F.

'*t

'* tB3

'.ti

A MESSAGE FROM MICHAET

LEES

Deliaered at the Dedication of a Plaque to General Draza Mihailooic,

Birmingham, England, October 22, 1991

I have just returned from the Serbian autonomous territory of Krajina, where I
visited the front line positions near Knin. I would like to pass the following message to
the Serbs of North America. I have prepared a speech to be read at a meeting in
Birmingham, England where a plaque is being erected to the memory of that great
Serb, Draza Mihailovic. \Atrhile certain historians and government bureaucrats have
altered historical facts to suit their own ideology, my personal experience with this
great leader was that of a concerned individual who was willing to make every
sacrifice for democracy and freedom. I am grateful to be a participant in his
recognition.

Allow me to applaud your action in erecting a monument to General Draza

Mihailovic. Recognition of the heroism, patriotism, and total self-sacrifice of Cica
Draza is long overdue. I am huppy to tell you the truth of what happened in 1943 - 45.
The truth of the British betrayal of the Serbian Loyalists is now known in Belgrade and

will - I

am confident - soon become the generally recognized version of history

replacing the old false Titoist mythology which has dominated for 45 sad years. Tell a
lie 100 times and it becomes the truth. Those Titoist lies, supported by Tito's dupes
overseas, have become received wisdom and holy writ for two generations. But the
Titoist confidence trick is collapsing totally at astonishing speed, thus proving that the
grotesque edifice he erected was built on sand.

We must, however, not now dwe1l on the past. Whilst finalizing the
restoration of a true perspective to history, we must learn the lessons it teaches us - and
we must learn urgently, today, this very hour, because the Serbian nation is threatened

with another betrayal. Tito bamboozled Churchill through brilliant disinformation.

The Ustasa backers of the new lndependent State of Croatia are trying to do the same to

the Western World. The Serb communities, the Serbian Lands claimed by Croatia,
need our support. We need to put a stop to a second betrayal. Contact your members
of Parliament, tell them that the 600,000 Serbs in the areas falsely claimed by Tudiman
must not be abandoned to harassment, racial discrimination and expulsion from the
lands where they have lived for 1,000 years.
The Croats, with their racial purity policy, inspired
by Hitler and Pavelic, have proved themselves unfit to rule
any other people. Let them have their state Let them go and
qJ
.w
e,
!

take their nasty habits and hate with them. But, the Serbian
lands must be controlled by Serbs. They will be controlled by
Serbs because the Serbs, traumatized by the 7941-45 genocide
and by the vicious recent attacks on them, will fight, if they
have to, in the woods and the mountains as they fought for
the allies in 1914-18 and again as our most loyal and brave
ally n1941.- 45.

The European Community, the USA, and perhaps,

the United Nations are assuming responsibilities with
Serbian Orthodox Church
in Banja Luka destroyed
to its foundations.

inadequate understanding of the consequences and are being

influenced by 1ies, as was Churchill rn7943. Speak up for the
Serbs in their lands and tell the world it is playing with fire. it

is now not a question of economic links or governmental

forms for successor states in Yugoslavia. The issue is simple.
Keep it simple. The Serbs in their lands in Croatia must never again be left to the nonexistent mercies of another people - a people that regard Serbs as Hitler regarded the
jews. Write to your members of Parliament now! Draza Mihailovic was a great Serb.
He was a great Yugoslav too and, had we not betrayed him, I believe Yugoslavia could
have become a harmonious state. I would love to see Yugoslavia come tegether again.
SAVE OUR SERBS!
But the immediate task is S.O.S.

ItllCHAtL [[[S was one of the British liaison

officers dropped by the special forces into
Axis-occupied Yugoslavia in1943. From his
unique position inside the war-torn country,
and a year spent with the resistance fighters
of General Mihailovic, Michael Lees
witnessed an inexplicable change in the
character of Allied support: promises to
Mihaliovic of vital arms and supplies were
not kept; scheduled sabotage actions were
abruptly canceled by the Special Operations
Executive (SOE), Cairo; eventually Mihailovic
himself was completely abandoned.
The full explanation for this betrayal of
Mihailovic lay hidder; however, until the
mid-1980's, when Lees was led to a cache of
secret service files mistakenly declassified.
These files, examined in light of his own
wartime experiences, enabled him to
complete his book The Rape of Serbia, a taTe
of perfid1.. He nor'r- believes that lt'inston
Churchill's decision to abandon Mihailovic
and throw support to Tito was largely the
result of disinformation spread by British
Communists and sympathizers in the secret
services and other agencies, which was
endorsed by the reports and enthusiastic
recommendation of British officers who had
been duped by Tito himsel{.
Michael Lees is the author of Special
Operations Executed, an account of his
experiences as a special forces officer in the
Balkans and Northern Italy during World
War IL He and his wife-who also served in
SOE-in Dorset, England, now live and farm
in County Cork, Ireland. In Oclober,1991 he
spent time in Belgrade, Montenegro, Knin,

Krajina and in territory in Bosnia. In Knin he

presented a one hour broadcast on Knin free
radio interviewed by the minister of
Informatiory Lazar Macura. He also spent
considerable time at the front line with the
commanding officers in the Krajina.
The Serbian people o{ the world indeed
owe a debt of gratitude to this non-Serb who
has made a valuable contribution to the
Serbian community. He has brought truth to
oul despair, and he has validated our belief
in the wrong done to us by the Nationalist
Croatians and by outsiders who exerted
control over the lives oI Serbian people and
their government.

THE USTASHI MASSACRES

by Daaid

Martin

I am grateful for this opportunity

to join the Serbian people of the United
States in commemorating the hundreds of
thousands of Serbs who fell victim to the
unspeakable horror of the Ustashi
massacres. The exact number of Serbs who
died in this holocaust may never be known.
On this 50th anniversary of the genocide
which took place in1941in the Independent
State of Croatia and as the world is again
witness to a civil war between Croats and
Serbs in Yugoslavia, I extend to everyone in the Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Western
America, my heartfelt concerns {or the Serbian people.
The following text is a condensed version of chapter seven in my book, The
Web of Disinformation, supported

by documentation, inadvertently declassified from

the secret files of British intelligence, along with my personal research on the subject.

This information is very appropriate today. Josip Broz Tito postponed his bid for
power until he could enlist the support of certain emigre politicians, the more
impressionable sectors of the British and American press, and persuadable elements
in the British Foreign office. In achieving these objectives, Tito and his helpers in
British intelligence, from James Klugmann down, were aided in many ways by the
Ustashi massacres. Knowing that they could never purchase the support of the Serbs,
the Nazis exerted themselves to purchase that of the Croats. The first act of the Nazi
occupiers was to set up the Independent State of Croatia, with its territories enlarged
to include the mainly Serbian provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the districts
of Srem and Lika. Of the totai population of some 6 million in the Independent State
of Croatia, almost a third were Serbs.
The Ustashi massacres took place on the heels of the German occupation.
The news reached the Allied world that there had been extensive massacres of the
Serbian minority in the newly created Independent State. The perpetrators were the
Ustashi militia of the quisling Croat fuehrer, Ante Pavelic. Initial reports claimed
that 150,000 Serbs had been massacred; while arriving reports claimed 600,000 were
killed. A11 reports were replete with details of such psychopathic fiendishness that
on first reading they seemed almost absurd.
The facts of the massacres would indeed be incredible if they had not been
authenticated from so many different sources, including photographic evidence by
the Ustashi themselves, as such evidence was one sure way of receiving Pavelic's
approval and elevation to higher rank within the Ustashi militia. In quantity the
Ustashi massacres rivaled the rvorst of the Nazi crimes, and for sheer cruelty they

surpassed anvthing that Himmler ever der-ised. This

militia bore the

same

relationship to the Croatian armv as the German SS Cuard bore to the Wehrmacht.
Its personnel lvere recruited from the most viciouslv anti-Serb and most depraved
and sadistic elements in Croatia. Inbued'rr-ith the Nazi approach to the problem of
ethnic minorities and ethnic purit]-, the Ustashi cold-bloodedly adopted a program
calling for the liquidation of the Serbian people in Pavelic's New Croatia State.

