Memorial tourism – Vukovar Nocturne
Vukovar Nocturne is a story of love and courage, strength and pain, human dignity and victory of life. This title encompasses all memorial sites of Vukovar. Explore:
- Place of remembrance – the Vukovar hospital 1991
- Ovčara Memorial Hall
- Ovčara mass grave
- Memorial Cemetery of Homeland War Victims
- The Homeland War Memorial Centre
- Trpinjska Cesta Croatian Defenders Memorial Hall
- The central cross at the Vuka river’s confluence into the Danube
Through your streets, oh, my town
the history writes its pages.
It lives forever within us
together with those no longer here.
Place of remembrance – the Vukovar hospital 1991
The atmosphere of the autumn of 1991 in the Vukovar hospital is depicted here in a shocking manner – as a moment frozen in time. An exact reconstruction of the life of several hundred wounded and hospital staff during the occupation of the town that lasted several months has been set up in the basement of the Vukovar hospital. The visitors can see a multimedia presentation of wartime events within the hospital during the fall of 1991. A material common in a hospital’s everyday practice – medicine plaster – was used to make the memorial’s permanent exhibition consisting of human figures frozen in time.
- Opening hours:
- Monday – Friday: 8:00 – 15:00
- Saturdays and Sundays: by appointment
- Guidance: in Croatian and English by appointment
- Entrance fee:
- Pupils, students and retired persons: 1,33 €
- Adults: HRK 2,65 €
- Place of remembrance – the Vukovar hospital
- Županijska 35
- 32000 Vukovar
- Mobile phone: 00385 (0)91/4521-222
- E-mail: mjesto-sjecanja@ob-vukovar.hr
Ovčara Memorial Hall
Ovčara… A completely ordinary farm, so much like thousands of other farms, no one would have even known about it if a most heinous crime had not happened there.
Ovčara Memorial Hall is the place where numerous civilians and the wounded were killed in the Homeland War, during the aggression and siege of Vukovar in 1991. As a symbol of remembrance of the victims, the hangar where the crimes took place was turned into a modern Memorial Centre with the area of some 300 square metres. It has been opened for public since 2006. The author of the Memorial Hall is Miljenko Romić, academy-trained painter born in Zagreb.
The ceiling of the Memorial Hall features one star-shaped light for each victim who was murdered or went missing in the hangars of Ovčara. The concrete floor contains encased spent cartridges as a symbol of the crime committed. The photos of the murdered and the missing from the Vukovar hospital are arranged on the walls in the shape of interlace, appearing randomly from the dark and then fading away just as their images come to mind to members of their families. And while those pensive and sad eyes watch you from the wall, you cannot help but wonder what was their last thought, whose name was the last on their lips… Because their names are most certainly written among the stars.
Personal belongings of the victims discovered in the mass graves are displayed below the photographs. The entire Ovčara Memorial Hall is in the dark, as the crimes occurred at night time.
In the central part of the floor, there is the Well of Life or the Spiral of Evil, with the names of the 261 victims passing through it to its bottom and back. The spiral symbolises the vortex that swallowed their lives and the perpetual sequence alludes to their resurrection. A candle lighted beneath symbolises the Light of Christ. The atmosphere in the hangar is designed in order to resemble the original 1991 atmosphere as much as possible, so that each visitor can feel it. The prisoners who survived the abuse in the hangar were taken to a big hole some 900 metres from the Ovčara – Grabovo road. This is where they were killed on 20 November 1991 and thrown in the Ovčara mass grave, a holy place known in the entire Croatia and beyond. The place where the wounded and the medical staff from the Vukovar hospital were killed. The 200 of them. They went to the stars from there…
Thanks to them for the courage, for their lives, thanks to them for Vukovar and for Croatia!
