Monument to the December Victims of 1943

Location: Zagreb, Croatia

Completed: 1961

Architect: Dušan Džamonja

Genre: Spomenik, Socialist memorial, former Yugoslavia

The spomenik remembers 16 anti-fascists who were hung by the Ustasha on 20th December 1943. The hangings were a swift response to a successful attack by Partisan fighters on a series of German ammunition depots located to the north of Zagreb which took place on the evening of 18th December. Those responsible for the raid were not the ones put to the gallows, however. Instead, 18 civilians, whom the Ustasha already had under lock and key as a kind of insurance policy against such an attack, were transported, without trial, to the spot where the monument now stands and crudely hung from butcher’s hooks attached to wooden poles. During the process, two of the hostages managed to escape under the cover of darkness. The reaction to the executions was one of solidarity among many of Zagreb’s citizens and lots of the Christmas trees that year were decorated with 16 candles in memory of the victims. Even the German high command in Zagreb expressed their horror at the killings and made it clear that the atrocity had nothing to do with them.