BHS / ENG

310

 

Vukovar

We decided to visit Vukovar because of the specific signification of the town in the Croatian “Homeland War” 1991-1995 and in the remembrance of this war. We visited three memory sites related to the siege of the town in 1991: the Memorial-Museum in the hospital of Vukovar, the Ovčara Memorial and the Ovčara mass grave site, and the Vukovar Memorial Cemetery. The hospital in Vukovar which was under heavy shelling throughout 1991 but continued operating in the basement until the fall of the town, is today an operating hospital, but its basement has been used as a Memorial-Museum. Ovcara is situated 5 km south of the city; more than 200 persons were brought there after the capture of the hospital and executed there in the night from 21 to 22nd November 1991: a monument has been erected at the place where the victims were executed and buried in a mass grave, and a Memorial established in 2006 in one of the hangars were the victims were brought before their execution. The “Memorial Cemetery of Homeland War Victims” was established on the site of a mass grave were 938 Croatian soldiers and civilians were buried after the occupation of Vukovar in November 1991. After the visits, we went to the “European House Vukovar” whose main aim is to overcome the deep ethnic divisions which the war has provoked.


Pictures of the visit:

Ovcara Memorial

Ovcara Memorial

Vukovar Memorial Cemetary

Vukovar Memorial Cemetary

Ovcara Mass grave

Ovcara Mass grave

Vukovar Entry to the Memorial in the Hospital

Vukovar Entry to the Memorial in the Hospital

Vukovar Hospital Inside the Memorial Museum

Vukovar Hospital Inside the Memorial Museum


More info:

Memorialization challenges in Vukovar:

http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/vukovar-still-imprisoned-by-its-bloody-past

http://www.conflictincities.org/PDFs/WorkingPaper25%28DividedMemory%29.pdf