AVNOJ Decrees - J. Tschinkel

[Forum 2002 - 2013]

Abgeschickt von J. Tschinkel am 20 November, 2002 um 20:03:11

To GHGA members.

What was clearly predictable when your Board joined the Gottscheer Arbeitsgemeinschaft (AG), has come to pass. The GHGA has become a Political Organization when it signed, at the Klagenfurt AG meeting on August 2, 2002, a Resolution appealing to the Austrian Government to pressure the Slovene Government to nullify the AVNOJ Decrees. The Resolution is printed in the Sept/Oct 2002 Gottscheer Zeitung.

The AVNOJ Decrees were adopted by the Yugoslav Government to deal with its citizens who cooperated, abetted and supported the fascist occupiers of the land, be they the troops of Hitler or Mussolini. All parts of the occupier and those Yugoslav citizens, who after the war could not show they were on the side of their country, were to be dispossessed and expelled. Articles 1, Paragraphs 1, 2 and 3 of the Decrees dated 11/21/44, 6/8/45 and 6/31/46 make this clear.

The AVNOJ Decrees were approved at the Potsdam Conference in 1945 by all the major powers and Decrees are still valid. This was reiterated by the Slovene President, Milan Kučan, on 25. August 2000, saying that these decrees will not be nullified given the great suffering of the citizens of Yugoslavia, Slovene included, at the hands of the brutal invader and his supporters.

The AVNOJ Decrees fit the Gottscheer according to Article 1, Paragraph 1. This is so because we Gottscheer opted to become citizens of the Third Reich before we voluntarily left our homeland in October 1941, to occupy Slovene homes elsewhere. And just before the end of the war, we obeyed Gauleiter Uiberreiter who directed us to flee Slovenia. We left in what became known as the "Flucht".

Every nation has a right to expel an occupier. But since we were part of the occupier, and most of us left voluntarily, a moral basis for pressuring Slovenia to nullify the AVNOJ Decrees does not exist.

The AG Resolution can be viewed as a hostile act toward Slovenia since it appears to place its signers on the side of the Nazi occupier. It does not invite reconciliation and only reinforces doubt in others as to where we stand today. But this is not surprising given the fact that former SS officers and Nazis still are Honored Members and Cultural Advisers in AG organizations.

Particularly troubling is the fact that the Resolution also represents the GHGA membership, most of which were received as refugees with open arms by a country that lost so much blood in getting rid of the Nazis in Europe, including Slovenia. And please remember, when we became citizens of the USA, we swore allegiance to the flag of the country that gave us new hope and new opportunities.

Now, the GHGA Board, including a retired officer (CIR) of the US Army, endorses a Resolution on behalf of its membership that is clearly inspired by unrepentant former representatives of the enemy of our flag?

How quickly we forget! John Tschinkel

[Forum 2002 - 2013]

Abgeschickt von Beobachter am 30 November, 2002 um 18:21:22:

Antwort auf: AVNOJ Decrees von J. Tschinkel am 20 November, 2002 um 20:03:11:

: To GHGA members.

: What was clearly predictable when your Board joined the Gottscheer Arbeitsgemeinschaft (AG), has come to pass. The GHGA has become a Political Organization when it signed, at the Klagenfurt AG meeting on August 2, 2002, a Resolution appealing to the Austrian Government to pressure the Slovene Government to nullify the AVNOJ Decrees. The Resolution is printed in the Sept/Oct 2002 Gottscheer Zeitung.

: The AVNOJ Decrees were adopted by the Yugoslav Government to deal with its citizens who cooperated, abetted and supported the fascist occupiers of the land, be they the troops of Hitler or Mussolini. All parts of the occupier and those Yugoslav citizens, who after the war could not show they were on the side of their country, were to be dispossessed and expelled. Articles 1, Paragraphs 1, 2 and 3 of the Decrees dated 11/21/44, 6/8/45 and 6/31/46 make this clear.

: The AVNOJ Decrees were approved at the Potsdam Conference in 1945 by all the major powers and Decrees are still valid. This was reiterated by the Slovene President, Milan Kučan, on 25. August 2000, saying that these decrees will not be nullified given the great suffering of the citizens of Yugoslavia, Slovene included, at the hands of the brutal invader and his supporters.
:
: The AVNOJ Decrees fit the Gottscheer according to Article 1, Paragraph 1. This is so because we Gottscheer opted to become citizens of the Third Reich before we voluntarily left our homeland in October 1941, to occupy Slovene homes elsewhere. And just before the end of the war, we obeyed Gauleiter Uiberreiter who directed us to flee Slovenia. We left in what became known as the "Flucht".

: Every nation has a right to expel an occupier. But since we were part of the occupier, and most of us left voluntarily, a moral basis for pressuring Slovenia to nullify the AVNOJ Decrees does not exist.
:
: The AG Resolution can be viewed as a hostile act toward Slovenia since it appears to place its signers on the side of the Nazi occupier. It does not invite reconciliation and only reinforces doubt in others as to where we stand today. But this is not surprising given the fact that former SS officers and Nazis still are Honored Members and Cultural Advisers in AG organizations.

: Particularly troubling is the fact that the Resolution also represents the GHGA membership, most of which were received as refugees with open arms by a country that lost so much blood in getting rid of the Nazis in Europe, including Slovenia. And please remember, when we became citizens of the USA, we swore allegiance to the flag of the country that gave us new hope and new opportunities.
:
: Now, the GHGA Board, including a retired officer (CIR) of the US Army, endorses a Resolution on behalf of its membership that is clearly inspired by unrepentant former representatives of the enemy of our flag?
:
: How quickly we forget! John Tschinkel

[Forum 2002 - 2013]

Abgeschickt von Beobachter am 30 November, 2002 um 18:48:48:

Mr.Tschinkel is a proponent of the AVNOJ decrees for several reasons.First of all he has a dual Slovene and American citizenship because his mother is Slovene and not ethnic-german therefore he has the right to Slovene citizenship (ethnic Germans "Gottscheer people" born in Slovenia do not have the right to be Slovene citizens because of the AVNOJ law. He was able to regain his mother's property in Masern ,Gottschee because he has Slovene citizenship.Ethnic German Gottscheer people cannot regain the property they owned in Gottschee(in the family for hundreds of years) because being of German origin they are denied the right because of the AVNOJ law. Furthermore because of the AVNOJ decrees, ethnic German civilians (including priests,teachers,farmers and businessmen) were persecuted,tortured and murdered in the Sterntal concentration camp just because they were German and for that reason only. Slovenia must give ethnic Germans living in Slovenia today back the civil rights that they deserve inorder to become a member nation of the European Union.