Numerous reports of entire Serbian communities being locked in their

churches and burned alive and reports that the Ustashi were adorning themselves
with necklaces made of Serbian eyes were so horrible that one simply cannot blame
the civilized Western World for initially disbelieving them. It must be stressed that
only a minority of the Croat people were actively involved in the massacres. But the
news of the Ustashi massacres, following hard on the German invasion, created

bitterness in the most moderate of serb hearts,

and from the less moderate hearts
hatred poured over with volcanic fury.
For many months

Croatians were inclined to deny that the massacres

had
taken place. some of them even
-urt ,o ?u. as to suggest that the whole story was a
Gestapo frame-up aimSf at dividing the yugosrav
a"J, r,u.,i.,g committed
themselves to this oosition, they weie .o-pJil"d i!rpr".
bf
a
,ril further. vwren
letters substantiatiirg the
were reieived frori a prominent Croat
politician, the letters were suppressed. \A/hen a Croat
businessman arrived in London
bringing with him u.r
account of what il-hilft;d,
his account, too,
"y"*itn"ss
was suppressed.

p;i;

origiir"i;:il;

fl

I^/hen, at last, it was no longer possible to deny

that the massacres had taken
place, it became customary to accusi tG serbs

ruy simply that

"brothers were killing biothers." "serbs were
"f.;*;ti";;or,o
killii"g Crou%)-u.a ,,Croats were
killing serbs." After neirly two years delay, some of thJCroat poriticians
got around
to denourrcing the Ustashi *airu.rer. nut by this time
hu;H;;, of thousands of
serbs had perished, it was too late to make an
impression on the embittered
Serbs.

no one denies that the massacres did take place. It

is of interest to note
-fduy
that in The
Yugoslaa elorteg
to Liae Tito states that ,,during three month
s of 1941,
with the aid of the ustashi,lig]tt
ihe Nazis succeeded in extermin-ating
million serbs in Croatia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, il t;iliiu:;t'ua more than half a
the Croatian
members of the yugosrav government i"n exire i--uailt"r/
rJiaurir"a
themserves
with the serbs when the fict of the massacres was established,
broadcasted this
yugoslavia
knowledge to
condemning the Ustashi u"d
.rr"
to give every assistance to their serb 6rothers, and
orgariil"a u
of protest,

utt;;l"Jl"

C."rG;i;

even the most embittered serb nationalist would h"ave

felt "u-puign
display of brotherlv fellowship and sympathy. tnrtuuJ,-ti"y s;titrra" for such a
i"-"i""d silent, and
their silence
was inierpreted as

acquie##;.

The serb cabinet ministers,urged that the government

address

an immediate
appeal to w.orrd opinion in order"to stop thJ
whatever
-"rru.r"r,-making
reservations it considereg
as to the details or tt
on the
-e*orandum
massacres submitted by thery.:r.ru.y
"
Serbian-Orthodox Church. The Croat
ministers took the
stand that until confirmation was received, the memora.a"nua to be considered
susPect' The Croatian,ministers in the Yugoslav govemm""ralso refused to
permit publication or dishibution of these ilports.
""1"

Dr. Grga Andjelinovic was perhaps the most notabre

Croat and did speak of
the massacres over the'BBC, condemnilg the Ustashi
rnrrau.".r-ur.rJ offering the serb
people sympathy.
But Juraj Kmjevic, Jiraj sutej, and

r"u" s,ruuri., the

recognized
leaders in exile of the Croat Peasant Rarty, iemalned
silent. whenever the subject was
touched upon in London, they spoke nof of ,,massacres,,
but of ,,fratricidal strife.,,
The Roman Catholic Croatian hierarchy failed to
live

up to the requirements
offieir.calling. Archbishop stepinac of Zagreb'aiiil d"i""d;i,
s"ay ttrat he was nor
a Croatian extremist buta moderate who,
i a youthful_y"g;ri;;id"alist, had fought
as a volunteer with the Serbian army on the
Salonika f.r"? i" w;d war I. on the

|osip Bmz

Tib

Dreza

lfiheilovic

Wiuton Churchill

fames Klugmann

other hand, there were many moderate serbs and even moderate Croats who
believed that Stepinac had not gone far enough in opposing Ustashi excesses and that
it is difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile such acts with the fact that he served as
vicar-general of the Ustashi forces.

It is incontestable that the Partisans owed much of their early accretion of

strength, especially in Bosnia and Herzegovina, primarily to the Ustashi
it was
- for by
from the tens of thousands of Serbian peasants driven into the mountains
the
Ustashi massacres and prepared to grasp at any leadership offered to them that the
Partisans recruited a large part of their following. Fearing a Serb vengeance-and
there were a number of instances of Serb vengeance-many thousands of Croats who
themselves had no part in the massacres turned to Tito. This was especially true
following the Italian capitulation in September 1943. As a fellow Croat, they reaioned,
Tito would protect them from Mihailovic, whom Partisan propaganda cleverly and
unscrupulously depicted as the bearer of Serb vengeance. The Partisans not only did
their best to promote the fear of vengeance but, taking advantage of the situation,
accepted into their ranks thousands of Ustashi, officers and soldiers, whose mere
action in joining the Partisans miraculously transformed them from fascist butchers

into progressive humanitarians. There were repeated protests about this situation
from British and American officers with Mihailovic.
Many of the men who joined Tito had betrayed Yugoslavia at the time of the
German invasion, had fought with the Nazis on the Russian front and had been
decorated by both Hitler and Pavelic. All this was something that Mihailovic and his
followers found repugnant and utterly incomprehensible. Mihailovic had never
abandoned hope for a reborn Yugoslavia after the war-he referred to his army
always as the "Yugoslav Army in the Homeland." He had also taken the stand that
only the guilty would be punished for the Ustashi massacres. In line with these
atLitudes, he did appeal to the Croatian domobranci, or home guard, to come over to
his side. But he refused to appeal to the Ustashi as a matter of principle. In the eyes of

