The 32nd anniversary of the fall and suffering of Vukovar in the Homeland War, during which 2,717 defenders and civilians were killed, with 374 still unaccounted for, is being marked on Saturday under the motto "Vukovar - My choice for better or worse".
Thousands of patriots from across Croatia will walk in the Remembrance Procession to commemorate 18 November 1991, when the eastern town’s defence was broken after a three-month siege by the Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA) and Serb paramilitary units.
The 5.5-kilometre-long procession to the Homeland War Victims Memorial Cemetery begins outside the Dr Juraj Njavro National Memorial Hospital, where the main commemoration will be held. The highest state officials are expected to take part in the procession, led by the president, the parliament speaker and the prime minister, who will lay wreaths and light candles at the cemetery.
As in the past, small Croatian flags will be placed outside the white crosses at the cemetery which symbolise those exhumed from a mass grave at the nearby New Cemetery, 936 persons killed in the aggression on Vukovar.
Mass will be celebrated by the apostolic nuncio in Croatia, Archbishop Giorgio Lingua.
That is the biggest mass grave in Europe after WWII. Along with the Ovčara mass grave, from which 200 victims were exhumed, persons taken from the Vukovar hospital after the town’s fall and killed at that farm near Vukovar on 20 November 1991, it is one of the most horrible symbols of Vukovar’s suffering during the autumn 1991 aggression.
Vukovar was under siege for 87 days. Fighting ended on 18 November 1991 with the occupation of the town, which lasted until 15 January 1998 and the peaceful reintegration of the Danube river region, whereby Vukovar and other occupied towns and villages were reintegrated into Croatia’s constitutional order.
According to the Vukovar hospital’s data, 1,219 defenders and civilians were wounded during the three-month siege. About 7,000 POWs were taken to Serb-run concentration camps, while 22,000 Croats and other non-Serbs were driven out of the town.
Hundreds of children lost their parents and 374 persons are still listed as missing since autumn 1991.
The names of the 2,717 defenders and civilians killed can be read on memorial plaques put up at the town’s Franciscan monastery.
To commemorate 18 November 1991, parliament adopted a decision in 1999 proclaiming Vukovar Remembrance Day to honour everyone who participated in the defence of Vukovar, the symbol of Croatia’s freedom.
In 2019, the government adopted a decision declaring 18 November a public holiday which is observed as Homeland War Victims Remembrance Day and Vukovar and Škabrnja Victims Remembrance Day.
Political bickering over procession and poster
This year’s commemoration has been overshadowed by political bickering after Vukovar’s town authorities said the Remembrance Procession would be headed by members of the Croatian Defence Force (HOS) and printed a commemorative poster with a highlighted U in the motto, which in Croatian reads “Vukovar – moj izbor U dobru i u zlu”. “Vukovar – my choice for better of worse” was said by French volunteer Jean Michel Nicolier, an HOS member killed at Ovčara.
Mayor Ivan Penava accused the War Veterans Ministry and the Homeland Reverence Council of trying to “steal” the Remembrance Procession from the residents of Vukovar, which the state authorities resolutely dismissed.
Also contentious was Penava’s message that everyone was welcome in the procession, except “those who deny the values of the Homeland War.” The message was condemned by the prime minister and the government as well as a large part of the opposition and associations of veterans and Homeland War victims.
The day-long official commemorative events start at 1000 hrs Saturday in the yard of the town hospital.