Tezno mass graves

Tezno massacre
Part of the Bleiburg repatriations
Memorial to the victims in Tezno
Location	Tezno, PR Slovenia, FPR Yugoslavia (modern-day Slovenia)
Date	19–26 May 1945
Target	NDH prisoners of war
Attack type	Mass murder
Deaths	15,000
Perpetrators	Yugoslav Partisans

The Tezno massacre (Croatian: Pokolj u Teznom) was the mass killing of POWs of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) that took place in Tezno near Maribor, after the end of World War II in Yugoslavia. The killings were perpetrated by units of the Yugoslav Partisans in May 1945, following the Bleiburg repatriations. Summary executions began on 19 May when first prisoners arrived to the Tezno forest from nearby prison camps and continued until 26 May. Most of the bodies were buried in a several kilometers long antitank trench, which the Yugoslav authorities concealed and kept secret.

It is estimated that around 15,000 soldiers and civilians were killed in the massacre. The graves were discovered in 1999 during a highway construction. Additional research of the burial sites was conducted in 2007 by the Commission on Concealed Mass Graves in Slovenia. In 2012, the Slovenian Government unveiled a memorial park at Tezno, where an annual commemoration is held.

In May 1945, at the end of World War II in Yugoslavia, soldiers of the Independent State of Croatia began retreating towards Austria, where British forces were located, with the intention to surrender to them rather than the advancing Yugoslav Partisans. Together with many civilians, the Croatian Armed Forces fought their way to the Yugoslav-Austrian border and surrendered on 15 May to the British Army. Around 25,000 reached the border, mostly the town of Bleiburg, while around 175,000 were spread in nearby columns that were dozens of miles long. However, the British Army refused their surrender on the grounds that all Axis troops should surrender to the armies they were fighting against. The prisoners of war at the border were thus repatriated to the Yugoslav Partisans.