FROM THE RECORD ...
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 G-d 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.
Topic: Croatian death camps for children (Read 31804 times)