One of the entrances to Jasenovac Concentration Camp. The sign reads "Work Service of the Ustashe Defense Assembly Camp Nr. 3.

It has been shown that in the very first days of the Ustashi uprising a Catholic priest boasted in "there will be purges."

More or less "spontaneous" killings of Serbs and Jews occurred during the days when with the help of German and Italian troops, the Ustashi destroyed the legal authorities and created the "independent" puppet state.

As soon as the Ustashi were firmly in control they began to prepare murder on the largest scale, carrying out a carefully prepared plan of physical extermination of Serbs, Jews and Gypsies. Horror and frightful slaughter struck down hundreds of thousands of innocent people. Neither the aged nor the young were spared. The brutality of these acts is difficult for those who did not witness them to comprehend. Those who by chance escaped death were compelled by measures of extreme oppression to accept the Catholic faith.

It should not go unnoticed that this campaign of slaughter fitted in very well with the plans of the Nazis. Hitler had just launched his attack against the Soviet Union, on July 22, 1941, and Ustashi terrorism that would, it was hoped, keep the people of Croatia subdued, would obviate the necessity of maintaining large German garrisons there.

What happened in the late summer of 1941 and thereafter in Yugoslavia was the final triumph of the "Catholic radicalism" of which the newspaper Hrvatska Straza had spoken so proudly and which Archbishop Stepinac had praised. The real nature of "Catholic Radicalism" became manifest in outbursts of fanatical hatred towards the Orthodox religion, the Serb people and the Yugoslav state. Raised in a spirit of "Catholic Radicalism," many Catholic priests actively participated in the Ustashi mass murders. Never was one of those priest-criminals called to task by Archbishop Stepinac or by any other Church authority. Many priests were the chief organizers of the massacres in their districts, and many personally dipped their hands in the blood of the Serbs and the Jews. They killed with even greater hatred the Croat-Catholics when the latter sided with the partisans.

The Italian fascist journalist Corrado Zolle wrote in the newspaper Il Resto del Carlino, September 18, 1941, an article entitled Gli Ucellini di Gracac (The Birds of Gracac) on the occasion of a massacre of Serbs by the priest Morber in the village of Stikada near Gracac. Contrasting the Catholic priests in Croatia with the great Saint, Francis of Assisi, Zolle wrote:

"The first Franciscan from Assisi fraternized with the birds, but these his students and spiritual successors in the Independent State of Croatia are filled with hatred and kill innocent people, their brothers by the heavenly father, brothers by language, brothers by blood and brothers because they came from the same mother country, suckled from the same breasts; they kill, they murder, they bury people alive in ditches, throw the dead headlong into the river, into the sea or into the many ravines. There are bands of murderers who were led and who are still led by Catholic priests and monks."

Throughout the world the deeds of these Catholic priests were known. Archbishop Stepinac of Zagreb also knew; it was under his jurisdiction that they took place; but never once did he voice a protest against these horrors. Nor were the priest criminals called to answer for their crimes throughout the life of the Independent State of Croatia.

Not even when he received the protest sent him by Dr. Prvislav Grisogno, a Catholic Croat and former Minister in the Royal Yugoslav cabinet, did Archbishop Stepinac speak up. This letter, dated Belgrade, February 8, 1942, is quoted on pages 57 and 58 of Ally Betrayed, by David Martin, (Prentice Hall, New York, 1946, foreword by Rebecca West) where it reads in part:

"In all these unprecedented crimes, worse than pagan, our Catholic Church has also participated in two ways. First, a large number of priests, clerics, friars and organized Catholic youth actively participated in all these crimes; but more terrible, even, Catholic priests became camp commanders and, as such, ordered or tolerated the horrible tortures, murders and massacres of a baptized people. One Catholic priest slit the throat of an Orthodox Serbian priest. None of this could have been done without the permission of their Bishops, and, since it was done, they should have been brought to the ecclesiastical court and unfrocked. Since this did not happen, then obviously the Bishops gave their consent, by acquiescence at least.

"Friars and nuns carried Ustashi knives in one hand and a cross and a prayer-book in the other. The province of Srem is covered with the leaflets of Bishop Aksamovic, which were printed in his own print shop at Djakovo. He calls upon the Serbs, through these leaflets, to save their lives and property, recommending the Catholic faith to them.. .. In our country not one Bishop has decried the fate of the innocent Christian Serbs who have suffered more than the Jews in Germany.... "I write you this ... to save my soul and I leave it to you to find a way to save your soul."