Mihailovic and his followers, there could be only one reward for the Ustashi
murderers, especially for their officers-immediate execution. They took this stand
because it was the Ustashi movement that had acted as Hitler's fifth column during
the invasion of Yugoslavia; it was the Ustashi militia that was responsible for the
terrible massacres of 7947; and it was from the ranks of the Ustashi that most of the
volunteers for the Croat contingents on the Russian front came. For such men, said
Mihailovic and his followers, there could be no forgiveness and no redemption.
The Partisans made much of the fact that certain Serb formations claiming to
be under the command of Mihailovic took vengeance for the Ustashi massacres by
staging countermassacres of Croat and Moslem communities. It is true that such

countermassacres did take place. But, rather than condone or encourage them,
Mihailovic did everything in his power to prevent them, and otherwise to curb the
extremists. The task was not an easy one. Serb fathers whose children had been killed
before their eyes by the ustashi were not inclined to listen to arguments
distinguishing between Ustashi and Croats; the Croats had killed their children, they
would kill Croats. Though Partisan propaganda did its best to convey the impression
that Mihailovic's followers were fanatical pan-Serbians perennially thirsting for Croat
blood, Mihailovic's stand always was that Yugoslavia must be re-constituted, and that
only the guilty would be held to account for the massacres.
Mihailovic, at his bitterest, spoke thus of the problem: "I am often asked, am I

for serbia or for Yugoslavia? If you ask my heart, it will answer: I am for a great and
powerful Serbia; but if my reason, I would answer that the Serbs have made many
sacrifices for Yugoslavia in two wars, but never have the Croats shown the least
gratitude . . . Th"]- (the Serbs) rvould have the right to say: We no longer want
Yugoslavia. But tlrere are higtrer inErests which compel us to remake this count{r . . ."
For some time after the uusr;rcres Mihailovic's heart had the upper hand over

his head. Though he refused to listen to the urgings of the ultranationalists who
demanded a complebe break with the Yugoslav ideal, whenever he was called upon to

speak,

it was serbia that

came first, and when he brought

in yugoslavia, it was
ugui*i hi, h"urr.
on December rs, lg+5, Mihairovic was
saint, saint Nicholas. The festivar was-attendedcelebrating the feast of his patron
bt;"p;;3"r,iutirre, from all ovel
Yugoslavia. In a speech derivereJ ui
ti.," tu.,.n"".,'vru.Ji*i.'p."auuu.,
as a Croat
participant, said the following:
obvious that he was speaking

,,. .
. As a Croat, I thank you, General M.ihailovic,
for your three great
achievements. Firstly, for haui.g prese*ed.the yugoslav,ia"rfru"_.rg
the Serbs
even after it h_ad been stained b"y'the
blood of zoolooo s".o
."rro *"."
slain by the ustashi terrorists. i, *"r
-iriy.,
y." who had the boldness to hoist the
Yugoslav colours at Ravna coru u,.,aur
ihe most difficult circumstances, and
at a
time when many serbs thought thai
reconciliation couri
o. possible
between them and the Croat"s. Seconaly,,fo.
^""*to preach the
ha_ving refused
principle of vengeance against the
Croats, demanding instead the punishment
only of those who wereluilty oi the
c.i-e,
taken' in the name or ai-t trre vujortur,r, commiited. Thirdly, for having
an energetic attitude
'r.i, to defend
against dictatorship of
r.i"a,
,n" right or
ilT:rTTr

"i{

,^"*"i ii.l,i"

while the representatives of the Croat people

in London were turning
against Mihairovic as "the national
oi
tr'"
Croat
peopte,,,a parallel
development was taking-.plu"" il;;;l;;;-r;la
"n*-y ; rh" ;.,.trh i'J."ig'
office. rn a'
good faith

the Foreign oJfice berieved that the

accounts
were grossry
exaggerated' It was still early in the
war, the facts of B"lr;"J"Auschwitz

,;;;;;;rrcres

had not
yet been estabrished, and io tne e"!io-su*or.,
incredible that Croat fascists could have"massacred -"-n-t'u"t:rfifr""_"d artogether
600,000 serbs in cord blood.

one other factor entered into

attitude

of the British Foreign office.

Having helped to bring together the south
slav peoples after world war I, certain
of
the Foreign office experts were not disposed
to ,i"" t'ru, ,ruiy jirirpr"a. It was on
t1re
soit of this anripathy-to Mihaito;i.
tnri'ir,l,"ij,
the_

propaganda
to the British and Croatial.peopleg,
";;'rh";"ru,
"il.,s
in particular, took root.
witr,rn
British
intelligence, some were pro-Tito, oir ia"oroji.al
grounds,-;a;;l".u.rse they were
caught up in the epidemicrnania of p.o-TrtoiJ-,
,tirio;h;;;"because rhey were
victims of disinformation. The forcus'f.o*
within found ii .u."rrury to weaken
whatever influence Mihailovic strtt retaineJ
by means
.""..plrgn of carumny and
minimization, in which the charge or .orJoiitioil;y;'o;Hi;T
"r "
rore. Concomitant
with this, it was necessary to ionvince theBritish government that Tito had the
Yugoslav peoples behind him. Finalry,
,i".u ttu g;;;;;.;d;rty oJBruish officials who
were anti-Mihailovic were at the sime time
aiti-Co-*rrr,'rri, it-*u, necessary to
assure them that the partisan rrro.r"-"rrt
was not a Communist but a national
movement, that Tito had no intention of
introducing" s.;*;;-",
u.a that he was
quite prepared to collaborate in u gorr".rr-"rrt
with"certain ,r.roBl".tio.ruble members
of other parties. Tito gave Churchil rur.uq"rrrt";;;;;:J';:=ihurchi,
took him
at his word, even though there was r-;l;
evidence avairabil wittrout access to
wartime inte'igence, thit Tito's
-orr"-"'r,t fr.;ih; b;ffi* until the end was
neither national nor
democratic.

This is the story

:?l: plaved bv the Ustashi massacres in Tito,s rise to
"f llr"
power. In commemorating
the soth'annrtersarv of these gtorlirh
it would be well to reca[-kpeciary t" th; riti;;
-ussacres, I think
il;.:r#t ug.
rit.,ution_that
the existing frontiers of the itate
c.outiu *ere arbitarity
by Tito, a
totalitarian dictator. It wo,Id be bad-enoulh
"i
"riuBIirn"d
rit}," ,.,rv pr"oi".i
of the fact
-L"t
that President slobodan Milosevic
s..uiu-i, still a io'mm"rriri.-""r,rted
it would arso
be well to recalr that the.possibility"roi
p"*"r"r solution ,itil yugosrav problem
has been rendered infiniiely
"
airri.'Ji
uy tn" d".i;i; oi-c.ou6u. president
Franjo Tudjman, a former Tito'''o.6
generar, to uaopt a- flag for r,i, ;ir",a"p"r,dent
state of
Croatia" modered verycrosei-y urt". *,"-ur'tusni
r?ag w'ti"n fr"riaed over the
massacre of hundreds of thousands
of Serbians.

DAVID ttlARTlN has

had a distinguished

career as a journalist, political analyst,

organizer of humanitarian and anti_

totalitarian causes, and as a staffer on the

Senate fudiciary Committee.
Mr. Martin was the organizer and
executive director of the Committee for a Fair
Trial for General Draza Mihailovic. Included
on that committee were: Arthur Garfield
Hays, head of the American Civil Liberties
Union; The Honorable Charles poletti, former

governor of New York; Adolf A. Berle,

Jr.,
former assistant secretary of state; and
Theodore Kiendl, an eminent Wall Street
llwyer. The committee gathered testimony of
the American officers who had been attached
to Mihailovic and of the more than 500
American airman who had been rescued by
Mihailovic . Despite representations to the
contrary by the U.S. State Department, this
testimony had been specifically refused by
the Belgrade court.
InThe Web of Disinfotmation: Churchill,s
Yugoslao Blunde4 David Martin details the
greatest allied blunder of World War II which
occurred not in any of the famous theaters of
battle but at the bottom of Europe, in
Yugoslavia. In December 1943 Winston
Churchill made the fateful decision to
abandon the pro-Democratic national
resistance army in Axis-occupied yugoslavia
and to support instead the Communiit
guerrilla forces and their leader, fosip Broz
Tito. The consequences of this choicl were
profound and far-reaching. Tito took the
weapons supplied by the Allies. Some were
used against the Germans, but the greater part
were used against his own countrymen,
especially the pro-Western resistance forces
led by GeneralDraza Mihailovic. When the
war was over, Tito was in power and
Yugoslavia firmly in place as a strategic part
of the Communist bloc.
David Martin, the world,s foremost
scholar on the subiect, fully uncovered the
tragic tale in secret British files that were only
recently inadvertently declassified. He
reveals that the Yugoslavs and their proWestern forces were betrayed and thit
Churchill, and others, were quite simply
deceived-by Communist moles and
sympathizers who had infiltrated the military
intelligence services. The prime mover
behind the entire effort was a rnember of the
famous Cambridge spy set that included Kim
Philby, Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean, and

Anthony Blunt. Martin names this,,fifth

man" and reveals his conspiracy and its
devastating success; that man was |ames

Klugmanrl by all accounts the most brilliant

and enterprising mole of them all.

