At the Jewish Cultural Centre in Ljubljana we were shocked and deeply concerned to learn about the decision of the Slovenian Supreme Court to annul the sentence of Leon Rupnik from 30 August 1946, and to return it for retrial.
It is our assessment that we are witnessing the first step in a politically motivated ambition to rehabilitate the criminal collaborationist regime in Slovenia during WWII whose “president” was the aforementioned Leon Rupnik, and who was justly tried and sentenced to death as a war criminal, and whom even the pre-war Yugoslav Royal Government, then in exile, renounced as a traitor.
Rupnik’s police under the leadership of Lovro Hacin, likewise sentenced and executed in 1946 as a war criminal, organised the arrests and deprtations of the remaining Slovenian Jews in Ljubljana and its vicinity in the years 1943 and 1944; very few have survived. The Homeguard (Domobranci) military formations that pledged allegiance to Hitler Rupnik led into a criminal, fratricidal war. The Homeguard also collaborated in the Holocaust against the Jews in the Trieste region under the leadership of the infamous SS officer and war criminal Odilo Globočnik in the years 1944 - 1945.
The Jewish Cultural Cenre Ljubljana will notify the world public about the shameful decision of the Slovenian Supreme Court. We will monitor closely all and any further developments of these contemptible acts of Holocaust denial, revision and perversion of history, and attempts at reviving and justifying the Fascist and Nazi horrors, and oppose them indefatigably.
Robert Waltl, director JCC Ljubljana
You can see videos of Leon Rupnik as the main speaker at a pro-Nazi rally in the centre of Ljubljana, saluting a Nazi flag, below
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