TITO'S REGIME RETRIBUTION AGAINST YUGOSLAV MONARCHIST ANTICOMMUNIST FORCES AT THE END OF WORLD WAR II

In the last stages of World War II and in the immediate post-war period Yugoslav communists led a well-organized policy of destruction of the "traitors of the people and state". In fact they wanted to destroy and repress any resistance to the new communist authorities. The first stage in the retribution against anticommunist forces occurred in late 1944, after Tito's communists forces captured Serbia. In spring of 1945 Tito's army captured and liquidated a large number of Croatian and Slovenian anticommunist forces, as well as those Serbs who previously fled from Serbia to Slovenia. The consequences of World War II in Yugoslavia were very difficult and they were made worse by large scale post-war executions of all real and also potential enemies of the communists. Major role in the mass liquidation of anticommunist forces was played by new Yugoslav state security police ( Department for the protection of people). During Yugoslavia under communists rule their victims were systematically erased from public memory. Only after the fall of communism and breakup of Yugoslav state the fate of victims of the Yugoslav communist regime has become subject of research of historian in the post-Yugoslav states.