Mr. Martin is the author of two previous
books about Draza Mihailovic Ally Eetuayeit
and Patriot or Traitor: The Case ofbenetai
Mihailovich- Mr. Martin and his wife

currently live in Arlingtory Virginia.

SETO DRAKUTIC
FEBRUARY

7, Ig42

The Ustashi, under the leadership

of Franciscan priest, Fr. Miroslav
Majstorovic killed 2,300 adults and
550 children.
Prior to killing the adults, unborn children were violently
cut from their mothers' womb and slaughtered. Of the
remaining children in the village, all under the age of 12, the
Ustashi brutally removed arms, legs, noses, ears, and genitals.
Young girls were raped and killed, while their families were
forced to witness the violation and carnage.
The most grotesque torture of all was the decapitation of
children, their heads thrown into the laps of their mothers, who
were themselves then killed.

THE CASE TOR IHE SERBS

by Michael Mennard

Stephen Sestanovich's article "The Diplomatic Mistake That Made

Yugoslavia" $uly Foreign Seruice lournal, pp. 11,-\2) offers a comprehensive picture of
the messy Yugoslav situation, a thankless job, to say the least. Unfortunately, the
article fails to explain why Yugoslavia's first incamation, established in 1918 as the
Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, was such a failure after only 23 years.
Instead, the story revolves around the bullying Serbs on the one hand and the poor,
suffering Croatians and other Yugoslav ethnic groups on the other. But the problem is
not so simple.
Ploin 0ld Notionolism
The conflict between the Croats and the Serbs is often presented as a
confrontation between the struggling, embattled, democratic forces of freedomloving and pro-Western Croatians against the Communist, totalitarian, imperialistic,
and Byzantine Serbs. It is nothing of the sort. Instead, it is the plain, old struggle
known in history as Balkan nationalism. Few people remember that the Serbs were
faithful allies of the United States in two World Wars, while the "Western-oriented"
Croatians were fighting on the side either of Austria-Hungary or Nazi Germany. The
Nazi puppet, the Independent State of Croatia, even found it necessary to declare

war on the United States, a declaration that was never repealed.

The Serbs and the Croats lived for centuries in Austria-Hungary, side by side
and intermingled. As early as the middle of the 15th century, Serbian freedom
fighters and their families were driven into the Military Region (Vojna Krajina), or
Kiajina, as it is now known, before the onslaught of the superior Turkish forces
following the fall of Bosnia. The Hapsburgs encouraged both Serbs and Croats to
settle in the border region in an effort to establish a zone of defense against the Turks.

As they had done elsewhere, the Hapsburgs manipulated the Roman Catholic Croats
against the Eastern Orthodox Serbs.
The rivalry between the two grew rapidly and at times became bitter and
hostile. In the 19th century, Croatian philosopher and politician Ante Starcevic,
known for his radical views, denied the very existence of the Serbian people. In two
of his many pamphlets, entitled "The Name Serb" and "The Slavo-Serbian Breed in
Croafia," Starcevic described the Serbs as "Gypsies" and "Albanians" (then, as now/
considered insulting terms in Croatian), "an alien stock," "less than human," "a dirty,
evil breed." He suggested that "one third of the Serbs should be killed, one-third
converted to Roman Catholicism, and one-third forced to emigrate."
Starcevic, whose influence in Croatia in the second half of the 19th century
was pervasive, is still regarded as the father of the Croatian nation. He founded the
Croatian Party of the Pure Right, which became an inspiration and an ideological
home of the 2bth-century Croatian Ustashe movement. The Party of the Pure Right

still exists and remains active in Yugoslavia. Not surprisingly, Ustashe and a
generation of Croatian intellectuals and politicians still use the same terminology
their ideological father.

as

An interview with Croatia's current President Franjo Tudjman published in

tradition. Speaking about
the Serbo-Croat problem, Tudjman said: "Croats belong to a different culture-a
different civilization-from the Serbs... Croats are a part of Western Europe, part of
the Mediterranean tradition... The Serbs belong to the East. They use the Cyrillic
alphabet, which is Eastern. They are an Eastern people, like the Turks and the
Aibanians. They belong to the Byzantine culture... Despite similarities in language,
we cannot be together." Tudjman has also been widely quoted by Croatian
newspapers as saying he is elated whenever it occurs to him that his wife is neither a
The Nezu Yorker on March 78,7991invoked this scurrilous

Serb nor a jew.

Thanks to Starcevic and his disciples, Croatians have never felt comfortable

in post-World War I Yugoslavia. As soon as they realized that their AustroHungarian experience and cultural background were insufficient to take over the
new state, the Croatians embarked upon a campaign of obstruction and noncooperation. As part of a long-range plan, the terrorist wing of the Croatian
Ustashe assassinated Yugoslav King Alexander I in 1.934 and collaborated with
Nazi Cermany in World War II, while butchering the unsuspecting Serbian
minority and other undesirables. The Ustashe staged mass slaughters in some 30
concentration camps created across a geographically inflated Nazi dominion
named the Independent State of Croatia. More than 700,000 persons were
destroyed in those camps only because they were Serbs, Jews, or Gypsies.
Although some in the Croatian Roman Catholic Church's hierarchy during
World War II tried to stop the genocide (and paid for their courage with their lives),
many either condoned and participated in the carnage or saw the panic-stricken
Serbian Orthodox population as a promising target for conversion to Roman
Catholicism. According to the highly respected historian Victor Novak and other
credible sources, some 250,000 Serbs were converted by 1943.

Following World War II, Croatian leaders, Communist and nonCommunist alike, ignored the Ustashe's beastly crimes. The leadership,
ecclesiastical or lay, made no apology of any kind; neither even conceded to
recognize the crime publicly, even though the Ustashe's outrageous activities were
declared genocide during the Nuremberg Trials. Instead, many minimized the

crimes. Croatia's "democratically elected" President Tudjman, for his part,

repeatedly makes unwise and uncharitable statements while conducting a
Croatization of the republic's governing apparatus by bringing in only those
Croatians who can prove they have four generations of pure Croatian ancestry.
Little wonder the Serbs feel unsafe under Croatia's current regime.
Demorrotir Troditions
The Croats professed their own feelings of insecurity during their tenuous

union with the Serbs. From the very beginning, the source of Croatia's alleged
fears was the co-called Greater Serbia, an early 19th century concept designed to
provide a more effective Christian challenge to the Turkish presence in the Balkans.
Serbian history, however, should have reassured Croatians. Prior to World War I,
Serbia was an independent kingdom with a well-developed political, social, and
economic life. Its constitution of 1903 was the latest in the progression of Serbian
constitutions that started in 1835, all considered very liberal even by European
standards.(worthy of mention is the fact that Serbia signed a treaty with the United
States nearly 110 years ago.) it provided for a constitutional monarchy, a bicameral
legislature, and a multi-party system, with free elections. Freedom of the press lr-as
guaranteed. It should be recalled that neither Croatia nor Slovenia was an
independent state when the two joined the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and
Slovenes. Slovenia never had a state of its own; Croatia not since 1102.

