User:Tgfex6/Vatasa Massacre

Vatasa Massacre — bloody event which happened on 16 june 1943 when 12 people from the village of Vatasa were shot near Mokliste at "Chair", at a 2km distance from Vatasa. The massacre was carried out by the Bulgarian Army and Police detachments, under the command of Ljuben Apostolov, commander of the 56. Veles Infantry Regiment of the Fifth Bulgarian Army. By origin Apostolov is from Kriva Palanka. During that time from 40 to 60% of the soldiers in the regiments of the Fifth Army were local recruits like most of the police, which consisted of locals.

The massacre
In the spring of 1943, after several actions by the partisan units in the Third Operational Zone, three regiments of the Bulgarian Army and police detachments, under the command of Colonel Apostolov, from 7th to 16th of June 1943, takes an offensive to destroy the partisans and the peaceful population. The climax of the pogroms over the civilian population was the mass shooting in Vatasa, on the 16th of June 1943, when on the birthday of the Bulgarian crown prince Simeon II were killed 12 people. On the evening of June 15, the news spread in Vatasa that the next day no one should go to work, because it is a birthday of the crown prince and a parade will be held in Kavadarci. When it dawned on June 16, the village was blocked by army and police. No one could go out, and those who set out to work were sent back.

In the early morning hours in the village pub in Vatasa, several young men and women were detained and questioned. They were shoemakers, who were secretly helping the partisans, but were ratted out. According to Steva Ilieva from Kavadarci: „The Mayor called us from our houses with a list, it had us all by name and surname.“ In the pub they were interrogated and beaten, and later they were forced to admit that they were together with the partisans on the 1st of May at Mokliste and that they were their allies. At the end of the police action only 2 people were released. The other 14 people remained with accusations for connections with the partisans and a planned refuge to the mountains. After they withstood all kinds of torture and violence, the police and army took them by food in columns to Mokliste.

While they led the young men, they stopped at several places. They probably thought about where to shoot them, while they were told that they were carrying them to photograph them. The oldest of them, Vaso Hadzijordanov felt that something bad was being prepared, and at "Chair" where they were stopped, he started to run, and with him escaped others. At that moment the command "fire" was issued. The twelve people were shot, even though not all soldiers wanted to fire. The four women were also arrested — Mara Hadzi Jordanova, Steva Ampova, Pavlina Kasapinova and Kata Iceva — were put aside. The police officer Petko Oprekov protested when the lieutenant Kostov wanted to kill the girls, Captain Boris Zhegov also supported Oprekov so the women were saved. The soldiers took the girls back to the village and ordered for the killed youth not to be returned, but to be buried there.

Today at that spot stands a small monument. After the war, they were unburied and moved to another place, and after a third time, where today stands a large monument, were buried in 1963.

Deaths
The twelve young men murdered in the village are:

The Trial
After two years the People's court of SR Macedonia condemned to death the main executives and participants in this action: Colonel Lyuben Apostolov, Captain Boris Zheglov, Lieutenant Kostov and NCO Petko Oprekov. Before that they were handed over by the new government in Bulgaria to the Yugoslav authorities for trial as fascists. Apostolov, who was a commander of the military and gave the orders for shooting, claimed that he wasn't responsible for the Vatasa Massacre. He was put on trial for multiple war crimes and admitted to all, but for the Vatasa massacre he said that he got a list of names, and on it it was said that the young men were partisans arrested in the forest, and not collected from houses. He also told about his role in the event of the four "traitors" from Vatasa, three men and one woman.

Memorials
In memory of the event, a memorial plaque was built for the 12 young men from Vatasa, which was uncovered on the 11th of October 1961. On the south wall of the memorial it is written: „Death has become powerless before our upright youth, before of our eyes staring, even that dawn in the future“. At the place of the massacre a memorial park with an area of 7ha was erected, and in it were planted 12 trees as a symbol of the massacred young men. For the event there is also a folk song: „The village of Vatasa started crying“.

The monument in recent years has often been defamed. The last time in 2012 when the bigger part of the memorial part was destroyed by bulgarian vandals.