Serbian Christians pay the price for
Catholic Church's war on Orthodoxy
- by Mark Owen
Catholic Church's war on Orthodoxy
- by Mark Owen
On 6 April, 1941, just a few days after the Germans invaded Yugoslavia, the Fascist Independent State of Croatia was proclaimed. The Nazis, naturally, approved. The rebels were known as Ustashi (rebels), a name that would go down in history as one of infamy. Indeed, it has been said by many historians that the Ustashi even outdid the Nazis in the ferocity and cruelty of their brutal reign. They were led by Ante Pavelic, who aimed to eliminate from the country not only every Jew and Gipsy but Serbs too, at least those who would not bow to his will.
Indeed, the two million Serbs then living in Croatia inspired even greater hatred in Pavelic (sometimes spelled Pavelitch) and his henchmen than the Jews and Gipsies did. In the end somewhere between 1 million and 1.7 million people lost their lives in the terrible civil war that raged within Yugoslavia while the world beyond its borders fought its greater war.
The Croatians are primarily Catholics, the Serbians mainly either Orthodox (eastern) Christians with some Muslims. Pavelic was a Catholic and it is claimed that his supporters comprised a good cross-section of members of Catholic Action and among their number a great many priests and nuns.
After the war Catholic Archbishop Aloïs (Aloysius) Stepinac was tried by the new rulers of Yugoslavia and sentenced to 16 years' jail. The Pope of the day accused the Communists of 'persecution' but the guilt of the Archbishop has been well established by independent authorities.
On 16 December, 1937, Pope Pius 11th commented on the progress of Catholicism in Yugoslavia: 'The day will come . . . when many will be sorry not to have openly and generously accepted the great gift which the Vicar of Jesus Christ was offering their country.' That day had now come with a vengeance!
On 18 May, 1941, six weeks after taking control in Croatia, Pavelic was received in private audience by the then Pope, Eugenio Pacelli, Pius 12th.
APPARATUS OF TYRANNY
As soon as they had taken control the Ustashi brought into play all the standard apparatus of tyranny - the concentration camps, the torture centres, the censorship of literature and radio and the daily threat to life and limb. Hand-in-hand the secular leadership and the churchmen began a program of what might be called 'religious cleansing'. Soon a decree was issued banning any publication using the Cyrillic script, i.e the script used by Orthodox Serbs.
Archbishop Stepinac, Primate of the Catholic Church in Yugoslavia, worked closely with the authorities in implementing this program. It was a moment many had been waiting for, an opportunity to assert once and for all the authority of Rome: kill or convert the Orthodox Serbs (for the Catholics and the Orthodox have been at loggerheads for centuries) and exterminate the Jews. This was the program in hand.
On 31 August, 1941, a telling article appeared in the Yugoslavian journal, Katolicki Tjednik (‘Catholic Action'). This journal was published with the imprimatur of Catholic Archbishop Saritch of Sarajevo and was written by a priest, Father Peter Pajic. It was titled, amazingly: Hitler Upholds the Mission. In read, in part:
Until now, God spoke through
papal encyclicals, numerous sermons, catechisms, the Christian press,
through missions, through the heroic examples of the saints, and so
on . . . And? They closed their ears. They were deaf. Now
God has decided to use other methods. He will prepare missions.
European missions! World missions! They will be upheld not by
priests but by army commanders led by Hitler. The sermons will be heard
with the help of cannons, machine-guns, tanks and bombers.
The language of these sermons will be international. No one will be able to complain that he did not understand it, because all people know very well what death is and what wounds are, disease, hunger, fear, slavery and poverty are. . .
The language of these sermons will be international. No one will be able to complain that he did not understand it, because all people know very well what death is and what wounds are, disease, hunger, fear, slavery and poverty are. . .
