Sites of Resistance: Marking the Anniversary of Zagreb’s WWII Liberation

On that day in 1945, anti-fascist Partisan forces reclaimed the city from Nazi-allied administration of the Independent State of Croatia, NDH, a puppet state established in 1941 and run by the fascist Ustasa movement with the support of Nazi Germany and fascist Italy, which passed harsh racial laws against Serbs, Jews and Roma people.

"We always look [the history of the NDH] through what happened to Serbs, Jews and Roma - and of course their sacrifice is the greatest - but no one lived well in the Independent State of Croatia," Klasic said.

"Famine ravaged Zagreb, half of the city had no water, no electricity… I believe that for the most citizens - and the bombing of the city by the Allies had been frequent in recent months - the end of the war and liberation must have looked like something they hoped for," he continued.

He explained that in the city itself, there was resistance to the occupiers led by anti-fascists, Communist Party members, National Liberation Movement sympathisers and people who were "simply opponents of the Ustasa regime and Nazi Germany".

However, memorialisation of the struggle for liberation in Zagreb is patchy. Some important sites of resistance have not even been marked, or the plaques that marked them are in poor condition or have been removed.

River Sava: Partisans enter the city

On May 8, 1945, Partisan forces crossed the River Sava and entered the city. Although the majority of forces loyal to the Nazi-aligned Independent State of Croatia had left the city a day before, some fighting continued across the city. The liberation ended the Ustasa regime's four-year rule.

Klasic said that before that date, both Partisan leader Josip Broz Tito and the Yugoslav Army command expected...