Chapter 4 THE NIGHTMARE OF A NATION: The Vatican's Holocaust by Avro Manhattan from reformed.org
Chapter 4
THE NIGHTMARE OF A NATION
The
Independent Kingdom of Croatia, having thus officially sprung into existence,
set forth with burning zeal to fulfill all the hopes so obstinately entertained
by its religious and political promoters: the Vatican and Fascism. Inspired by
the graciously remote majesty of good King Tomislav II, under the patronage of
His Holiness the Pope,
protected
by Hitler, watched by Mussolini, ruled by Catholic terrorists, and policed by
Catholic bayonets, the New Croatia began to transform itself into the ideal
commonwealth as advocated by Catholic tenets.
A State,
however, according to papal dicta must be regulated not only by civil but also
by religious authority. So Pavelic, having determined that a religious
equivalent of himself should partake of the rights and duties of rulership, saw
to it that the head of the Hierarchy became a de facto ruler of the New
Croatia. Archbishop Stepinac, the Croatian Primate, and others, members of the
While Ante Pavelic was transforming Croatia with a mailed fist, his religious equivalent, Archbishop Stepinac, facilitated the revolution by a timely nationwide mobilization of the whole of the Catholic Church. No opportunity was allowed to pass without Stepinac openly singing the praises of, or sprinkling with oral or holy-water blessings, the new Catholic Croatia, her great Leader Pavelic, the Duce, and the great Fuehrer. When dates commemorating the bloody ascent of Fascism to power were celebrated in Fascist Italy or in Nazi Germany, Stepinac, although in Croatia, celebrated them with no less fervour. Thus he punctiliously celebrated October 28, the day when, in 1922, the first Fascist dictatorship was installed in Italy. While Mussolini annually paraded His Black Shirt battalions in Rome on that date, Stepinac annually commemorated the march with speeches, prayers, and congratulations, distributed with equal generosity also to Hitler on his ever-gloomier succeeding April birthdays. When it came to his own new Fascist State, however, the archiepiscopal panegyrics became impassioned recommendations for everything done by the New Croatia. After Parliament was convoked in February, 1942, Stepinac, with all the sacred authority of the chief pillar of the Mother Church, asked the Holy Ghost to descend upon the sharp edged knives of the Ustashi, and to settle, at least while the parliamentary session lasted, upon the brow of Pavelic. Special prayers and extra ounces of incense were offered in all Catholic churches on Pavelic's birthday. [1]
When the pocket-sized Ustashi Navy departed for the Black Sea, to destroy, side by side with the Germans, the Red Navy of godless
|
A
copy of the original document dealing with the conversion to the Catholic
Church of all Orthodox persons employed by the Government. Issued in Zagreb
by the Ministry of Justice and Religions.
A
mass execution carried out by the Ustashi at Brode, early in 1941. Nazi
troops were looking at some of the victims. |
Russia,
Stepinac flanked by Dr. Ramiro Marcone, the representative of that lover of
peace, Pius XII, celebrated the triumphal departure in Zagreb, surrounded by
the Catholic Hierarchy, mumbling Latin incantations for speedy victory by those
brave aquatic crusaders. Stepinac's colleagues imitated their leader with
unmatched zeal—e.g. Bishop Aksamovic, of Djakovo, who was personally decorated
by Pavelic because "His Excellency the Bishop has from the very beginning
cooperated with the Ustashi authorities." Or Archbishop Saric—the bosom
friend of Jure Francetic, the commander of the Black Legion—who raised his
right hand in the Ustashi—that is, the Nazi—salute at every opportunity, public
or private.
