After the partisans liberated most of Yugoslavia and NDH collapsed in May 1945, some NDH soldiers and civilians retreated towards the British-occupied zone in Austria near Bleiburg. Many of them were killed by the Yugoslav partisans after the Bleiburg repatriations. In the closing stages of the war and the immediate aftermath, some Bosnian Croats who previously supported the ustaše regime or were merely perceived as potential opponents of the new communist Yugoslavia were persecuted or executed (notably, Herzegovina friars).