It’s really easy to forget about things. That’s why we take pictures, write notes, set an alarm or maybe build monuments. A physical vessel of a memory, good or bad, it’s there to help us remember. Although memories and experiences and the feelings that they provoke are different and personal, moments of shared consciousness are real and precious.

Skateboarding, as a tool for exploring new places and meeting new people, gives us the opportunity to have a lot of those moments of shared feelings. The action of reinterpreting spaces, which is what is the disturbing part of skateboarding to unaware people, is just everyone’s little attempt to create something new, a different dance on the same music.

The spomenik, literally “monument” in Serbo-Croatian, was an original and unique artistic and architectural expression, purposely far from any antecedent stylistics. Built between 1960 and 1980 in Yugoslavia, a reunited region mutilated by the war, the purpose of these monuments was not only to remember the victims, but to create a place of civic education and antifascist values, without putting them under a specific national or religious label. Most of them were built in the very same battle sites and where the death camps were located.

This project, the traveling we did, the hunt for these monuments and the actual attempt to reinterpret those spaces, was an occasion to learn again about our present, and maybe bring back new memories.

Isn’t a tomb a celebration of life? Isn’t memory supposed to be a positive and prepositive push towards the future instead of a reproachful stare from the shame of our past? After we shared tears together, talking and trying to understand what happened then and what is happening right now around this chaotic and violent world, we will carry a bittersweet memory of what we learned.

Monument to the Revolution / Spomenik revoluciji

Makarska, Croatia, 1974

Makarska, after the fascist invasion, became one of the main strategic ports for naval and military activities, serving both the NDH and the Italian army. Because Makarska was the center of the League of Communists of Croatia and home to the communist school named Villa Irena before the war, the Partisan resistance quickly gained momentum.

This spomenik, constructed in 1974, commemorates the Biokovo Partisans who, along with many coastal civilians, converted their fishing boats into gunships and fought against the Italian 6th corps in 1942, resulting in casualties.

Nestled between the Biokovo mountains and the sea, we found ourselves atop this small hill within the village. This one was bustling with tourists enjoying seaside life.

I was personally skating around this monument when, on that day, the only person to pass by approached me. He was a local, around thirty years of age or older. He shared that his father used to bring him there to skate when he was a child, and he expressed happiness at seeing someone skating in that quiet square after all these years.

The gentle breeze, the warm sun, the sea, and the graceful curves of the sculpture made me feel as though I was lounging in the garden of a 1970s summer house. Somehow, the wind and waves seemed to cloak the echoes of past burning warships.

Seagull Wings / Galebova krila

Podgora, Croatia, 1962

Just like the spomenik in Makarska, the Seagull Wings in Podgora were built to commemorate the Partisan navy, who endeavored to thwart the incursions of Italian vessels in 1942 by arming their own fishing boats.

Following the initial incursion, in which a thousand Partisans lost their lives while the Italians suffered 17 casualties, the Biokovo Partisans, aided by Tito, established the Partisan Naval Headquarters in Podgora.

By the conclusion of the war in 1945, their navy had grown to include over sixteen thousand sailors and five hundred ships, a significant increase from the mere one hundred fifty soldiers three years prior.

«Stop, listen to the living legend of freedom, told by the sea, under the rocks of the Biokovo, restless sea, deep sea.»

This is the inscription found on the engraved granite plaque at the base of the seagull, a poem penned by Jure Kaštelan, a Croatian poet.

In fact, we spent the night beneath this monument, as we had no other place to sleep. When I awoke the next morning, I delved deeper into Kaštelan's works.

«You shine in darkness, you dream under shelter, all of fear, all of kindness. You grow in mountains, swell in dawns, you regenerate through our lives. You are above harm, made of dreams, made of blood, made of flesh, reveal yourself, spread your wings above the vultures, above the heavens.»

Jure Kaštelan, 1983. The poem was translated by Peter Kastmiler

Stone Flower / Kameni cvijet

Jasenovac, Croatia, 1966

Jasenovac is one of the best looking and most dreadful places I have ever witnessed. Immersed in the most beautiful of landscapes, a huge concrete flower, designed by Bogdan Bogdanović, stands tall. The trees, the lake and the grass are so beautiful that it seems that they don’t care if they are in the middle of what used to be a death camp, because what else could a tree, water and grass expect from humans.