Another journal, the official publication of the Catholic Crusader Brotherhood, Nedlja, in its issue of 6 June, 1941 said:
Christ and the Ustashi and Christ
and the Croatians march together through history. From the first day of
its existence the Ustashi movement has been fighting for the victory of
Christ's principles, for the victory of justice, freedom and
truth. Our Holy Saviour will help us in the future as he has done
until now, that is why the new Ustashi Croatia will be Christ's, ours
and no one else's!
CHILDREN MURDERED
It was these same Crusaders (known as the Great Brotherhood of Crusaders) who now stepped from the shadows into the light upon the proclamation of the new State and embraced the invaders with zeal. Pavelic and a fellow-butcher, Kvaternik by name, with the help of such Crusaders, set to work with a will. When Pavelic in December 1941 commented that 'he who could not cut away a child from his mother's womb is not a good Ustashi' he may have been speaking figuratively, but in time this particular atrocity was to be carried out literally.
An estimated 70,000 to 80,000 Jews were either murdered or forced to flee. And no less than a quarter million Orthodox Serbs embraced Catholicism to save their lives. The alternative was a simple one: death. Hundreds of thousands more did die. A system of certificates was instituted. Those who converted to Catholicism were given a certificate to prove the fact should they be accosted by soldiers. But often even this didn't save them.
The resisters were tortured and slaughtered and their bodies cast into mass graves. And documents extant bearing the signatures of Archbishop Stepinac and another prelate, Archbishop Saritch of Sarajevo, can be examined in the Yugoslav State archives, showing that they both authorized the transfer of former Serbian church properties into Catholic hands. As for the properties of Jews and other resisters, they were taken over by the State.
The tale of atrocities is of such proportions that one does not know where to begin. Perhaps with the priest, Dr Srecko Peric, of Livno, who preached in church that all Serbs should be slaughtered - his sister the first, because she had married a Serb! This charming example of the Christian spirit personally promised absolution to the murderers. Men, women and children in Livno soon suffered horribly. Another priest, Father Ivan Mikan, made personal daily visits to imprisoned Serbs in Ogulin, not to comfort them but to beat them with a bullwhip! His zeal was such that he even upbraided the Ustashi for being lax.
Yet another priest, Fra Anto, of Tamosnjica, organized a band of Ustashi and proceeded to round up Serbian families. The captives, children among them, were then locked up in a shed and held for days without food and water. In village after village the priests were actively engaged in denouncing the 'traitors' to police. One godly father, by name of Eugen Pujic, of Herzegovina, personally cut the throat of the the local Orthodox minister, using a large knife.
NOBODY SAFE
Simply because they were Serbs, a doctor and his family were taken and executed at Livno. Dr Dushan Mitrovich was a prominent and respected member of the community and had worked there for 20 years. He had made it his special task to foster good relations between the different peoples. The doctor's two children were axed before their parents' eyes after which they too suffered the same grisly fate. All but 100 of the 2000 Serbians in that town died. Nobody was spared. Dignified citizens, tiny babes, aged women, suffered equally.
One butcher, Sudar by name, who took his pleasure of the people of Lika, enjoyed the sport of grabbing a small baby from a mother's arms and, holding it head-down, then dashing it to death against a wall. The group of thugs he led gouged out men's eyes and sliced off women's breasts - after first stripping, and sometimes raping, them. He once boasted of sending human eyes to the Ustashi headquarters at Zagreb to gain a suitable reward. Reportedly such means were used to provide a tally of the dead enemy.
A particularly gruesome incident was reported from Nevesinje. A mother, father and three children were arrested by the Ustashi. The father was taken away and the mother and three children were locked in a cell, left to starve. They had no idea where the father was. For seven days the four were kept that way, then their jailors brought them a large roast and some water to drink. The mother and children gratefully ate up all the food and drank the water. They were then told that the flesh they had eaten was that of their own husband and father!
By July 1941, that is just three months after the new State was proclaimed, so many corpses jammed the River Neretva that boats had difficulty navigating and captains began refusing to try to sail through the waters. Other rivers, the Sava, Danube and Drava, also carried many bodies floating in their waters. Some had tags attached to them with inscriptions such as: 'Direction - Belgrade, to King Peter'.