Archbishop Stepinac could even read the incitements to murder in his own Catholic newspapers. The Crusader weekly Nedelja on August 10, 1941, published an article which stated "the talk about so-called religious tolerance is now stopped." This article appeared at a moment when the slaughter of the Serbian people was at its height. A little later, in its issue of August 24, 1941, Nedelja printed an article justifying the mass murders being committed in many parts of Croatia. Declaring the time had come for a final accounting with the Serbs, the paper said: "They have been hit with a mallet on the forehead; evil must be punished!" The "evil" was Yugoslavia, where the Serbs and Croats could live together. How some spokesmen for the Roman hierarchy felt about the mass murder of Serbs was indicated in the official newspaper of the Sarajevo Archbishopric, Katolicki Tjednik, on July 21, 1942, when it carried an article recounting the highlights in Ante Pavelic's life and recalling the great moment when Pavelic shouted in the parliament: "I shall be most happy when it becomes possible for me and the entire Croatian people to tell you Serbians 'good-night'..." The same article declared that all instructions of the chieftain must be carried out in order to clean up the "barbarian East," and concluded :

"Through various protective laws the Ustashi state is exterminating foreign influences and domestic evils. Death penalty is provided for those who are morally destroying the offspring of the Croatian people."

The paper Nova Hrvatska of June 28, 1941, lauded priest Marko Calusic, who led 180 armed Ustashi, as a man who was "always ready to shoulder a gun."

Some Roman Catholic priests, especially Franciscans, who had become sworn members of the Ustashi, had taken an oath to fight with dagger and gun for the "triumph of Christ and Croatia." How some of these priests conducted themselves after Pavelic, in July, 1941, gave the signal that inaugurated the mass killings, may be illustrated by a few cases from the files of the Yugoslav State Commission for the Investigation of War Crimes. Out of hundreds of cases, mention is made here of only a few which are typical: Priest Bozo Simlesa in the village of Listani was one of the most active members of the Ustashi. He was entrusted with the post of chief in the District of Livno. During the slaughter of the Serbs in the county of Listani he told the people from the pulpit that the time had arrived to exterminate all Serbs living in Croatia. He personally organized the Ustashi militia and obtained arms for it. On July 27, 1941, he held a meeting in the village and when he was informed that all Serbian men had been murdered and that women and children were to be killed that night, he told them not to wait for the night, for 24 hours had already passed since the chief had issued his order that not a single Serb must be left alive in Croatia.

The first Ustashi confidante in the District of Udbina was the Franciscan priest Mate Mogus, who had organized the Ustashi militia and disarmed the Yugoslav troops. At a meeting in Udbina on June 13, 1941, he said:

"Look, people, at these 16 brave Ustashi, who have 16,000 bullets and who will kill 16,000 Serbs, after which we will divide among us in a brotherly manner the Mutilic and Krbava fields."

This speech was the signal for the beginning of the slaughter of the Serbian people in the District of Udbina.

In the village of Tramosnica, priest Ante Klaric became the first Ustashi commissar, and personally led Ustashi units in attacks on Serbian villages. He organized the Ustashi militia and, according to witnesses, spoke from the pulpit as follows :

"You are old women and you should put on skirts, you have not yet killed a single Serb. We have no weapons and no knives and we should forge them out of old scythes and sickles, so that you can cut the throats of Serbs whenever you see them."

One practice of Klaric and the Ustashi in Serbian villages was to line up the Serbs in two rows, face to face, and then order them to slap one another's faces and insult and curse one another. In one instance he kept the victims locked in a school house for several days without food or water. Then before his eyes, the Ustashi beat them with gun butts and whips, and, by prior agreement, beat them all the harder the more Klaric asked them not to. Relics plundered from Serbian churches later were found in his home in most unbecoming places.

Jesuit priest Dr. Dragutin Kamber, a sworn Ustashi before the collapse of Yugoslavia, was appointed Ustashi confidante for the District of Doboj. He ordered the killing of about 300 persons in Doboj, and had about 250 more court martialed, of whom most were shot.

