CinC Web Report Vukovar

CONFLICT IN CITIES
AND THE CONTESTED STATE

Everyday life and the possibilities for transformation in Belfast, Jerusalem and other divided cities
Vukovar Research TripDudik Memorial Complex
Confict in Cities Research Associate Britt Baillie recently conducted a feldtrip to the Croatian border city
of Vukovar. Dr. Baillies PhD thesis entitled: The Wounded Church: War, Destruction and Reconstruction
of Vukovars Religious Heritage focused on the fate of Vukovars cultural heritage since the siege of
the city in 1991. The purpose of the recent feldtrip was to study the role of the Dudik memorial complex
which was erected in 1978 to commemorate the victims of a Second World War mass-grave. This
complex was built to embody the notion of Brotherhood and Unity. Baillie sought to examine how this
shared memorial complex has been successively re-scripted, re-used and re-interpreted over time.
In 1991, the multi-ethnic city of Vukovar was besieged by the Yugoslav National Army and Serb
paramilitary forces in the frst major urban battle of the wars which forcefully unmade the former-
Yugoslavia. During the siege 1,556 inhabitants of Vukovar lost their lives. Approximately 60% of the
citys built environment was completely destroyed and an additional 30% sustained heavy damage.
After the siege, the surviving Croat citizens were forcefully expelled from the city. Serb authorities
then declared Vukovar to be a part of the internationally unrecognized state of the Republic of Serbian
Krajina (RSK). In 1995, Croatia gained the majority of the territory held by the RSK by force. Vukovar
was the only RSK city which was Peacefully Reintegrated into Croatia under the auspices of the UN.
Ethnic Croats began to move back to Vukovar in 1998.
Vukovar city centre
2011. Twenty years
since the siege, many
buildings remain in
ruin in the heart of the
city due to ownership
disputes, absentee
owners and a lack of
fnancial resources.
UN and Croatian teams have discovered numerous mass-graves dating from the period of the 1991
siege and its immediate aftermath in Vukovar. The Ovara mass-grave in which 200 hospital patients
were executed epitomises the loss that the Croat citizens of Vukovar suffered. However, the Homeland
War was not the only time that Vukovar underwent cultural or ethnic cleansing. Today, few signs of the
citys Ottoman or Jewish heritage survive and the visible presence of ethnic Serb heritage has been
minimised.
CONFLICT IN CITIES
During the Second World War, the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) under the Ustae leader Ante
Paveli executed and deported approximately 80% of Croatias Jewish population. According to Mile
Budak, the NDH Minister of Religion and Education, the state sought to implement a policy of one-third
of Serbs killed, one-third expelled and one-third converted to Catholicism. Estimates vary widely and
have become a highly political issue; it is thought that between 60,000 to 120,000 Serbs were liquidated
in village pogroms and at concentration camps like the notorious Jasenovac.
The majority of Jews and Serbs who were ethnically cleansed from the Vukovar area ended their lives
elsewhere. However, 455 alleged Partisan collaboratorspredominantly ethnic Serbswere executed
at the site known as Dudik on the northern outskirts of the city. After the Partisans defeated the Ustae
in 1945, the new government of Socialist Yugoslavia exhumed the bodies interred at this site. Family
and friends of the victims, local Partisans and concerned citizens began to convene at Dudik on an
annual basis to remember the dead.
To encourage Brotherhood and Unity, the Partisans encouraged Serb families to move (back) to the
area around Vukovar. Between 1945 and 1991 the population of Vukovar county increased by 68%
due to this policy and the rapid industrialization of the city. To warn against the dangers of ethno-
nationalism embodied by the Ustae, the prominent Serb architect Bogdan Bogdanovi designed a
memorial complex at Dudik. From start of its construction in 1978 until 1991, this memorial complex
served as the venue of a major annual gathering to commemorate the dead and to publically engage
in the staging of Brotherhood and Unity.
The re-roofed remains of Vukovars only surviving synagogue.
In 2011, only one Jewish person resided in the city.
CONFLICT IN CITIES
The memorial complex was severely damaged during the 1991 siege. During the RSK period authorities
continued to host commemorative ceremonies at the complex. Here the notion that contemporary
Serbs remained under threat from a revived neo-Ustae force (equated with Tumans new Croatian
government) was used to legitimise both the 1991 siege and the RSK control of Vukovar. Once Croatia
was given control of Vukovar in 1998, public commemorative practices at Dudik ceased. Part of the
complex was converted into a football feld by a local Croat team. In 2010, the frst annual remembrance
ceremony at Dudik since the return of Croats to the city was held by a small group of local anti-Fascists.
The complex has not yet been restored or conserved.
This research trip focused on developing a biography of Dudik from its use as an execution ground
until present. Dr. Baillie conducted archival research in the Vukovars museum and library as well as
interviews with local residents, city offcials and members of the Anti-Fascist Committee. The aim was
to ascertain what patterns could be observed in the use of the monument as well as the discourses
surrounding it. Dr. Baillie compared how Dudik is treated/viewed in contrast with the citys 1991 mass-
graves in a conference paper entitled: Problematic patrimony: The role of an obsolete memorial in
Vukovar at the The Heritage of Memorials and Commemorations-12th Cambridge Heritage Seminar,
Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge, 15 April.
Dudik memorial complex 2011

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CONFLICT IN CITIES

AND THE CONTESTED STATE

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