The creation of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slor-enes on

December 1, 1918 was by no means a hasty affair. It was the result of dedicaterl
work of the Yugoslav Committee, established in London in 1915, and compr66d 61
the Serb, Croat, and Slovene leaders. A11 but one, a representatir-e trom the
Kingdom of Serbia, were disgruntled citizens of Austria-Hungan'.
For their part, Serbs tried to cooperate and coexist lrith Croatian;. i-n the
new state. Slovenians played along. There r,r'ere Slor-enians in er-en- single
Yugoslav government. Slovene Roman CathoLic priest and p-olitician Dr- -A,nton
Korosec became the first prime minister after King -\lerander dismissed the
parliament, renamed the country Yugoslar-ia, and introduced a higilv crrtralized
system, mainly because of Croatia's non-cooperationThe Serbs also gave ample proof of their rt-illingrre-s to sharc- For example.
;rs compn$ltion for r-irtual destructiqr ot ils propertr and a

reparations due Serbia

50 percent loss of life among its male population^were equally divided with
Croatians and Slovenes. This rias done even though Croatians and Slovenes fought
as allies of the Central Powers and suffered virtually no loss of property and

minimal casualties.
As far as Tito's Yugoslavia is concerned, Sestanovich's claim that Serbs had

political and military superibrity is unfounded. During the e1:t 3q years/ no.S"rbj3"
iras held the position oiprime minister of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The
current prlme ministei, the foreign minister, and the minister of economic
development-the key positions-are all Croatians. Most of the remaining cabine_t
members are either iroatian or Slovenes. And, the current "collective president,"
who controls the military forces, is also a Croatian.

After all the obstructionism, hatred, and bad faith, the serbs would be
foolish not to want to part ways with Croatians. But so far, nothing has been done to
determine how the country's-huge foreign debt is going to be paid and by whom'
Above all, there are some AOO,OOb Serbians still living in Croatia, and the Serbs are
unlikely to leave them to extremists

as potential fodder for another

try at genocide'

Old Guord
To survive, Yugoslavia must achieve some sort of accommodation. For that,
however, the Yugoslavi must rid themselves of their presen! leadership- of recycled
Communists. Most of these leaders have made cosmetic ideological changes,,but

ttrey still know little beyond what they learned under Tito' Serbian President
a
Slobodan Milosevic, for example, whose political flip-flops are well known, is now
,socialist,"although he has been quoted in an interview by
Monde saying-he has
,Le
,,a
Communist out of conviction since the age of 17." The rest are Tito leftovers:
been
president of Croatia Franjo Tudjman was a world war II Partisan and Yugoslav
until
ir*y g""".al until jailed for exiessive Croatian nationalism. Josip Manolic,
of
officer
placeda
highly
was
."""rrtt! prime miniiter of the Croatian government
Kucan
Milan
slovenia
of
President
KGB.
soviet
the
unge, th" Yugoslav version of
was, for y"u.rih" principal ideologue of the Slovene CommunistParty, specifically
many
responsible for applying Party doctrine in education. And there are many/
others.

Throughout the years since Tito's death in 1980, the Serbian leadership
committed an incomprehensible, mind-boggling error' The- Croats conducted a
to convince the world that Tito's federalism was nothing
foreign med.ia
"u-puigtt
more"than u ,ubteri.rgE for Greater Serbia and Serbian chauvinism, or both' Rather
pat
than combat the camplign, the Serbs remained quiet. \Atrhen pressed, they gave a
justice are on
and
truth
that
knows
right-minded
A"y
"Why
botheil
ur,r*"r,
Person
our side." Thlr -uy havi bJen innocenie or just plain Balkan superciliousness'
n".""tfy, the Serbs have made an effort to present their case through the world's
they
media, tut it may be too little and too late t-o recapture some of the good will
country'
this
in
particularly
enjoyed,
traditionally
The Crooked Stroight

Assuming that th-e United States still favors a federation or confederation of

th.e
Yugoslav states 6ver a broken up, hat-in-hand bunch of "sovereign" states,.
if
little,
Precious
do?
;.;; of them smaller than Indiaria, what can the United States
out
"ryhg
straighten
tolike
it
is
Yugoslavia:
u"itnittg. There is an old folk saying in
the
the Drina." The Drina ls a rapiaf meandering river flowing north through
what
of
description
fair
a
is
That
of
Bosnla-Herzegovina-.
republic
centrally located
the Uniied States would face if it interceded'

TheUnitedStatescanplayapositiverole,however,byseeingtoitthatthe

and the
cracks now visible in the mediation efforts of the European Community
The
great.
too
become
Conference on security and Cooperation in Europe do not
the
Croatia,.is
including
Yugoslavia,
United States must rJalize, hovirever, that

as
Balkans, regardless of what Croatia's curreni leaders say. There, nothing
bloodshed'
some
without
resolved
be
can
confrontations
nationalistic
important aJ

For once, the United States should remain on the sidelines, using its great influence
only to make sure that fairness prevails. U.S. allies in Europe are in a much better
position both to observe and to act, if need be, to keep the Yugoslav crisis under
control. For the United States, antagonizing both disputing sides by remaining
strictly neutral may be just what is needed. The friendship will be easy to restore
when the conflict is over and the country needs its shattered economv rebuilt.
Meanwhile, the various Yugoslav emigrant organizations would do n-ell to
remain equally aloof. Their ardent support of factions in the "old countrr-" is
understandable but unwise, as it only raiiei unfillable expectations. Conspiracies brU.S. based groups to provide arms, several of which have recently come to light must
be curtailed. The most recent case, in Florida, involved three Croatians n-ho tried to
purchase and export illegally military hardware from the United States to Croatia in
the amount of $12 million.
The main problem for Yugoslavia will be that in the Balkans, anvthing other
than a clear-cut victory is seen as defeat and humiliation. Compromise is an alien,
virtually non-existent concept. Some kind of a face-saving device wiil har-e to be
found, and that, in itself, will be a problem.

What the Yugoslavs need, other than new and truly democratic leadership,
is some quiet unobstructive mediation, in a dignified atmosphere, conducted brpersons or institutions familiar with the area, the peoples and the centuries-long
history of their conflicts. No television limelight, no day-to-day reports, color stories,
interviews, in-depth analyses and no grandstanding. The less exposure to the media,
the better. Only in that quiet, undistracting atmosphere can the feuding parties hope
to reach some kind of lasting solution to problems. That solution must be their oun,
accepted and recognized by all.

illl$AtL I{IENNARD is a retired Foreign

Service information officer. He frequently
writes about and visits Yugoslavia. He
completed his doctoral dissertation at
Georgetown University on "Bishop
Strossmayer, the Serbs, and the Croats in
the Second Half of the 19th Century."
This article has been reproduced from the
October1991 issae of Foreign Seruice lournal
with the express permission of
both the writer and editor.

