Kumrovec Mayor Robert Splajt (HNS) expects about 15,000 visitors to that town on Saturday for Day of Youth and Joy, adding that he doesn't want any politicking and warning politicians them that if they came with certain messages, they would be lost in the crowd.

Day of Youth and Joy is a party. We don’t want any politicking, we simply want Kumrovec to be presented positively, for people to realise that there is no ideology here and we simply want people to have fun, he said speaking of the celebration of former Yugoslav president Josip Broz Tito’s birthday.

According to media reports, Saturday’s event has come across a negative reaction from some war veteran associations that have called for the gathering and displays of the former Yugoslavia flag to be banned.

Kolar: I can understand the reaction of Croatian veterans

Krapina-Zagorje County Prefect Zeljko Kolar said that “on the one hand, I can understand their views.”

“I as a Croatian veteran can understand the reaction of Croatian veterans to some extent, particularly since the former Yugoslav flag with the red star was carried into Vukovar (when the city fell during the 1990s war). Anyone who was there at the time, who wore a Croatian uniform, anyone who watched that on television, naturally feels aversion toward that,” Kolar said but underscored that it is necessary to send a clear message that that was not the JNA Yugoslav army nor Tito’s army.

Had that been the JNA, he said, it would not have attacked Croatia or Slovenia, and “it included Kosovars and Macedonians, but they weren’t there.”

Day of Youth and Joy is about anti-fascist fighters and the Partisan movement and it is quite understandable that they come to Kumrovec with those symbols, Kolar said.