Zagreb, December 6th, 2021
The Zec family symbolizes the victims of war and the atmosphere of fear that prevailed in Zagreb and the rest of Croatia during the early 1990s. The murder of the Zec family was committed in the most cruel way and it represents all the horrors of war and hatred that stems from it. The way in which the crime was committed and its brutality took on great symbolic significance.
On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the murders, we submitted a proposal to the Committee for Naming Settlements, Streets, and Squares of the City of Zagreb to include the names of the Zec family in the Name Fund from which public areas in the City of Zagreb are named.
To Mayor Tomislav Tomašević we submitted a document that we created: “Inclusive Remembrance: Recommendations for Commemorating Civilian Victims of War for Representatives of Local and Regional Self-Government in the Republic of Croatia” encouraging local authorities to be more actively involved in commemorating all civilian victims of war regardless of ethnic or national affiliation.
We also encouraged the Mayor to use the 30th anniversary as an opportunity to turn the current memory policies of the City of Zagreb, which did not recognize the importance of preserving the memory of the Zec family, and we offered our knowledge and cooperation to preserve the memory of civilian victims of war.
We held a workshop for our activists on Friday, December 3, where we educated them about the facts related to the murder of members of the Zec family and the court proceedings that were conducted. We also highlighted the contribution of civil society and artists in the context of the culture of memory of the Zec family.
Tomorrow we will join the commemoration organized by the Antifascist League of the Republic of Croatia at the unmarked place of the murder of Marija and Aleksandra Zec on Adolfovac on Sljeme.
We would like to remind you that we continuously advocate the naming of public areas after the Zec family, but to this day no public area in the City of Zagreb bears their name. As part of the initiative for the “Settlement of Memory”, through which in 2014 we proposed the naming of several public areas, we also included a proposal to name the park after the Zec family. Also, in 2017, we proposed the inclusion of the Zec family name in the Name Fund. In 2018, together with the Neobilježena mjesta stradanja [Unmarked Places of Suffering], we marked Poljanička Street, the place of the murder of Mihajlo Zec, as well as Adolfovac, the place of the murder of Aleksandra and Marija.
From the representatives of the City of Zagreb and competent institutions at the national level, we expect to appropriately mark the 30th anniversary of the murder of the Zec family and use this opportunity for a responsible approach to the past that must not erase the memory of the Zec family.