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Germany surrendered on May 8, 1945.
The fighting in Europe didn't stop. Not even close.
81 years ago today, in a valley near the Austrian border, a column of 30,000 Axis soldiers, possibly many more, mixed with tens of thousands of civilians, was being torn apart by Yugoslav Partisans.
This was the Battle of Poljana. Often called the last battle of WWII in Europe.
The column was a strange one: Croatian Ustaše, Croatian Home Guard, Slovenian collaborators, German stragglers, and civilians fleeing Tito's advance. Tens of thousands of people, moving in a slow, panicked stream toward the British lines in Austria.
They weren't trying to win. They knew Germany had already surrendered. They were running for one reason: to surrender to the British instead of the Partisans, because everyone in that column understood what would happen if Tito's forces caught them.
The Partisans caught them at Poljana on May 14. The fighting raged into May 15.
And here's the brutal twist most people don't know:
The ones who made it to the British lines weren't saved. The British handed them back, an event remembered in the region as the Bleiburg repatriations. What happened after that is one of the darkest, least-discussed chapters of the war's aftermath, with tens of thousands killed in death marches across Yugoslavia.
Germany had surrendered a week earlier. But for these men, the war didn't end on May 8.
For many, it never ended at all.
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