The
transformation of the Catholic Hierarchy into a de facto Ustashi
Hierarchy had a most dreadful significance. It meant that the whole machinery
of the Catholic Church in Croatia had been put at the complete disposal of the
ruthless individuals determined to make of the new State a compact political
and military unit, cemented by the most secure guarantees of the State's
indestructibility. Such a policy implied, not only the transformation of the
Croatian social, cultural, and political fabric, but also the complete
extirpation of whatever was "alien" to Croatian stock and to its
national religion. This required the total elimination of whoever was not a
Catholic Croat. Not an easy task, as a large portion of the new State was
composed of bulky racial-religious groups wholly foreign to Ustashi
Catholicism. Out of a population of 6,700,000, in fact, only 3,300,000 were
Croats. Of the remainder, 700,000 were Moslems, 45,000 were Jews, followed by
sundry smaller minorities. Over 2,000,000 were Orthodox Serbs.
The
inclusion in the New Croatia of so many alien elements was due to the
territorial ambitions of Croat Separatism. These, as we have already seen, had
been epitomized in the conception of the "Greater Croatia" of Ante
Starcevic, who founded an extreme political party, the Croatian Law Party,
subsequently elevated to the level of a fanatical National programme by Ante
Pavelic. The Party's ideology, although one of racial and religious
exclusiveness, accepted geographical expansion. This meant the inclusion in an
independent Croatia of disputed territories, and hence of non-Catholic
elements, which became automatically the greatest obstacle to the complete
Catholicization of the new Croat State. To solve the problem, a policy directed
at the swift elimination of all the non-Croat, non-Catholic population was
adopted and promptly set in motion. This was repeatedly and publicly enunciated
by members of the Ustashi Government—e.g. on June 2, 1941, in Nova Grarfiska,
Dr. Milovan Zanitch, Minister of Justice, declared:
This State, our country, is only for the Croats, and not for anyone else. There are no ways and means which we Croats will not use to make our country truly ours, and to clean it of all Orthodox Serbs. All those who came into our country 300 years ago must disappear. We do not hide this our intention. It is the policy of our State, and during its promotion we shall do nothing else but follow the principles of the Ustashi.
Dr.
Mile Budak, Minister of Education and of Cults, lost no time in enlightening
his listeners of the nature of such principles. During his first Press
interview as a Minister, when asked what the policy of Croatia would be in
relation to the non-Croat racial and religious minorities, his reply was an
ominously simple one: "For them" (the minorities), he said, "we
have three million bullets." This was not the boasting of a fanatical
individual. It was the epitomization of a policy, coolly planned by Pavelic in
concert with the Catholic Hierarchy, which was set in motion immediately when
the Nazis invaded Yugoslavia. Dr. Milovan Zanich, Dr. Mirko Puk, Dr. Victor
Gutich, Ustashi Ministers, unhesitatingly declared that the New Croatia would
get rid of all the Serbs in its midst, in order to become 100 per cent Catholic
"within ten years." On July 22, 1941, the plan was again officially confirmed
by Dr. Mile Budak: "We shall kill one part of the Serbs," were his
words, "we shall transport another, and the rest of them will be forced to
embrace the Roman Catholic religion. This last part will be absorbed by the
Croatian elements." Ways and means to enact such a scheme were swiftly
adopted. The most radical and most ruthless: mass removal of Serbians from the
contested zone. According to the Ministers, one-third of these were to be
transported to Serbia proper, one-third would be "persuaded" to
embrace Catholicism, and the remainder would be "disposed of" by
other means. "Other means" soon signified biological extermination,
and "persuasion" forcible conversion.
Conversion
and extermination spelt one thing: the total annihilation of the Orthodox
Church. That, in fact, turned out to be the official policy of the New Catholic
State of Croatia. Such a policy was
|
"The
Pit of Death" An Orthodox Serb being thrown alive into a mass grave in
the notorious concentration camp of Jasenovac, in 1942. |
|
Corpses
of children starved to death in the notorious Concentration Camp of
Jasenovec, whose Commandant at one time was a Franciscan Monk, Father
Filipovic. Father Filipovic, following the advice of Father D. Juric, let
more than 2,000 other Orthodox children die while the camp was still under
his rule, |
formally
put forward in Parliament by, among others, Dr. Mirko Puk, the Ustashi Minister
of Justice and Religion: "I shall also make reference to the so-called
Serbian Orthodox Church," he said. "In this regard I must
emphatically state that the Independent Croatian State cannot and will not
recognize the Serbian Orthodox Church."[2]
Pavelic's
triple programme was made to operate simultaneously everywhere, following the
establishment of the New State. Its execution was simple, direct, and brutal.