Priest Ivan Raguz was in close contact with prominent Ustashi in Stolac. Two days before the slaughter he declared there would be "scrambled eggs" and that he would take care of all Serbs. He boasted openly in the cafes that all questions were being solved by him jointly with the Ustashi, and urged the killings of all Serbs, including children, so that "even the seed of these beasts is not left."

Slaughter of the Serbs in Bosanska Gradiska was organized by priest Dr. Branimir Zupanic. As an Ustashi before the fall of Yugoslavia and a personal friend of Ante Pavelic, his words were decisive at the meeting at which the decision was reached to kill the Serbs. By his command in the village of Ragolje alone, more than 400 men, women and children had their throats cut.

Fra Franjo Udovic, priest in the village of Koricane, organized and commanded the militia, which he personally led when it burned the property of the Serbian people in the villages of Koricane and Imljane. He personally divided cattle plundered from the victims among his Ustashi.

Chief organizer of massacres of the Serbs in Bosnia was curate Bozidar Brale from Sarajevo. He took part in the killings with gun in hand and advocated "liquidation of the Serbs without compromise." Archbishop Saric later named the same Brale to the presidency of the Spiritual Board of the Archbishopric of Sarajevo.

Priest Srecko Peric of the Gorica monastery near Livno declared in one of his sermons in the church in Gorica:

"Kill and massacre all Serbs. First of all, kill my sister, who is married to a Serb and then all Serbs. When you finish this work, come to me here in the church and I will confess you and free you from sin."

The massacre then began, and by August 10, 1941, 5,600 Serbs had been killed in the District of Livno alone.

Franciscan Miroslav Filipovic was a member of the illegal Ustashi organization before the war. After establishment of the Independent State of Croatia he participated in massacres in the villages of Drakulic, near Banjaluka. According to his own admission at a hearing his first victim was a child, whom he killed personally while telling the Ustashi:

"Ustashi, I re-christen these degenerates in the name of God and you follow my example."

That was in the village of Drakulic, where 1,500 Serbs were killed in one day. Ustashi authorities later made this Franciscan commandant of Jasenovac, an Ustashi concentration camp which equaled Dachau in horror. When captured, Filipovic admitted he had ordered the murder of 40,000 men, women and children in the camp. Besides Filipovic, the Catholic priests Zvonko Brekalo, Zvonko Lipovac, Franciscan Culina and others also worked at the Jasenovac camp.

In Dvor na Uni priest Anton Djuric kept a diary of his activities as an Ustashi functionary. The diary shows that at his order the Ustashi plundered and burned the village of Segestin, where 150 Serbs were murdered, and that in the village Goricka he arrested 117 people, who were sent to a concentration camp, where most of them were killed.

A group of Franciscan priests who tortured and finally killed 25 Serbs in the village of Kasle took pictures of the "execution."

In Hercegovina the center of the Ustashi movement was located in the Franciscan monastery and the high school of Siroki Brijeg. The Catholic Dean in Stolac in Hercegovina, priest Marko Zovko, was responsible for the murder of 200 persons, whose bodies were thrown into a ditch in a field in Vidovo. Curate Ilija Tomas from the village of Klepac was responsible for the death of many Serbs in that district. In order more easily to capture frightened victims who were fleeing to the mountains, he promised them that no harm would befall them if they would embrace the Catholic religion.

Many of them believed this and called on him, whereupon he turned them over to the Ustashi, who murdered them.

In the village of Stikade, in Lika, the Ustashi were under the leadership of the Catholic priest Morber. Morber invited the Serbs to be converted to the Catholic religion. Those of them who accepted in good faith his proposal to be converted the Ustashi surrounded and massacred with rifles and hammers and threw the bodies into a ditch. When the bodies were dug up later it was established that many had been alive when buried.

Franciscans from the monastery in Sinj, Ivan Hrstic, Stanko Litre and Joso Olujic, personally maltreated captured Partisan Serbs and Partisan Croats. Hrstic was a major and Litre a captain in the Ustashi army.

Franciscan Mijo Cujic of Duvno personally gave instructions regarding the massacre of Serbs in the villages of Prisoje and Vrila, where not one person was allowed to remain alive.

This Ustashi program of mass murder as a way of helping Hitler and Mussolini resulted in the death of over 800,000 persons--Serbs, Croat anti-fascists, Jews.

NEXT:    Forcible Conversion

THE CASE OF ARCHBISHOP STEPINAC

Croatian Holocaust

Papacy Uncovered