]anko Crevar 40 Janko Crevar 56 Josip Crevar 30 Jovan Crevar 58 Mile Crevar 21
io Devic 32 Ilija Devic 40 Ilija Devic 40 Luka Devic 45 Matija Devic 23 Milan De
rvic 36 Simo19 Devic Teso Devic 20 Dragan Dragojevic 32 Dragan Dragojevic 21
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Va39 Simo Klipa 60 Pavao Komljenovic 56 Petar Komljenovic 36 Dusan Korcc22
;dan Korac 42 Milos Korac 30 Nenad Korac 23 Nikola Korac 23 Slavko Korac 22 I
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rko Kraguljac 36 Jovan Kraguljac 52 Ljuban Kraguljac 27 Ljuban Kraguljac 60 I
ac32 Nikola Kraguljac 40 Pavao Kraguljac 40 Pero Kraguljac 51 Petar Kraguljac 21
aguliac 18 Aleksa Krosnjar 50 Dmitar Krosnjar 47 Mlle Krosnjar 24 Nikola Krosr
t 27 Milan Loncar 18 Nikola Loncar 52 Pero Loncar 20 Pero Loncar 26 Petar Lon
Maistorovic 27 Stajan Maistorovic 30 Nikola Maistorovic 43 Stevo Maistorovic 18
liletic 33 Milun Milicevic 16 Stanko Milicevic 46 Dragan Milojevic 19 Dusan Miloje
:vic 42 Josip Miiojevic 63 Jovan Milojevic 19 Milan Milojevic 35 Milan Milojevic 46
I Pavao Mrksic 57 Dragan Mrksic 17 Marko Novakovic 49 Milan Novakovic 19 t
tar Obradovic 50 Dusan Obradovic 46 Djuro Obradovic 36 Janko Obradovic 39
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rlikola Ozegovic 30 Pavao Ozegovic 44 Dusan Polimac 41 Djuro Polimac 41 Ilija Pc
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47 Srmo Radosevic 19 Simo Radosevic 37 Jovan Rakas 29 Milan Rakas 26 Mile Ral
t Milan Ratkovic 77 Pavao Ratkovic 32 Petar Ratkovic 21 Dusan Relic 28 Djuro Rt
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Janko Rkman 43 Ir
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r Vranjesevic 38 Ljuban Vranjesevic 27 Mllan Vranjesevic 40 Mile Vranjesevic 39 |
4ile Vrcic 22 Bozo Vujanovic 19 Dusan Vujanovic 30 Ilija Vujanovic 38 janko Vujano
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Mane Car 30 Mile Car 43 Stanko Car 40 Vaso Car 27 Mlle Cica 41r Milos Cica 21
nkovic 44 Milan Dankovic 18 Mile Dankovic 36 Petar Dankovic 44 Petar Gubic 44 I
etar Gvozdic 41 Petar Gvozdic 36 Rade Gvozdic 40 Marko Ivkovic 48 Milan Ivko
Iilutin Janjanin 31 Mojsije Janjanin 42 Nikola Janjanin 46 Pane Janjanin 62 Pavaolar
lnrc 27 Milutin Kajganic 36 Pavao Kajganic 19 Tanasije Kajganic 37 Stanko Kragul
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37 Stanko Kukulj4l Stojan Kukulj33 Vujo Kukulj 41 Dragan Lackovic 38 Djuro L
ikola Milic 28 Rade Milic 52 Djuro Nisevic 25 Gojko Nisevic 48 Jovan Nisevic 33
29 lllja Orescanin 33 Janko
rin 39 I
Today, early in September, 1991, the
jn 52 Nikola Orescanin 39
home and the bed previously occupied by Orescar
'Orescanin 50 Mile Polojac
4 IJUBAI{ JEDNAK was riddled with bullets by an24 f
the current Croatian Nationalists, seekers
4 Rade Sapic 23 Ljuban Tr
T of "freedom" and "democracy" in Croatia. os Tiku
An obvious second attempt to kill rn Lada
Rade Trkuija 43 Stojan Tik
t, this valuable
witness to Croatian genocide
r Bodlovic 40 Ljuban Bodlo
lc committed on the Serbian people in 1941 r Bodlo
and one of the few survivors to testify in
irko Borota 45 Nikola Bo
ta36 S
1986 at the trial of Andrija Artukovic,
ic 18 Jovan Cavic 59 Jovan
minister of Interior, Independent State of lavic 60
ic 41 Tanasije Cavic 42 Stojan Dancic 41 Dt Croatia.
Ljuban fednak is the recipient of The leso De'
uzdevic 15 Nikola Duzdevic 29 Petar Duzde Fiist Order of St, Saaa, Highest Award in rtar Duz
the Serbian Orthodox Church given to a
kovic 33 Mile lvkovic 55 Adam Jaksic 38 Du lay
person. He survives once again, this ,uka Jak
sic 23 Simo Jaksic 39 Stevo Jaksic 20 Matija I time as a refugee in an unnarrred country. vlanojlo
ro Nosic 35 Nikola Nosic 58 Petar Nosic 37 Lvrlaula \-/Draoovrc ry rvrue ursrojic 41 I
6 Petar Ratkovic 36 Ostoja Stojkovic 34 llija Sucevic 18 Damjan Sapic 27 Stojan Sal
tat 55 Dusan Crevar 35 Djuro Crevar 49 Djuro Crevar 43 Djuro Crevar 31 Jandra C
Milos Crevar 72 Nikola Crevar 72 Petar Crevar 26 Rade Crevar 37 Savo Crevar 27

"

ANDRIJA ARTUKOVIC
Artukovich entered the United States
in 1949 under a 30 day tourist visa obtained in
Ireland under the false name of Alois Anic.
Thanks to his protectors in Roman Catholic
circles, he escaped every attempt of extradition.

All the favorable articles written about him by

the Croatian and American ecclesiastics are wellremembered, and there is absolute proof that
Roman Catholic circles of Los Angeles organized
various benefits in order to raise funds to defend
him from extladition. He remained in the United
States until his successful extradition and his

trial in 1986.
The Justice Department, after many
unsuccessful attempts to deport Artukovic, was
finally successful in 1981 when director Allan
Ryan of Special Investigations (OSI) of the
Justice Department introduced evidence signed
by Artukovic directing punitive measures
against Serbs and fews. The authenticity o{ these
documents has never been questioned. Even his
son Radoslav Artukovic, of Seal Beach,
California, acknowledges that they are genuine
and incriminating.
Yugoslavia filed an extradition request
with the U.S. government seeking the return of
Artukovic to stand trial, not on charges of having
implemented a widespread program of
persecution as minister of Interior, but rather on
specific charges of murder. To support those
charges, Yugoslavia provided affidavits of many
people, including Bajro Avdic, the putative
motorcycle driver. The Justice Department put
the deportation proceedings on hold and
presented Yugoslavia's evidence to a federal
court, which ruled that the evidence was
sufficient to state a prima facie case o{ murder,
for which Artukovic was returned to Yugoslavia
to stand trial.
As minister o{ the Interior in the
"Independent State of Croatia" and one of
Pavelic's most trusted confidants, Artukovic was
responsible for the Croatian secret police, known
as the Ustashi. Artukovic's position in the
Croatian government equaled that of Himmler's
in Germany.
The first and, to date, the fullest
account of Artukovic's actions in Croatia and the
legal proceedings in the United States {rom 1951
to 1984 can be read in detail in a current book
Quiet Neighbors: Prosecuting Nazi War
Criminals in America by Allan A. Ryan, Jr.

ry
,.*'

locot .JASEioITAC'

Iitl r

!IE=-,

NEVER AGAIN !
Dr. Milan Bulajic

USIASHI GII{O(IDE IN
THE INDIPE]IDENT

0F (R0AT|A (]{DH}
FRoflt t 94 t
945
STATE

-t

Within the framework of the

Convention of the United Nations on
Preventing and Punishing the Crime of
Genocide, the confirmation and presentation of

the truth about the Ustashi crime of genocide

perpetrated against the Serbs, ]ews, and
Gypsies in the quisling Independent State of
Croatia during World War II is our debt to
more than one million victims-a debt that can
not be forgotten, and a crime that must never
again be repeated.

