, imposed “truth” is not truth, imposed “history” is not history. Oh, the common people just wondered: How long, how long? How long will injustice, how long will lies… how long.. Or as the wise man says: “How long will pigs call us dirty?” (Fr. Šimo Šimić, Humac 1981).

Oh, how many of these names are in this cemetery and how many are in nameless cemeteries who are victims of injustice, lies and persecution of all kinds. Injustice echoes through centuries and generations and that is why peace has always been tenuous. We hear so often about facing the past, and I wonder: How come we don't face it?

How is it that there is a lack of those among Croatians who have the courage to tell the truth on behalf of their families, to find the murdered, to testify out of love for children who deserve to grow up in the truth? 

How is it that German courts are conducting trials of Croatian perpetrators, while Croatians are silent?

How is it that even the BBC is producing  programs about the assassination of a Croatian emigrant, while we are silent about dozens of them?

How is it that we are the only nation in a European country where the dictator, the criminal Tito, is still honored as a great man, and streets and squares remain in his honor?

How is it that Slovenia managed to win a resolution on the crimes of communism (communists) in the European Parliament, while a month ago the majority of the Croatian Parliament voted against the day of remembrance for the victims of communism? Why do victims have a scale of (dis)respect?

How is it that for decades there has been a German association, the Volksbund, that takes care of German military cemeteries all over the world? Their representatives are still here with us today. And we can't do that in our own Mirogoj, let alone throughout our entire homeland? How is that possible?

God, how many questions? And we brag about who will be first, whose story will be more expensive, whose book will sell more, where more people will come and whose side I am on… Oh God, Oh God, the great vanity in lives that should breathe wisdom!!!

 

THERE IS ONE

But there is one who guides history and life. There is one who constantly reminds us of the importance of love, the only commandment important for man. There is one who dies out of love for the lives of others! His name is Jesus! In him we find the source, the strength, and the way. “Jesus calls us to give the world flavor, meaning, purpose, direction and desire. That is a humble position, isn’t it?”

Yes, he tells us that one's days should be spent in love.

Yes, he tells us that love encourages a person to speak the truth.

Yes, he tells us that he who is in the eyes of the world a "freak" or an "idiot" (like Prince Mishkin in Dostoevsky) because he does good and speaks the truth, that he does not share, does not harbor hatred towards anyone, lives the life of a righteous person because there is love and goodness beyond human weakness… Thus, only love builds the present and future world. There is no sin in it. It gives meaning to everything!

"If there is any substitute for love, it is memory," Joseph Brodsky.

That is why memory belongs to the life of a saint. Memory brings Christ to the altar of sacrifice. That is why this cemetery is. That is why this memory is. Memory always follows the path of truth! That is why we are here. That is why we should be here every year, in every decade to come. That is why these crosses are here! That is why it is essential to give importance to memory and to build a life on the truth. Only the truth! It alone liberates.

Bile Peace Cemetery, August 23, 2025.