In January 1942 there was a new and terrible outbreak of atrocities, especially in the districts of Dvor and Nova Gradiska. Here some of the worst torments were recorded. Men were dragged along roads tied to the back of trucks, beards of Orthodox clergy pulled off, complete with the skin, and fire and boiling water applied to people's chests as they were held down on the ground. Pregnant women had their bellies cut open and babies torn from them. Some people were buried alive. The lucky ones were stripped, their hands bound, and were then thrown into deep pits and small bombs dropped on top of them. At least these ones mostly perished quickly.
Children suffered unspeakable horrors. In one place small boys were put onto a hot fire. Some had their eyes gouged out and ears cut off and were then thrown onto the fire. Some children had steel nails driven into the heads and their arms and legs amputated while they were alive. In other places children's limbs were torn from their bodies, their heads pounded against walls. Others were thrown alive into boiling water and into lime pits. Not a shred of pity was felt by their tormentors.
RAPE VICTIMS
Young woman and girls and even prepubescent children were dragged off by the soldiers to their camps to serve as prostitutes. Some were installed in specially designated houses, others merely subjected to rape outside a camp and then let go. Mothers were raped in the presence of their young daughters and young girls raped as their mothers were forced to watch. A son was forced to rape his own mother, whose name was Olga Kepliya. Rapes even took place in churches.
Hard evidence of atrocities was provided to the world at large by some Italians in one area who managed to photograph Ustashi soldiers. Like the Germans, the Ustashi often had themselves photographed in what would prove to be compromising situations when the war was over. Around their waists were hanging an array of human tongues and eyes. The Italians also took photographs of some Ustashi proudly holding a large dish containing a big quantity of human eyes.
Few prisoners died simply. Most were first tortured cruelly. It was not uncommon, for example, to break the arms and/or legs of people before they were actually killed. Or they died horribly, like some victims, men, women and children, who were stripped naked and then, with hands bound behind their backs, pushed alive into the near-freezing Danube River, through holes dug into the ice covering. Among these victims were children as young as 5 years of age. Hungarian soldiers helped the Ustashi out in this particular instance.
And again, children were not spared, in fact they often suffered most from the sadistic lust of the murderers. It was altogether a field day for sadists. In one village the adults were first massacred and then about 20 children were tied to the walls of a large barn so that they faced outwards. The soldiers then set fire to the barn and watched with glee as the children struggled against their bonds while the flames licked about their bodies. By the next morning some of the children were still alive but horribly burnt and lying about moaning in agony. The Ustashi went about enjoying themselves tormenting the pain-wracked dying youngsters with knives until eventually all lay dead.
Other atrocities involving children included an incident at the village of Hatitsch, where boys were tied in pairs back to back before being shot. But some at least were spared the worst cruelties. These were the lucky ones who were simply rounded up in droves and machine-gunned. One hundred here, 300 there, even 3,000 in one place. In some cases people were deported to Germany to act as slave labour. There were also cases where children were separated from their families and put into a special camp to be trained up as good Catholics and Croatians.
Villagers would be ordered out of their homes but required to carry with them picks and shovels - to dig their own graves. Under the watchful eye of their captors, men, women and children would silently dig. Then their hands would be tied behind their backs and they would be cast into the pit. Very often they were then buried alive, the soldiers shovelling dirt in on top of the helpless captives. In one instance some Italians came across a still living man in a pit. He was bound to some corpses and both his arms and legs were broken. In his pain he had gnawed at his clothing and chewed up one sleeve entirely.
And as the months continued so did the atrocities. An Orthodox bishop and a priest were laid on the ground and a fire built upon their chests. After suffering cruelly from the burns they were finally slaughtered. In many places people were locked up for long periods without food and water. In other areas families were ejected from their homes and everything within confiscated. If they were lucky they would be deported, if not they died en route.
