World War II was officially over and many thousands of German friendly Croats were fleeing from the Yugoslav ( mostly Serbian ) forces, and Partisans (freedom fighters) in order to surrender to the British Army, which had liberated Carinthia from the Nazi-German occupation.
The British directed that these Croat soldiers should surrender to Tito's Yugoslavia, who, in fact, had promised treatment becoming to Prisoners of War.
Although, it is said, that the Croats had carried white flags of surrender, a mass execution, without any trial whatever, commenced, concentrated in a field, just outside of Bleiburg.
Today it is almost impossible to determine the actual numbers of those killed in this massacre.
The Croats, for reasons of their own, greatly exaggerate the number of victims, while the Serbs, again for their own reasons understate them equally drastically.
Independent investigation (if there is such a thing ) have arrived at 30,000 killed.
Mostly men, but also some women and children.
Each year, on or about the 15th day of May, Croats come to Bleiburg to commemorate this crime.
This year there were 16,000 who arrived in several hundred buses and many private automobiles, remembering their dead.
Oh well: Just another mass killing !
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