- Ovčara Memorial Hall
- Ovčara bb
- 32000 Vukovar
- Phone: 00385 (0)32/512-345
- E-mail: strucni-odjel@mcdrvu.hr
- Opening hours:
- Monday – Sunday: 9:00 – 17:00
- Free admission
Memorial Cemetery of Homeland War Victims
This largest mass grave in Europe created after the WWII is located at the Eastern entrance to Vukovar. They say that a picture speaks more than thousand words, but spending time at this location is truly an indescribable feeling. The words are left in the air and your only desire is to memorise the picture of the field with 938 white crosses, each symbolising one of the victims exhumed right here, at this spot where you stand, somewhere deep within you and carve it deep into your memory. The entire generations are buried here, the youth of Vukovar and all Croatian regions. We become helpless here. Talking about the technical characteristics and the size of the monument seems to be meaningless and the only thing we can do is bow to them and thank them. They say that this is one of the most beautiful cemeteries. They deserve it. It would have been much better if the graveyard was never to be made.
- Tel: 00385 (0)32/412-980
Homeland War Memorial Centre
Homeland War Memorial Centre, situated in the Barracks of the 204th Brigade of Croatian Armed Forces, is open for all interested parties and individuals, providing a complete insight into the timeline and events surrounding the Homeland War on the entire territory of the Republic of Croatia. The Memorial Centre is tasked with keeping the memory of the Homeland War, preservation of locations and education of pupils and students on the historical importance of wartime events. The Centre offers individual and group tours of various exhibitions, a simulation of the battlefield and outdoor exhibits.
Visitors can see replicas of concentration camps and the 100 days of the siege of Vukovar, presented symbolically by a traditional Slavonian fence.
- Homeland War Memorial Centre
- Ive Tijardovića bb
- 32000 Vukovar
- Phone: 00385 (0) 32/638-567: -551
- E-mail: info@mcdrvu.hr
- Opening hours:
- Monday – Sunday: 9:00 – 17:00
- Free admission
The Memorial Home of Croatian War Veterans
The Memorial Home of Croatian War Veterans was built on the site of the former post office, where the command centre for this part of the town was located. The building is designed to look like a tightly-clenched fist, symbolising the strength of Vukovar’s struggle against the aggression. A chasm with the cupola of a destroyed tank of the former Yugoslav People’s Army is displayed at the centre of the hall, surrounded by the names of all fallen members of Vukovar’s 204th Brigade. 12 screens built into walls show wartime photographs and footage of events that happened early in the war, as well as wartime reports and information on each of the members of the brigade. A tank, as a symbol of the force that was broken by the heroic defenders, is exhibited in front of the memorial hall, as well as a bust of Major General Blago Zadro, the undisputed hero of the Homeland War who fought and commanded in this area of Vukovar. The author of the Memorial Home of Croatian War Veterans is Zagreb-based painter Miljenko Romić.
- Opening hours
- Monday – Sunday: 9:00 – 17:00
- Phone: 00385 (0)99/4417-467
- Free admission
The central cross at the Vuka river’s confluence into the Danube
A cross constructed of stone from the island Brač and from Istria was erected to commemorate all victims who fell for the freedom of Croatia. Rivers have always represented life. The greatest civilisations were developed next to rivers and Vukovar, this magnificent town that can be rightfully called Croatia’s Arc de Triomphe, arose on the banks of two rivers – the Danube and the Vuka. Perhaps it was these rivers that made it so strong and determined during the key moments that decided the destiny of Croatia, why it remained true to itself and unwavering. Here, at the centre of Vukovar, where the Vuka flows into the Danube, a monument was raised for all those who gave their lives for a free and independent Croatia. The monument’s author, sculptor Šime Vidulin, created it in the shape of a cross. At the place that always offered a view of the wide, mighty river, now stands a white cross as a symbol and memento, but also as a warning.
“Navik on živi ki zgine pošteno” (“He who dies honourably shall live forever”)
Words set in stone at the base of the cross in the oldest Croatian alphabet, the Glagolitic script. They live on in us, and we live with them every day.
Vukovar Water Tower – A symbol of croatian unity
Vukovarski vodotoranj d.o.o.
Ulica bana Josipa Jelačića 3
32000 Vukovar
Opening hours:
Monday – Sunday: 09:00 – 21:00
Phone: 00385 (0)32 639-999
E-mail: info@vukovarskivodotoranj.hr