The camp, originally established as a work camp in 1941 by the Ustaše militia (the croatian fascist regime during WWII), quickly became a concentration camp, where mostly ethnic-Serbs and Jews were killed, when not deported to Auschwitz. With Josip Broz Tito’s partisan army marching in, the Ustaše burned the camp down to avoid leaving traces in May 1945. When the partisans walked in, two days later, nothing but ashes was found.

After the War, the confusion over what the exact number of victims were at the camp during the war debilitated decision making for the political elite in Belgrade as far as how the space should be remembered. What’s certain is that something deeply horrible happened there. In the final choice of the design, Bogdanović stated: «I knew that I would neither look for, nor find inspiration by bringing the evil back to life».

So here it is, a flower, a symbol of life, standing tall and strong, «Terminating the inheritance of hatred that passes from generation to generation», as Bogdanović said.

Lepoglava Memorial Graveyard / Spomen Groblje

Lepoglava, Croatia, 1981

The prison of Lepoglava, initially built in 1854 under the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was mainly used for detaining communist rebels. Here, even Tito was imprisoned in the 1930s.

After the fascist invasion in 1941 and the creation of the puppet-state of the Independent State of Croatia (known as NDH), the facility continued to serve the same purpose. In 1943, the Partisans attempted to free the prisoners. However, in the same year, it was transformed by the Ustaše into a death camp, where up to five thousand men, women, and children were killed.

The spomenik stands there in memory of those victims and the Partisans who tried to liberate them. Luketić's intention here was to create a purely abstract and decontextualized form. Upon first viewing the sculpture, it is difficult to extract any specific symbolic meaning or information from its sharply geometric and crystalline-like form. This choice of such an adventurously modernist form may have been a response to the grimness and brutality of the atrocities committed here. Perhaps it was believed that by having a sculpture with such a highly contemplative and interpretive shape, an atmosphere more conducive to forgiveness and reconciliation might be better achieved.

I don't feel that I could say anything less than banal when discussing a death camp site. Honestly, I didn't feel well, and I wanted to leave. Essentially, there was nothing around that area, as if the place had been forgotten by humanity both physically and spiritually long ago, back in 1854.

Although I don't want to be guilty of moral arrogance, I believe that the cosmic nausea induced by the thought of these horrors should rarely leave our souls and should never be forgotten.

Broken Ring / Probijanje obruča

Pleso, Croatia, 1978

This monument at the spomenik complex in Pleso area of Zagreb commemorates the acts of sabotage committed by Partisan units on the Fascist controlled airports in the city during WWII and the liberation of the city.

In December of 1943, the Partisan conducted major sabotage actions to dismantle the defensive circle which the Ustaše and German troops had created around the city. The battles and bombings kept on going in Zagreb and the surrounding areas, until on May 8^th 1945, when the Partisan finally entered and liberated the city.

Monument to the Revolution of the people of Moslavina / Spomenik revolucije naroda Moslavine

Podgarić, Croatia, 1967

Built in 1967 through the collaboration of Croatian sculptor Dušan Đamonja and Serbian architect Vladimir Velickovic, the spomenik of Podgarić stands in the center of what was once a vast complex of hospitals and facilities. These facilities housed everything from bakeries, schools, and theaters from 1941 to the end of World War II.

Situated deep in the wooded hillsides to the east of Zagreb, the village of Podgarić became a significant center of Partisan revolt and a hub of activity for the Croatian Communist Party's Central Committee in Northern Croatia.

The monument was constructed in memory of nine hundred Partisans who perished at the hands of the Ustaše, the Croatian fascist army.

During our visit, hardly anyone was around. We encountered just a couple of other cars on the road leading to the monument, going in the opposite direction. However, the silence and serene calm of the landscape were far from empty. I sat down in the shade cast by the spomenik, read a few pages of my book, and for a moment, I contemplated the idea of living in that village. It felt strangely reassuring to lie on the grass, listening to Fede playing his guitar, and preparing a simple meal for the others. I considered that perhaps this was why those field hospitals existed there – because the place felt safe, shielded from the horrifying truth on the other side of the hill.