Zagreb - The first unit of Partisans, set up in Brezovica Forest near Sisak as the first armed anti-Fascist unit in the occupied European regions in June 1941, was the core of and an impetus to Croatia's anti-Fascist struggle, the Sabor Speaker said in his message on the national Anti-Fascist Struggle Day.
The First Sisak Partisan Detachment was formed on 22 June 1941 as the first anti-Hitler unit in Nazi-occupied Europe and it marked the beginning of the armed struggle for national liberation in Croatia. It was established by Communist Party members in Sisak on the day Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union and initially had 77 fighters.
Croatia started observing Anti-Fascist Struggle Day on June 22 after it gained independence in the early 1990s.
The parliament speaker Gordan Jandroković said in his message on Thursday that the First Sisak Partisan Detachment gave an impetus to the anti-Fascist movement that spread steadily across Croatia's territory and contributed to the European and global victory against the terrors of Nazism and Fascism in the World War Two.
Jandroković recalls that we live in the times when "we again witness to the recurrence of the evil". It is especially agonasing to see that (recurrence of the evil) in Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine, which was launched under the pretext of the so-called denazification of Ukraine, he added.
However, it is evident that Russia's ostensible fight against Nazism and Fascism is becoming exactly what it claims to fight against, he said adding that Russia's claims resemble the narrative to which Croatia was exposed during the 1991-1995 Homeland War.
Therefore, this day is an occasion to remember all who gave their lives to the freedom of Croatia in different historial periods, Jandroković said, calling for being always on guard and ready for concrete actions against pernicious phenomena that can undermine the democratic values that stemmed from the European victory against totalitarian regimes.
Jandroković recalls that the values of anti-Fascism were embraced in the Croatian Constitution and in the 2005 Declaration on anti-Fascism adopted by the Sabor. At the end of his message, he extended his best wishes to the Croatian citizens on Anti-Fascist Struggle Day.