In May 1945, as the Second World War ended in Europe, Croatian Ustaša forces, Slovene Home Guardsmen, other Axis collaborators, and civilians fled Yugoslavia toward Austria, hoping to surrender to the British. Instead, many were handed over or returned to Tito’s Yugoslav Partisans.

What followed became known as the Bleiburg repatriations. Tens of thousands of prisoners and others were forced on brutal marches across Yugoslavia, while many were executed without trial and buried in mass graves at sites including Tezno, Kočevski Rog, Macelj, and Huda Jama.

Although many among the defeated forces had served regimes responsible for horrific wartime crimes, the killings that followed their surrender became one of the most controversial episodes in the violent aftermath of the Second World War in Yugoslavia.