It ranged from hurried decrees—like that issued by his new Minister of Public
Instruction only four days after Hitler's attack (April 10, 1941), which barred
members of the Serbian Orthodox Church from entering the University unless they
had given up the Orthodox faith before April 10, 1941—to wholesale
deportations, like those carried out on July 4 and 5, 1941, by the Ustashi in
Zagreb; to the massacre of men, women, and children, like that of Kljuch, on
July 31, on August 31, on September I and 2, 1941, when the "Flying
Ustashi" summarily executed approximately 2,000 Serbs.[3]
In a State
insanely bent on a policy of racial-religious extermination, laws and legality,
when observed, were nothing but tragic mockeries. The Courts Extraordinary
already mentioned, for instance, always condemned regardless of evidence, did
not permit the right to appeal, and their sentences had to be carried out
within three hours of pronouncement. Thus, these courts sentenced an immense
number of people to death without offering them any opportunity for defense,
and their sentences were strictly applied. In most cases the courts punished
"collectively," under the guise of "trials." One bench
alone, for instance, that of Zagreb, within two days—August 4 and 5,
1941—sentenced to death 185 persons; that of Stem, from August 3 to 25, 1942,
217 persons; the proceedings at the mobile court at Ruma on August 3, 1942,
lasted only two and a half hours, during which twenty-six persons were
sentenced to death. At Stara Pazova, on August 8, 1942, the court proceedings
lasted only half an hour, and eighteen people received the death sentence. At
Ruma on August 10, 1942, a defending counsel appointed by the Ustashi handled
the defense of twenty-five persons, whom he met for the first time at the
trial, the chairman of the bench allowing him only two minutes for each person.
The Tribunals, a most tragic mockery of justice, were veritable instruments of
extermination, as proved by the fact that within four years one bench alone of
the mobile court extraordinary of Zagreb, headed by Ivan Vidnjevic, sentenced
to death 2,500 citizens.
But while
the Tribunals had at least a semblance of legality, the Ustashi found means to
exterminate thousands of persons by a quicker method—i.e. by dispatching them
to concentration camps and disposing of them there. The institution and
supervision of these camps were exclusively in the hands of Pavelic, who personally
attended to their management. The arrests and deportations to these camps
rested with the Ustashi, who could send to them anyone they judged to be an
"unreliable person," and who had absolute authority to kill
immediately on arrival anyone taken there. Indeed, there "was
agreement," to quote Ljubo Milos, Commandant of the Jasenovac
concentration camp, "that all sentenced to three years, or not sentenced
at all, were to be liquidated at once."3 By virtue of this, inmates of the camps were murdered
indiscriminately, either individually or collectively, without even a legal
excuse. Thus, in March, 1943, the inmates of the Djakovo Camp were purposely
infected with typhus, causing the deaths of 567 persons; on September 15, 1941,
all those inmates of the Jasenovac camp who were unable to work, numbering
between 600 and 700, were killed; in the camp of Stara Gradiska, 1,000 women
were killed. Of 5,000 Orthodox Serbs being taken to Jasenovac camp at the end
of August, 1942, 2,000 were killed en route, the remainder were transferred to
Gradina, where on August 28 they were put to death with hammers. In the Krapje
Camp, in October, 1941, 4,000 prisoners were murdered; while in the Brocice
Camp, in November, 1941, 8,000 prisoners were killed. From December, 1941, to
February, 1942, at Velika Kosutarica, at Jasenovac, over 40,000 Orthodox Serbs
were massacred, while in the Jasenovac camp, in the summer of 1942, about
66,000 Orthodox Serbs, brought from the villages of the Bosnian Marches, were
slaughtered, including 2,000 children.
