Date: May 3, 1996
Author: Valentina Krčmar, Thornhill, Ontario
Addressed to: Letters to the Editor, The Toronto Star
View the Original Letter: krcmar book 3_Part3_Part55.pdf
About This Letter
In this poignant letter dated May 3, 1996, Valentina Krčmar responds to John Fraser’s article “Justice May Yet Be Done in Case of Nikolay Tolstoy” (The Toronto Star, April 28, 1996). Her words serve as both tribute and testimony — honoring Count Nikolay Tolstoy’s courage in exposing one of the darkest and least acknowledged crimes of the 20th century: the Bleiburg Massacre.
Krčmar begins by commending Tolstoy for his integrity and moral bravery.
“Count N. Tolstoy cared deeply about all the victims of the war and had courage to write about those whose deaths, he knew, would be hidden from the world.”
She recalls that among those victims were Croatians, alongside Cossacks and others, who were forcibly repatriated to communist Yugoslavia at the end of World War II — not to safety, but to execution.
“One of the victims about whom he cared for, along with the Cossacks, were the Croats: the British gave over to the Communists in Yugoslavia over 400,000 fleeing Croats who thought that they found a safe haven (what a misguided term!) in Austria and among the Allies.”
Krčmar describes with painful clarity the magnitude of the atrocity — a vast, silent genocide carried out in the shadows of victory.
“All of these unarmed people were killed by the communist hordes and their bones are in the heaving valleys and forests on the border of Austria and Slovenia — in the place called Bleiburg.”
Her words remind readers that May 10, 1996 would mark 51 years since the massacre, an anniversary long ignored by much of the world. She writes not as a historian, but as a moral witness — someone giving voice to the unburied dead.
“It has been 51 years since the victors — Yugoslav communists — killed countless defenceless Croatian civilians who laid down their arms after the end of the war hoping for mercy.”
Krčmar’s admiration for Count Tolstoy is deeply personal, reflecting her gratitude for his refusal to let history erase these victims.
“We, Canadian Croats, are very grateful to Count Tolstoy for his courage in exposing the most shameful episode in British history: the murder of Cossacks, Croats, and other defenceless victims.”
She concludes with both sorrow and defiance, reminding readers that the perpetrators of these crimes — and the systems that shielded them — still evade justice.
“However, those that permitted horrendous killings 50 years ago are still going strong: one of their victims is Count Tolstoy, and the truth.”
This letter is both an act of remembrance and an accusation — a call to acknowledge not only the crimes of history, but also the silence that allows them to endure.