The Ustashi are members of

separatist, chauvinist, terrorist organization

called the "Ustashi-Croat Liberation Movement," which was formed after the
proclamation of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia on January 6,7929 that replaced the
Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. In order to dismember the then existing
Yugoslavia, the Ustashi leader Dr. Ante Pavelic organized the assassination of King
Alexander I Karadjordjevic on October 9,7934 in Marseilles at the outset of the king's
state visit to France. On that occasion Louis Bartou, the French minister of Foreign
Affairs, was also killed. The Ustashi terrorists were supported by the Fascist powers
in their preparations for the Second World War. The assassins fled to Hungarian
territory (janka Puszta) and were secretly transported from there in a military
aircraft to Fascist Italy (the Lipari camp), from which Pavelic expected the most
effective assistance.

After the putsch of March 27,

1,941,

in which Yugoslavia opposed the Nazi

Fascist Tripartite Pact, the strategy of the Third Reich was disrupted by postponing

the "Barbarossa" plan for attack on the Soviet Union, and Adolf Hitler ordered the
destruction of the Yugoslav state and punishment of the Serbian nation. A group of
well-trained Ustashi terrorists, headed by Ante Pavelic, was brought to Yugoslavia
with the Italian Fascist occupational forces. Counter to the principles of international
law, an "Independent State of Croatia" was formed on the occupied territory of
Yugoslavia on April 10, 1941. The state of Croatia adhered to the Axis Tripartite Pact
and declared war on the Allies.
Immediately after the formation of the Ustashi Independent State of Croatia
(ISC-NDH), the Ustashi began carrying out unheard of crimes against the Serbian
Orthodox population. The genocide was blueprinted in the Lipari Islands under the
aegis of Mussolini's Fascist regime and approved by Hitler. Official documents and
lists of execution pits, compiled on official orders, have been preserved. These
documents contain, in addition to the names of sites in which the pits were located,
//space for 200
the estimated spatial dimensions, such as "space for 100 persons,"
persons," even "space for 800 persons," etc. The attempt to create an ethnically pure
Croat Catholic area called for a demonic project of genocide of unbelievable scope in
view of the then national structure: 3,069,000 Croats or 50.78 per cent, L,874,000
Orthodox Serbs or 30'56 per cent,717,000 Muslims or 11.86 per cent. The strategy of
implementing this crime against humanity was described by the Ustashi official Dr.
Mile Budak in the following way: one third is to be killed, one third expelled, one
third converted to Catholicism!

This huge program of genocide could not be realized by only a group of

several hundred Ustashi terrorists. Included were the paramilitary formations of the
Croat Peasant Party ("Guardians") of Dr. Vlatko Macek. A broader mobilization of the
Croats was made possible with the cooperation of the Roman Catholic clergy for the

purpose of setting up a Roman Catholic state (Civitas Dei) in the strategically

significant Balkans. The purpose was also to destroy the Orthodox Christian Churchthe "schismatics," who could prevent the strengthening and expansion of the
"Antemurale christianitatis." The Orthodox Church was banned and outlawed. After
being brutally tortured, about 220 Orthodox clergymen were murdered, as well as
Metropolitan Dr. Petar Zimonjic, Bishop Sava Trlajic, and Bishop Platon jovanovic,
while the rest were deported. The Orthodox churches were burned to the ground and,
in many instances, burned while filled with Orthodox Serbs. Some churches were
plundered and transformed into Roman Catholic churches. The Ustashi also
committed the crime of genocide of the jews. More than 30,000 ]ews were
"e1iminated." The Ustashi minister Dr. Andrija Artukovic, who collaborated on this
project with the Nazi war criminal Adolph Eichmann, boasted at a Ustashi rally on
February 23,7942 that the "Ustashi Croatia radically resolved the Jewish question."
The Ustashi genocide of the Gypsies in Croatia was horrifying indeed. V\4role

villages were destroyed. As these victims were annihilated without any lists drawnup, their exact number is not known - but it is reckoned to be between 40,000 and
100,000. The Ustashi criminals slaughtered and brutally killed hundreds of thousands
of men, women and children only because they belonged to a specific nation or
religion. "Those arrested had their ears and noses severed, their eyes gouged, were
killed with knives and clubs, their skin sliced into strips, and their bodies placed on
nails. They used female genital organs as ashtrays, cut off the breasts of women, threw
live victims into furnaces and killed with poisonous injections"- (text from the
Indictment of the District Public Prosecutor of Zagreb at a trial of Dr. Andrija
Artukovic).
The most brutal form of Ustashi crime was the mass murder of children.
Throughout the whole occupied territory of Europe it was only in the Ustashi NDH
that concentration camps for children were organized. The Ustashi Dionisije ]uricev in
his clergymen's robes openly preached: "No one except a Catholic can live in this
country and who refuses to be converted will be dealt with-sent to jasenovacl It is no
sin today to kill even a small child who hinders the Ustashi movement!"

t
i

The jasenovac Ustashi camp system was a veritable death camp from 1941'-45.
Pavelic's headquarters issued a command through minister of the Interior Andrija
Artukovic to aII the institutions in the state saying that the "collection and labor camp
Jasenovac can take in an unlimited number of prisoners." The Jasenovac camp, which
covered an area of 210 square kilometers, was the biggest collection center, torture and
execution area that ever existed in the Balkans. By its brutality and torture it decidedly
held first place in Europe and in the world. The inmates were slaughtered with knives
and other sharp blades, killed with saws, axes, and burned alive. The corpses were
thrown into mass graves, while others were thrown into the Sava River. We do not
know the exact number of victims who met their death in Jasenovac. The Commission
for Crimes of the Occupational Forces and their helpers in 1945 arrived at the
conclusion that the exact number of victims will never be ascertained. But after
investigation and interrogations of countless witnesses this figure can be estimated at
700,000. In a village called Donja Gradina there is a commemorative plaque in SerboCroat, Russian and English that reads: "It is proven that 366,000 inmates were killed

here."

A special form of Ustashi genocide was the forcible Catholicization of the

Orthodox Serbs. The program for this encompassed specific categories of the Serbian
Orthodox population, especially those who were economically and politically weak

and who, in view of the number of Serbs in the NDH, could not physically be
destroyed within a brief period of time. With close cooperation of the Bishops'
Conference of the NDH, which organized with the Vatican's knowledge and blessing
a separate Commission of Bishops, conversion to Catholicism was to include one

third of the Orthodox Serbian population. Using threats and extortion, the NDH
converted about 255,000 Serbs. Many of them, after having been promised safety
upon conversion to Catholicism, became the victims of Ustashi genocide because the
priests of the Roman Church told them that they were saving their souls but could
not guarantee saving their bodies. This enforced Catholicization of the Orthodox
Serbs has never been annulled by the Holy See. The converted Serbs were proclaimed
to be "Croats."

