This is my second blog about Zagreb. The first one is here.
This one will be mainly about two museums I went to, but let’s start with a monument at the main train station, behind this steam engine:
Steel suitcases
"From this place about 800 Zagreb Jews were deported to the Nazi camp Auschwitz in August 1942”. Note: nowadays, the official name of the Auschwitz museum includes the word German, to remove any possible confusion about who the "Nazis" were.
Travelling in Slovenia and Croatia I saw plaques and monuments to the heroes of Yugoslavia. This one is in Zagreb:
Commemoration of Zdenka Baković (1918- Zagreb 1941), and Rajka Baković (Oruro, Bolivia, 1920 - Zagreb 1941), members of the anti-fascist resistance movement.
In the Europe Square in Zagreb, there is this simple monument:
1 July 2013 - the day when Croatia joined the EU as the 28th member. No other country joined the EU since then, and one left.
Located in the old town. Not all photos and exhibits have English descriptions.
The impression I had while visiting and learning about Slovenia and Croatia was that the history of the region, that was in my youth known as Yugoslavia, was much more complicated than the history of Poland. Thinking about this now, half a year later, I think that history of a country is more complicated the more neighbours it has, especially powerful ones, and the more complex internal composition in terms of ethnicity, religion, language, and wealth. My short stay in Slovenia and Croatia gave me only a glimpse of the history of the region. I know a lot more than I knew before the trip, but still just scratching the surface.
Entrance to the museum
People lived where Zagreb is today for millennia, but very little survived, because of wars, fires, floods, earthquakes, passage of time, re-use, and more recently, perhaps because of "renovations".
Archeological sites in Zagreb.
Roman era find.
Reconstruction of a helmet found in one of the archeological sites.
The mid XVII century church on the left, "renovated" in the early XX century.
If something was not needed anymore, or was crumbling, or was obscuring the view, like in this case (XV century walls and the Bakacev tower), it was dismantled. This is what happened to medieval walls in many European cities.
The part that survived the "renovation".
Some art pieces from the inside of the old church...
The interesting thing for me was how the war started for Yugoslavia. It was unique. First, on 25 March 1941 Yugoslavia signed up to the German-led fascist axis. Two days later, on 27 March, there was a military coup and the new government refused to ratify the signing. Later the same day Hitler signed an order to attack Yugoslavia (and Greece) about a week later, on 6 April.
Yugoslavia was invaded by Germany, Italy and Hungary and capitulated after 10 days. Parts of Yugoslavia were annexed by Germany, Italy, Hungary, Albania and Bulgaria. Croatia became a fascist state, known as Independent State of Croatia. Germans set up a puppet Serbian government and a volksdeutche Banat government. The situation in Slovenia was a mess.
Generally, the people in all of Yugoslavia were in a terrible situation. Italians had genocidal aims towards Slovenes. Croatian nationalists were committing a genocide of Serbs, Roma, Jews and Muslims. Germans were murdering Jews and anybody who opposed them. There were partisans royal to the king and partisans loyal to Tito. Communists were killing nationalists, including after the war. About 1 million people lost their life: 530k Serbs, 192k Croats, 102k Muslims, 57k Jews, 20k Montenegrins, and 125k others. Relative war losses compared to the expected population in 1948: 78% of Jews, 31% of Roma, 10% of Montenegrins, 7% of Serbs, 7% of Muslims, 5% of Croats, 5% of Germans, 2.5% of Slovenes, 1% each of Albanians, Macedonians, Hungarians.
German army in Zagreb on 10 April 1941.
The "Ž" stands for Židov - Jew in Croatian.
The sign in the bottom photo says that entry is forbidden to German soldiers - this was a street of sex workers.
"The fall of the Berlin Wall led to the collapse of communism in all countries across Central and Eastern Europe" - I see this falsification of history often. By the time the wall fell in November 1989, Poland already had partially free elections and a non-communist prime minister. Hungary was also more advanced on the way out. East Germany was the 3rd in line in the Revolutions of 1989.
A very interesting museum, except the exhibits showcasing bitcoin, NFTs for art, and suggesting that climate change has been always happening and anyway the volcanoes are to blame - I think that was sponsored by some fossil fuel company.
Split (pop. 160k) is the second largest city and a popular tourist destination in Croatia (pop. 3.9m, 22m tourists). I went there by train from Zagreb. This is not how most people get to Split, and I understand why. The train is very slow. It takes about 8 hours, while buses take 5, and cars take 4. The distance is about 400 km. The line is single-track and not electrified for the most part. The speed is limited to 40 km/h on long stretches, and outside the summer season there is only 1 train per day, 2 on Friday or Sunday, and 2 or 3 in season. There is no food or drink on board.
... or a traditional carriage pulled by EMD GT22HW-2.
The vistas on the way:
Arriving in Split:
This does not look good.
The graffiti and the A/C units make it hard to notice the S P L I T sign.
This is the exit to town - you can see the expensive yachts in the marina.
The city itself is very old. A Roman emperor Diocletian was born nearby in Salona (now part of Split) and built his retirement palace in year 305 CE in Split, which was already about 500 years old by that time being established in 3rd or 2nd century BCE as a Greek colony among Illyrian tribes. Romans conquered Illyrians in 219 BCE. Avars and then Croats conquered these territories in the 7th century CE. Interestingly, Croats came from Galicia - a historical region today in south-eastern Poland and western Ukraine.