HUNG ON HOOKS
Orthodox churches were entered and congregations slaughtered on the spot. At Kladusa, Serbian families were rounded up and carted off to an actual slaughterhouse. Here they were put through the same routine used to butcher animals. They were first stripped of their clothing and then had their throats cut. Many, including children and women, were hung up on meat-hooks, naked and still alive, before they had even expired. In one village small babies were found impaled and still living, on the pointed ends of a fence, their small limbs contorted in pain, pinned like insects.
Some of the male slave labourers were put to work in brick factories or hydro-electric plants where they would be given the most arduous and dangerous tasks. They were beaten and starved and if they aroused the wrath of their masters would end up dying. There were always more slaves where they came from. They were expendable. The Ustashi saved ammunition in one area by disposing of troublesome workers alive in the furnaces of the brick factory. The bodies of those who died in other ways would be stripped of all clothing and valuables.
In one work camp the prisoners slept at night during the winter literally in water. In this same camp a member of the Ustashi, Matkovich, one day asked the commandant, Milos, to allow him to choose someone as a 'Christmas present!' He was allowed to do so and he chose Joca Divjak, a man who had once owned a cafe in Lipik. On one occasion the cafe had been so busy he could not offer a seat to Matkovich. It was the time for revenge for this supposed slight. At midnight two Ustashi felled Divjak to the ground, then while one sat on his head, the other ripped off his coat and shirt and proceeded to pare slowly the man's chest with a knife. Half an hour later Matkovich tore the man's living heart from his chest. All the other prisoners were forced to watch, on pain of death if they didn't.
Various ingenious tortures were devised to use against the hated Serbs. One was called, simply, Zica (meaning wire). Around a camp was barbed wire and this was arranged so that it was thickly woven across at a point about one metre above the ground. The ground itself was ankle-deep in water. A small cage-like structure was erected under this wire and a man would be forced to spend his night squatting in the water, unable to stretch out or raise himself. He would then be set to work again the next day and returned to his cruel prison at night.
GENITAL TORTURE
The genitals were favourite targets of the torturer. Women's breasts were cut off and objects of all kinds forced into their vaginas. Men and boys would be emasculated and young girls attacked sexually. Another common means of death was to literally execute a person by crucifixion, nailing him or her to the door-frame of his own house. While the naked victim writhed in agony he or she would be further tortured in other ways. Such crucifixions were reported in one area in particular, Bosanska Kostajnica.
There seemed to be no end to the variety of tortures. People were whipped so terribly that they died under the strokes of the lash. The faeces of some prisoners were smeared on others and then prisoners made to lick them. Another method of beating was to use bags containing stones. Prisoners might be tied down to a bench to be beaten or to a pole. The Serbs in one prison were tied to the bench, then needles were forced beneath their fingernails and toenails. As they lay there suffering agony from the needles they were whipped as well. Then their legs were untied and were forced far apart, causing intense pain.
Food and water were always scarce, prisoners often going for days without either. In one place mock crowns of thorns were forced onto their heads as they were made to parade walking barefoot over barbed wire. Dr Veljko Torbica was attacked near Gracac. Deep knife gashes were cut into his chest and salt rubbed into the wounds. They were then sewn up as his tormentors mockingly asked him: 'Doctor, was the operation successful?' A merchant, by name of Nikola Curcija, was attacked in almost every conceivable manner. His eyes were gouged out, his penis and scrotum cut off, his arms and legs cut off, and then as he lay bleeding to death he was finished off with a club and stones.
Orthodox clergy were special targets of abuse. Some were made to clean latrines with their bare hands. But undoubtedly the worst atrocity against a clergyman involved Bishop Platon, 81 years of age. His tormentors nailed horseshoes to his bare feet and forced him walk a long distance thus shod. When his mutilated feet could carry him no further and he fell to the ground they tore off his beard and lit a charcoal fire on his breast in the usual fashion. Then as he lay dying they finished him off with a hatchet.
At one point during the war so many stories of atrocities reached the outside world that a commission of inquiry was sent in. The local authorities happily received them and they were shown around one or two camps. There was no problem as they had received advance warning and the camps had been prepared beforehand.
