The
pilgrimage to Kočevje included three destinations that are closely connected to
the main event, a memorial service at the Kočevje pits for the commemoration of
the 70th anniversary of themassacre which took place there.
As
the tragic events at the end of the Second World War connected to the Russian
and Serbian peoples overlap in several places, the organizers of the pilgrimage
decided to connect two great tragedies – for the Serbs, Kočevje, for the
Russians, Lienz – on this memorial pilgrimage.
Two Memorial Crosses: “Remember Kočevje” and
“Lienz” which were worn by the Serbian pilgrims.
The
itinerary was set as following: Lienz,
Nova Goritsa (the resting place of Serbian patriot Dimitry Ljotić), Kočevje. The group of pilgrims from Serbia, led by His
Grace Bishop Akakije, started from Belgrade in the evening of May 31st,
in order to participate, on the 1st of June, in the 70th
anniversary commemoration of the Cossack tragedy in Lienz, Austria.
LIENZ
The
official event of the commemoration of the Cossack tragedy at Lienz was
organized by the anti-Bolshevik Cossack organization led by the well-known Cossack activist Vladimir
Melechov, whom, unfortunately, the government of the Russian Federation
forcefully prevented from making the trip to Lienz (the police in the Moscow
Demodedovo airport, behaving like brigands, ripped papers out of his passport
and thus prevented him from leaving the country). The city government of Lienz also
traditionally commemorates the tragedy of 70,000 anti-communist Cossacks who,
in June of 1945, were disarmed, and along with the elderly, women and children,
were given over by the English to certain death at the hands of the
bloodthirsty executioners of Stalin’s Red Army.
