Monument to the victims of Dachau processes
Processes like the Slovenian Dachau processes and the events that accompanied them were not unusual for all communist regimes in Europe of the era, as similar processes against former concentration camp prisoners were reported also from other Eastern bloc countries. In the Soviet Union, often without any trials or convictions, they sent the former prisoners of Nazi concentration camps to their own camps and prisons; there, some wound serve an ‘additional sentence’ spanning a decade or more, many also died. The main accusation was the suspicion of collaboration with German secret services or any other form of ‘collaboration’ with the Nazis, all according to the ‘logic’ that it is better to incarcerate an innocent person or two too many than to let a guilty man roam free. In this sense, the Slovenian Dachau processes were not particular in any way. Furthermore, it is hinted that at least part of the initiative stemmed from Soviet sources, because Soviet secret services would warn the Yugoslav authorities of hidden Gestapo agents among former concentration camp inmates, especially those inmates who were members of camp party committees. There was even supposed to be a list of potential agents of this type who were supposed to be active in Slovenia in particular. This list is purported to have been handed to the Yugoslav authorities in 1946, yet nothing of the sort has yet been discovered. An interesting fact is that serious doubts about the Dachau processes and particularly the judicial and extrajudicial processes appeared from the 1950’s onward, the highest levels of the Slovenian government and communist party held several discussions on the subject, publishing half-baked recognitions that the processes might be unjustified after all and that some convicts are innocent, yet it was only during the tenth congress of the League of Communists of Slovenia held in 1989 that the declaration was adopted on the total invalidity of all accusations and convictions and on the final and full cancellation of all consequences of convictions in these processes. In the end of October 1989, a monument (cenotaph) was unveiled at the Municipal Cemetery of Ljubljana remembering the victims of the Dachau processes.
Source and further reading (in Slovene): http://www.skupnostdachau.si/index.php?page=dachauski-procesi-v-sloveniji
Processes like the Slovenian Dachau processes and the events that accompanied them were not unusual for all communist regimes in Europe of the era, as similar processes against former concentration camp prisoners were reported also from other Eastern bloc countries. In the Soviet Union, often without any trials or convictions, they sent the former prisoners of Nazi concentration camps to their own camps and prisons; there, some wound serve an ‘additional sentence’ spanning a decade or more, many also died. The main accusation was the suspicion of collaboration with German secret services or any other form of ‘collaboration’ with the Nazis, all according to the ‘logic’ that it is better to incarcerate an innocent person or two too many than to let a guilty man roam free. In this sense, the Slovenian Dachau processes were not particular in any way. Furthermore, it is hinted that at least part of the initiative stemmed from Soviet sources, because Soviet secret services would warn the Yugoslav authorities of hidden Gestapo agents among former concentration camp inmates, especially those inmates who were members of camp party committees. There was even supposed to be a list of potential agents of this type who were supposed to be active in Slovenia in particular. This list is purported to have been handed to the Yugoslav authorities in 1946, yet nothing of the sort has yet been discovered. An interesting fact is that serious doubts about the Dachau processes and particularly the judicial and extrajudicial processes appeared from the 1950’s onward, the highest levels of the Slovenian government and communist party held several discussions on the subject, publishing half-baked recognitions that the processes might be unjustified after all and that some convicts are innocent, yet it was only during the tenth congress of the League of Communists of Slovenia held in 1989 that the declaration was adopted on the total invalidity of all accusations and convictions and on the final and full cancellation of all consequences of convictions in these processes. In the end of October 1989, a monument (cenotaph) was unveiled at the Municipal Cemetery of Ljubljana remembering the victims of the Dachau processes.
Source and further reading (in Slovene): http://www.skupnostdachau.si/index.php?page=dachauski-procesi-v-sloveniji
