Ovcara Memorial Center Tickets and Tours

Croatian war story: hero city of Vukovar - full day tour from Zagreb

A warning against the atrocities of war

I visited Vukovar two weeks ago, at the beginning of a trip to the Balkans, with some friends. We visited the Water Tower, symbol of the heroic resistance of the inhabitants of Vukovar in the siege of the Serbs in 1991 (in November 35 years will have passed already) and the town, where many buildings still bear the wounds of the terrible assaults of the Serbs. We also visited the open countryside agricultural hangar, where 261 Croatian citizens who had found refuge in the hospital in Ovcara were transported. In the hangar there is an interesting and touching memorial, whose walls illuminate the faces and names of the murdered victims. The monument has its fulcrum in a central spiral of light and the ceiling stars, symbolizing the sacrifice of so many innocents. Under a display case, which runs all around the walls, are the personal belongings found in the mass grave that was discovered a few hundred meters from the hangar, between Ovčara and Grabovo, where today stands a black stone monument. A warning that such madness should never happen again. Finally, the entire floor is covered with thousands of shell casings used by Serbian militias for the massacre. I strongly recommend visiting Vukovar so as not to forget the atrocities of our very civilised Europe.