Diocletian's Palace probably looked like this:
In 2025 it looked like this:
This is the remains of the big corner tower on the right in the illustration above.
This is the side that was on the water.
It's an incredible privilege to walk the same streets and nooks that a Roman emperor walked. A fascinating thing about Diocletian's Palace is that it was and is like a city. Regular people have lived there for the last 1700 years, converted parts of it, built additions. Now you can find there a hotel, a restaurant, a synagogue:
The synagogue door.
As I was exploring, an old lady using crutches asked me to help her cross a doorstep, in Croatian. I had been mistaken for a local again. :-) Same thing happened in Slovenia and Serbia.
Houses on the rocks.
A vegan restaurant with remains of a Caesar Diocletianus mural.
Dodge Ram (here on Austrian plates) is a monstrosity. I think I saw only one other Ram on this trip, in Kraków's historic Kazimierz district. This thing has worse forward visibility than the M1 Abrams tank. It menaces and kills people more than a regular European car.
Google's AI about Dodge Ram vs a sedan:
"While the Dodge Ram provides more protection for its own driver, it is significantly more lethal to everyone else on the road compared to a regular sedan.
Fatality Risks to Others:
Other Drivers: In a two-vehicle collision, occupants of a sedan hit by a light truck (like a Ram) are 12.6 to 13.5 times more likely to die than the truck's occupants. The Ram 3500 has one of the highest "other-driver" death rates at 189 deaths per million registered vehicle years.
Pedestrians: Large pickups and SUVs with hood heights over 40 inches (approx. 1 metre) are 45% more likely to kill a pedestrian in a collision than a standard car.
Children: A child struck by an SUV or pickup is 8 times more likely to be killed than if hit by a passenger car. This is largely due to the high, blunt front end striking the child's head or chest rather than their legs.
Turning Accidents: Pickups are nearly 4 times as likely to kill a pedestrian while turning left and 89% more likely while turning right compared to sedans, primarily due to large blind spots created by the thick "A-pillars" and high hood.
Fatality Risks to the Driver
Overall Rate: The fatality rate per 100,000 registered vehicles is 42% higher for pickup trucks than for passenger cars.
Rollovers: While safer in multi-car crashes, pickups are 3 times more likely to be involved in rollover accidents, which are the deadliest type of crash for the truck's own occupants.
Braking Distance: Due to their massive weight, some full-size pickups require up to 20% longer stopping distances than sedans, increasing the likelihood of an initial impact.
The RAM is safer if you hit someone else; the sedan is safer for avoiding the accident entirely and not flipping over."
In Australia, where I live, there are more than 30 thousand Dodge Rams on the roads, and utes (Australian for trucks or pickup trucks, short for utility vehicle) became very popular in recent years, also because of preferential tax treatment. Someone buying one "for business" is not only taxed less, but also makes the streets and roads less safe for everyone. I put "for business" in double quotes, because if you looked at how many there were, you would think that every other Australian is a farmer (the only thing these things could be good for is for transporting hay, if they had an open tray, not tub, but even then the cargo area of the contemporary models is too high for convenient loading). Most of the time the tub is empty. Proper plumbers, electricians, and other tradies use vans, not utes - you can carry a lot more tools and supplies, you can easily lock them, you don't need to worry about rain. At the same time as utes and big SUVs have been getting more popular, the number of road deaths per capita has been growing, primarily among pedestrians and bike riders. In the last year, pedestrian deaths increased 13.7% to 199, while cyclist fatalities climbed 16.7% to 49, and utes were 3 of the 4 most popular cars sold.
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National Theatre
"By the victory of the People's Party in the elections for the Municipal Council, in this building on October 28, 1882, for the first time in the history of Split, by the will of the people, the Croatian administration of the city was elected. Municipality of Split."
"During World War II and the German occupation, as a result of Anglo-American bombing, 227 citizens died at this spot on June 3, 1944. During the air attacks on Split from September 1943 to October 1944, about 500 people died, and thousands were wounded. In memory of the victims, the citizens of Split erected this in 2021."
A local market.
Information about which Sundays the Tommy shop is not working in October (all of them). Croatian is a Slavic language, like Polish, but Listopad - literally: the month of the falling leaves, is October in Croatian and November in Polish.
Marko Marulić Splićanin, Latin: Marcus Marulus Spalatensis, 1450 – 1524 was a Split-born, Croatian poet, lawyer, judge, and Renaissance humanist. He is the national poet of Croatia.
My mom had a chuckle when she saw this sign.
Republic Square - built 19th/20th century
Tribute to Frane Matošić, captain of Hajduk Split football club. "739 Utakmica, 729 Golova" = 739 matches, 729 goals.
Cars park everywhere in Croatia - see the previous blog about Zagreb.
There are many, seemingly homeless, cats in Marjan Park:
Later I found out where they live...
Park šuma = forest park. This is funny to my Polish ears, because šuma is forest, but šum, which sounds like Polish szum is murmur/rustle, so the forest is "noises, murmurs".
Someone claimed this patch as parking for their car.
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