Journal of a Journey through the Danube–Drava National Park, June 2012
Journal of a Journey through the Danube–Drava National Park, June 2012

Summary/Abstract: The Danube, it seems, has always been in the wars. The war monument on the hill here overlooking the river commemorates the death of 2,000 mostly Ukrainian soldiers and Yugoslav partisans, trying to cross the Danube in small boats under the German guns in November 1944. Eventually they managed to occupy the little wine cellars in the clay cliffs below, and establish the bridgehead. The friezes along the base of the monument show grim faced soldiers in the Socialist-realist style, standing in boats, riding the waves. The grey, wintry Danube ran red with their blood, local people say – those who survived the onslaught. Red as the glass in the red star which the massive bronze figure, erected in 1946, holds in the left hand, a sword in the right.

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