PRIESTLY PARTICIPATION
Evidence of priestly participation in the sordid events is not difficult to find. For instance, Dr Nikolas Bilogrivitch, priest at Banja Luka, went before a war crimes tribunal after the war. He had collaborated closely with the Governor of Western Bosnia, Dr Viktor Gutitch. On an Orthodox feast day, the 'massacre of St Elijah's Day' was organized. The Ustashi exterminated in that period hundreds of thousands of Serbian men, women and children. Recounting the details himself before the tribunal, ex-Governor Gutitch described how one priest, Father Miroslav Filipovitch, came to him after a massacre and 'asked me for some spirits. While he was drinking, he said: "Yesterday, at Drakulitch, we exterminated every living soul - about 1,300 men, women and children.".'
On 8 February, 1942, a former minister in the Yugoslav government, and a Croatian Catholic himself, Prvislav Grizogono, wrote to Archbishop Stepinac, pleading with him to do something about the terrible atrocities occurring throughout the area. He wrote, he said, as 'man to man, as a Christian to a Christian.' In part the letter said:
These atrocities do not amount to
simple killings alone. They aim at the extermination of every Serb,
men, women and children, and with terribly wild tortures of the
victims. These innocent Serbs were stuck on poles alive and fires built
on their bare chests. Literally they were roasted alive, being burnt to
death in their homes and in their churches.
In many cases boiling water was poured on living victims before their
mutilation, their flesh was salted and their eyes gouged out while they
were still living, their ears and their noses were lopped off and their
tongues cut out. The beards and moustaches of clergy, together with
their skin were ripped off by knives, while the victims' sex organs
were cut off and stuffed into their mouths. Some were tied to trucks
and dragged, while other victims had their arms and legs broken
and their heads spiked. Their heads were smashed with crowbars,
many were thrown into deep cisterns and caves, and then literally
bombed to pieces.Their children were thrown into fire or scalding water, and they were fed to the fired lime furnaces. Other children were torn apart by the legs, their heads were crushed against walls and their spines were broken against rocks. In one boat on the Sava [river], there was a pile of children's heads with a woman's head (presumably that of the mother of the children) labelled: 'Meat for Jovan's Market - Belgrade'.
The case of Milenka Bozinich from Stapandza, is a particularly gruesome one, because they ripped her unborn child out of her with a knife. In Bosnia, a huge pile of roasted heads was found. Utensils full of Serbian blood were also discovered - this was the hot blood of their murdered brothers that other Serbs were forced to drink. About 3,000 Serbs were murdered in the Serbian Orthodox Church at Glina and the massacre of Serbs before the altar at Kladusha with sledgehammers is something that may never be mentioned in history.
There are detailed and official minutes of these unheard-of crimes. They were terrible as to have shocked even the Germans and the Italians. Many pictures were taken of these massacres and torture orgies. The Germans claim the Croats did the same things during the Thirty Years' War and that, since then, there has been a proverb in Germany: 'God save us from cholera, hunger and the Croats.'
The Italians have photographed a utensil holding 31.5 kg (about 70 lbs) of Serbian eyes, and one Croat who came to Dubrovnik decorated with a string of eyes and with two wreaths of Serbian tongues. The horror in the camps where thousands of Serbs were murdered or left to die from hunger, cold and mistreatment, is indescribable. The Germans tell about one camp in Lika in which the Croats confined thousands of Serbs. Yet when they came there they found the camp empty, flooded with blood, and clothing strewn everywhere.
Archbishop Stepinac with the Nazis.
CHURCH INTOLERANCE
The former minister now drew the Archbishop's attention to the fact that the Church itself was an active participant in these terrible atrocities:
Today, in the camp of Jasenovac
thousands of Serbs are being tortured and murdered. In this bitter
winter, they're kept in Gipsy barracks without enough straw or covers,
and their food consists of but two potatoes a day.