Children
were not spared, and special concentration camps were set up for them. Nine of
these were at Lobor; Jablanac, near Jasenovac; Mlaka; Brocice; IJstici; Stara
Gradiska; Sisak; Jastrebarsko; and Ciornja Rijeka. The destruction of infants
in these places would be incredible, were it not vouched for by eyewitnesses,
one of whom has testified:
At that time fresh women and children came daily to the Camp at Stara Gradiska. About fourteen days later, Vrban [Commandant of the Camp] ordered all children to be separated from their mothers and put in one room. Ten of us were told to carry them there in blankets. The children crawled about the room, and one child put an arm and leg through the doorway, so that the door could not be closed. Vrban shouted: 'Push it!' When I did not do that, he banged the door and crushed the child's leg. Then he took the child by its whole leg, and banged it on the wall till it was dead. After that we continued carrying the children in. When the room was full, Vrban brought poison gas and killed them all.[4]
At
his trial, Ante Vrban protested that he had not killed hundreds of children personally,
"but only sixty-three."[5]
In 1942
there were some 24,000 children in the Jasenovac camp alone, 12,000 of whom
were cold-bloodedly murdered. A very large portion of the remainder, having
subsequently been released following pressure by the International Red Cross,
perished wholesale from intense debilitation. One hundred of these infants,
aged up to twelve months, for instance, died after release from the camp
because of the addition of caustic soda to their food.
Dr. Katicic,
Chairman of the Red Cross, shocked by these mass murders, lodged the strongest
protest, threatening to denounce to the world this mass slaughter of infants.
As a reply, Pavelic had Dr. Katicic flung into the concentration camp of Stara
Gradiska.
That was not
all. Even worse horrors—if worse there could be—took place in Pavelic's
concentration camps. There were cases when the victims were burned alive:
The cremation at Jasenovac took place in the spring of 1942. In this they meant to imitate the Nazi camps in Germany and Poland, so Picilli had the notion of making the brickworks into a crematorium, where he did succeed, out of 14 ovens (7 a side) in making an oven for cremating people. There was then a decision to cremate people alive, and simply open the huge iron door and push them alive into the fire already alight there. That plan, however, excited terrible reaction among those who were to be burned. People shrieked, shouted and defended themselves. To avoid such scenes, it was resolved first to kill them and then to burn them.[6]
The representatives of the "only true Church" not only knew of such horrors: not a few of them were authorities in these same concentration camps, and had even been decorated by Ante Pavelic—e.g. Father Zvonko Brekalo, of the concentration camp of Jasenovac, who was decorated in 1944 by the leader himself with the "Order of King Zvonimir"; Father Grga Blazevitch, Assistant to the Commandant of the concentration camp of Bosanski-Novi; Brother Tugomire Soldo, organizer of the great massacre of the Serbs in 1941; and others. The worst abominations could hardly have been surpassed by the deeds of these individuals, the vilest betrayers of civilization and of man.
I.
Katolicki List, June 11, 1942.[Back]
2. Speech by
Dr. Mirko Puk, Minister of Justice and Religion. Excerpt from stenographic
record of the proceedings of a regular session of the Croatian State Assembly,
held in Zagreb, February 25, 1942.[Back]
3. All the
crimes described in this book are authentic. For further atrocities of this
kind, see the Memorandum sent to the General Assembly of UNO in 1950 by A.
Pribicevic, President of the Independent Democratic Party of Yugoslavia, and by
Dr. V. Belaicic, former Justice of the Supreme Court of Yugoslavia. Also Dokumenti,
compiled by Joza Horvat and Zdenko Stambuk, Zagreb, 1946.[Back]
4. Statement
made by witness Cijordana Friedlender, from the shorthand notes of the Ljubo
Milos case, pp. 292-3.[Back]
5. From
shorthand notes of the Ljubo Milos case.[Back]
6. Idem. See
also official indictment of Ante Pavelic.[Back]
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