Vinkovci: An Unconquered City The city of Vinkovci is situated in the Slavonia region, in Eastern Croatia. Slavonia has always been a part of Croatia, with the Croatian population in the majority. The Croats have always given the basic civilization and cultural characteristics to the area. Placed in the peaceful Croatian countryside, Vinkovci grew into a warm and open city. In 1991, however, the aggressors' GreaterSerbian plan included the Vinkovci area and the city faced the same ordeal that had befallen Vukovar. An open aggression on Vinkovci began on May 2, when the Chetniks ambushed and massacred twelve members of the Croatian special police forces in the nearby village of Borovo Selo. The massacred policemen were sent from Vinkovci and this first crime against the Croatian people left a deep scar in the minds of their fellow-citizens. From that moment on, the attacks on Vinkovci grew stronger daily. The city was attacked from the Vinkovci army-barracks and the Chetnik strongholds from the village of Mirkovci, divided from Vinkovci only by railroad tracks and inhabited mostly by Serbs. On July 19,1991, Vinkovci suffered the first mortar attack in the whole of Croatia. It also suffered the first air-raid attack, with one of the heaviest bombardments in Croatia. Five YU-Army planes bombed the city with rockets, 250 kg, cluster, napalm and phosphorous bombs prohibited by international conventions. On September 14, the citizens of Vinkovci were warned to go to their shelters, and they remained there for more than a hundred days. Only the brave would occasionally leave their shelters and basements of their houses, to buy some milk and bread. Many of them became victims of everyday bombings. The civilians account for the largest number of victims in this war. They are being killed while buying newspapers in the street, in their own backyards, while watching TV in their living rooms, even in their shelters. The Vinkovci theaters and cinemas are closed, there is no Sunday mass, people do not go to a marketplace any more, schools are destroyed, there are no children in the streets, no people on the promenade, all rail and road traffic is at a standstill. All the city lights have been turned out at night for months now, and one can hear the sound of explosions echoing through the darkness. At the end of December, 50 percent of the municipality was under the YU-Army control, including some 50 percent of all arable land, eleven villages with a majority of Serbian population and thirteen villages completely inhabited by the Croats. The militant and armed Serbian minority under patronage of the YU-Army, committed atrocities against the Croats living in Vinkovci municipality. Such a crime has not been seen since the end of World War II. In the occupied village of Tordinci only, the YU-Army and the Chetniks slayed at least one hundred and twenty civilians and threw their bodies into a pit near a Catholic church, together with dead cattle. There have been many such examples, especially in this area. From July 1 to December 16, 281 people were killed in the Vinkovci area. There are many more missing and the chances that they are still alive are less and less. In the same period, 1029 people were wounded - 658 heavy and 371 lightly - in Vinkovci. More than 35.000 artillery projectiles of all kinds were fired at the city. The YU-Army and Chetniks did not have to choose their particular target, their target was the whole city. The Vinkovci hospital shared the destiny of the Vukovar hospital. As all the floors and the wards were completely destroyed, all operations and the medical treatments were done in the basement of the hospital. The City Library containing 80.000 books burnt down completely, the Catholic church was almost completely destroyed and burnt down, and the City Museum and Art Gallery were considerably damaged... Total damage amounts to more than 200 million DEM. The outer world was a passive witness to all this for a long time, it neither understood nor believed what was going on. Vinkovci was attacked only because it was a Croatian city that it wished to remain Croatian. Furthermore, regardless of what was being said, the Serbs who lived in this city were never oppressed in any way. Their luxurious houses, shops etc. are even today silent witnesses that they had never been oppressed by the Croats for being Serbs. When Serbia used the disintegration of Yugoslavia as an opportunity to expand onto Croatian territory, the citizens of Vinkovci strongly opposed this move. Not even the lack of arms and equipment could weaken their resistance. Today, Vinkovci is a destroyed and burnt city, but it has kept its pride and dignity. Remaining true to their origins and traditions, the Croats celebrated their Catholic Christmas, so important to them, in a more modest manner than ever, in the shelters and basements of houses. They clearly showed that they have always belonged to western European culture. None of the fourteen ceasefires were kept in Vinkovci. After each ceasefire had been signed, the YU-Army aggression on the city escalated. The presence of the EC monitors could not change the situation. Even now, the citizens of Vinkovci say with bitterness and pride that the war in Croatia will end when it ends in Vinkovci. During the siege of Vukovar, the only link with Vukovar with the rest of Croatia was Vinkovci. Vinkovci had enough strength to help the Croatian Guernica. For that, they paid a high price in destroyed properties and human lives. The year of 1991 has certainly been the worst in the history of Vinkovci. the cities of Vukovar, Vinkovci and Osijek, paid the price of their resistance to the aggressor, each in its own way, in blood. For Milosevic's Greater Serbia aspirations they were too tough a nut to crack. The aggressor did everything to conquer Vinkovci, but Vinkovci - the Gates to Croatia - remained closed and unconquered. Vinkovci is the unconquered city, regardless of the Vukovar-like destiny the YU-Army had chosen for it. This monograph was created in the impossible conditions, in basements and shelters. It is a silent testimony of atrocities committed to a south-eastern European city, at the end of the twentieth century. This war monograph of the city of Vinkovci is intended to become the document of events that should never have happened. It seems as if it tells of the past times, the previous wars. Unfortunately, it is the document of our present - the Croatian year of 1991. It should be a warning and a cry, with the wish that nothing similar ever happens to any other European city. If this wish comes true, the Vinkovci mission will be fulfilled.