The Network of Antifascist Women and the Alliance of Antifascist Fighters and Antifascists lit bonfires on the bank of the River Sava in Zagreb on Saturday evening in tribute to the Partisan units that liberated the Croatian capital on 8 May 1945.

The event was attended by Mayor Tomislav Tomasevic, who said that it was the seventh year now that the liberation of Zagreb from Ustasha and fascist occupation had been commemorated by building bonfires by the Sava.

“During the Second World War and the difficult times of occupation, Zagreb was never subdued. Numerous residents of the city, together with Partisans from throughout Croatia, joined the National Liberation Movement and the Women’s Antifascist Front, engaging in subversive operations against the occupying army and quislings. They were also hiding people who faced deportation to certain death, and put up resistance,” the mayor said.

He said he was paying tribute to the 30,000 residents of Zagreb who had sacrificed their lives or had been the victims of the Ustasha and fascist terror.

“The units that liberated Zagreb did so on the wings of social justice, faith in equality and internationalism, which are the values that we should promote today,” Tomasevic said, adding that society should be built on class and gender equality.