Nothing like this has ever happened in the history of Europe. We must go to Asia, to the times of Tamerlaine and Ghengis Kahn, or to Africa, to the states of the beastly Negro rulers, to find anything similar. The Croatian name has been blemished with dishonour and shame for centuries for these atrocities. Nothing can clear us now.
Nothing like this has ever happened in the history of Europe. We must go to Asia, to the times of Tamerlaine and Ghengis Kahn, or to Africa, to the states of the beastly Negro rulers, to find anything similar. The Croatian name has been blemished with dishonour and shame for centuries for these atrocities. Nothing can clear us now.
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
and group commanders and, as such, ordered or tolerated the horrible
tortures, murders and massacres of a baptised people.
One Catholic priest slit the throat of an Orthodox Serbian minister. None of this could have been done without the permission of their bishops and it is was done, they should have been brought to the ecclesiastical court and unfrocked. Since this did not happen, then ostensibly the bishops gave their consent by acquiescence at least . . . And while the land streamed with the innocent blood of martyrs and while the moanings of the surviving unfortunates were still audible, the friars and nuns carried Ustashi knives in one hand and a cross and a prayer-book in the other . . .
I write you this - about these terrible crimes - to save my soul and I leave it to you to find a way to save your soul.
(Signed) Privislav Grizogono
One Catholic priest slit the throat of an Orthodox Serbian minister. None of this could have been done without the permission of their bishops and it is was done, they should have been brought to the ecclesiastical court and unfrocked. Since this did not happen, then ostensibly the bishops gave their consent by acquiescence at least . . . And while the land streamed with the innocent blood of martyrs and while the moanings of the surviving unfortunates were still audible, the friars and nuns carried Ustashi knives in one hand and a cross and a prayer-book in the other . . .
I write you this - about these terrible crimes - to save my soul and I leave it to you to find a way to save your soul.
(Signed) Privislav Grizogono
It hardly needs adding that the minister's impassioned plea fell upon deaf ears. But his letter remains in the records of the human race, pointing the finger of guilt at those who unleashed such terror on that section of the human race which lived for a little time in one small corner of the earth. In the words of the Encyclopedia Britannica, there was seen 'a massacre of Serbs which in the whole annals of World War 2, was surpassed for savagery only by the mass extermination of Polish Jews.'
AFTERMATH
When the war ended and the rats were deserting the sinking ship of state, no less than 500 Catholic priests fled to Austria, along with Ante Pavelich and many of his henchmen. Among their number were the two key bishops, Archbishop Saritch and Bishop Garitch, who had played important roles in the massacre of the Serbs. Most of the priests went on to Switzerland where Bishop Garitch eventually died.
Pavelich went into hiding to avoid being tried as a war criminal. He went first to one then another Catholic monastery, where he was protected - dressing in the garb of a priest in order not to be recognized by visitors. In 1948 he moved into another monastery in Rome, under two different assumed names, both bearing the term 'Father'. Then in November of that year, aided by the Catholic clergy, he embarked for Argentina, the destination of so many war criminals. His passport had been issued by the Red Cross. Many other top Ustashis were also hidden under the garb of the priesthood, with the ready acquiescence of the Church, and given false names as such.
Throughout the war period Pope Pius 12th had contact with Pavelich and his regime. On 8 February, 1942, for example, Ustashi youths of the Crusaders group were received in audience by His Holiness. On 12 March, 1942 and at New Year, 1943, the pontiff communicated with Pavelich. There were other contacts in March and June, 1943 and again in 1944. And back in July 1941 the Pope received in audience 100 agents of the Croatian State Police. They were the men who operated the concentration camps and arranged for the hangmen's nooses. Their head, also attending and receiving the Pope's blessing, was Eugen Kvaternik-Dido, the Zagreb Chief of Police. This man had committed such horrors that his own mother suicided in despair! On 19 December, 1958, the journal France Catholique reported a meeting at the highest level of French Catholics, presided over by Cardinal Feltin, Archbishop of Paris, to 'exalt the greatness and heroism of His Eminence Cardinal Stepinac'.