In the final solution of the "Serbian question," according to the Ustashi

genocide plan, one third of the Serbs who were not physically destroyed or forcibly
converted, was to be deported from Croatia and economically ruined. This group of
Serbs was ruthlessly destroyed. Serbian families were brutally expelled from their
secular hearths without the possibility of taking any personal belongings with them.
An agreement was reached that the Serbs should be deported to the German-held
territory in Serbia on condition that Croatia should receive the Slovenes who were

deported from the territories annexed by the Germans. The most eminent

representatives of the Roman Catholic Church in the NDH, Dr. Krunoslav Draganovic,
Dr. Stjepan Lackovic and others, took part in drawing up this program. After the
liberation of Yugoslavia the NDH was not proclaimed a war crimes organization on the
basis of the Nuremberg War Criminals Trial. De-Nazification was also not carried out.
The Ustashi leader Ante Pavelic, aided by an organization under the auspices of the
Vatican, fled with a large number of Ustashi criminals and was not tried in absentia.
The Ustashi minister of Interior, who in 1986 was extradited from the USA, was not
tried in Zagreb for the crime of genocide of the Serbs, jews and Gypsies, but only as a

war criminal. At the Zagreb trial in 1986, which was to have been the Yugoslav
Nuremberg, the Ustashi minister Artukovic was tried for crimes that never even
happened and not for the crime of genocide, for which he was personally responsible.
The representatives of the Vatican and the high clergy of the Roman Church in Croatia
did not condemn the Ustashi genocide-they did not hold responsible the Roman
Catholic priests who, as sworn Ustashi, were personally responsible. There was no
expression of remorse of the part of the Roman Catholic Church for the responsibility
for the terrible crime of genocide in the Ustashi NDH, not even such repentance as was
expressed by the Roman Catholic Church in Germany with regard to the Nazi crime of
genocide of the Jews.

In liberated Yugoslavia the pits into which the bodies of Serbian victims were

thrown were deliberately covered with concrete in an attempt to destroy the evidence
contained on those sites. Also covered with concrete was the truth by using the slogan
of "brotherhood and unity." Even the number of genocide victims was never
confirmed. There was
proper burial.

ban on the "counting" of the victims, their digging up and their

The new Croat nationalistic "Croat Democratic Community-HDZ"

leadership, after a prescribed period of forgetfulness, developed a theory on the
creation of the "jasenovac myth." This 'myth' was defined by Dr. Franjo Tudjman in
his work, The Wasteland of Historical Reality, as one intended to prove that the whole
Croat nation was to blame for genocide. In this way the fear of responsibility of the
whole nation for the mass crime of genocide of the Orthodox Serbs, Jews and Gypsies
is being dissipated by openly revising the events that took place during World War II.
Again, there has ensued cooperation between the clergy and the nationalists motivated
by the same objectives, that is the rejection of responsibility of the Roman Catholic
clergy.

In such a sifuation and given the absence of collected proofs, the number of
genocide victims is blatantly minimized. On the occasion of this 50th anniversary of the
Ustashi Independent State of Croatia-NDH, Dr. Franjo Tudjman describes this state as
the expression of the historical aspirations of the Croat people and states that in the
Ustashi camp of Jasenovac there was a total of about 30,000 victims. Since we know
that about 20,000 ]ews alone were killed there and about 11,000 children, a large
number of Gypsies, a certain number of Yugoslav-oriented Croats and anti-Fascists, by
his count it tums out that there were no Serbian adult victims at all!

In 1945 many war criminals fled from justice. Under such conditions the
world public was not made aware of the real truth of genocide perpetrated during the
war on the territory of occupied Yugoslavia. Without a knowledge of this truth, it is not
possible to understand the present tragic events in Yugoslavia which are a danger to
world peace. There is no documentation whatever in the United Nations headquarters
in New York about the Ustashi ]asenovac death camp. In the International Red Cross
Committee in Geneva there are only about two dozen photographs from Ustashi
propaganda sources on which the primitive Ustashi death camp is shown as a
sanatorium with cooks in white attire, the inmates working at machines, and the
women forking hay in the fieldsl
Contained in this photo-essay, the reader can see real picfures of the execution

ground which has been called "the biggest Serbian clty under the ground." The visual
perception of the truth of the horrible crime of genocide between 1941-45 is important
so that the tragic events in Yugoslar.ia in 1991 can be understood.
In the new Independent State of Croatia people are being dismissed from their
jobs, their homes bumed, and the first victims are paying with their lives, as n 1947,
only because they belong to the Serbian nation. The basic purpose of the svstematicaily
imposed and imported crisis in Yugoslavia again, as in 1941, is the dismemberment of
the Yugoslav state, which is not in the interest of any nation because all the nations
living in this area are suffering as a result. The instruments used in breaking up
Yugoslavia in 1941' were the paramilitary formations of Macek's peasant "Guardians"
against the Yugoslav Royal Army coupled with the illegal military support of Fascist

Italy. This is the same purpose of the paramilitary formations of the ruling party in
present-day Croatia and the territorial units of Slovenia against the Yugoslav People's
Army, together with the full financial and armed assistance from abroad.

On May 78, 1947 Pope Pius XII received the head of the Ustashi Independent
State of Croatia at the time of the genocide of the Orthodox Serbs, Jews and Gypsies.

1,991. Pope John Paul II received the Croatian Democratic Community

leader Dr. Franjo Tudjman at a time of the existing sovereign Yugoslav state. President
Tudjman was also received by the acting state secretary of His Holiness the Pope,
Monsignor Angelo Sodone, even though he receives only those persons that the pope
receives as part of a state visit, all with the purpose of supporting the Croat secessionist
forces and the creation of a Catholic state in the strategically important Balkans. The

On May 26,

First World War began on the territory of the Yugoslav lands. Due to events in
Yugoslavia, the Second World War took a different turn. In order to prevent a new
threat to the peace in Europe and in the world, the tragic events from the past must not
be forgotten, as this is a precondition for their avoidance in the future. At the time
when human rights are gaining more and more significance for mankind's future, one
must not forget the need to implement the United Nations Convention on the
Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. The strengthening of democratic
forces in the world is constantly followed by the danger of the revival of the forces of
Fascism, Nazism and other forms of totalitarianism and domination over the free
human spirit. This is the real meaning of the contents of this presentation.
DR. Mll.AN BUIAJI( is a member of the
Academy of Arts & Sciences, Belgrade, the
World Organization for Peace, United
Nations, historian and eminent authoritv on
international law, member of ILA
(International Law Association), and L{IPPI
(World Peace by Way of Law and Justicel. He
is also author of The Pinciples o.f

International Lazo and De'celopn ETtt.

Dr. Bulajic documented and authorcd
four-volume dissertation on the U-<foshi

Cimes of Genocide.His ifformation rr-as

compiled from Serbian. Croatial" \-atican"
British alrd the -{merican n-ar arthir-es.
-{t the ertradition of .A.ndrija -{rtu}oric,
Dr. Bulajic represented \ugoslaria. At his
trial Dr. Bulajic r+-as considered erpert
testimonv on genocide.

THE MARTYRDoM 0F THE SERBS

(t94t-451

Veselin Kesich, Professor at St. Vladimir's Seminary, Crestwood, N.y.

On April 6, 1941, Germany invaded Yugoslavia by bombing the "open city

of Belgrade. The powers surrounding Yugoslavia, except for Greece, were allied *iil

Hitler. Each occupied sections of the country. Italy seized part o{ Slovenia an<
Dalmatia and the whole of Montenegro. Mussolini granted Kossovo to a Greate
Albania. Rumania and Hungary divided vojvodina. Bulgaria assumed control o
Macedonia. Germany occupied the rest of the country. All used the invasion as ar
excuse to carve out new political entities and to eliminate Yugoslavia from the map.

cermany's primary concern was to serve German military needs. over thr
protest of his generals, Hitler insisted on handing over Croatia and the adjoininl
provinces of Bosnia and Hercegovina to the Croatian fascist Ante Pavelic, Mussolini'r
client,who became the poglavnik or fuhrer of the new Independent Croatian Statr
(NDH). Pavelic and his Ustashi ("rebels") had lived and trained in terrorist tactic
under the protection of Mussolini in Italy. Their aim was to achieve an independen
Croatia by destabilizing Yugoslavia and assassinating its leaders. They organized an<
participated in the killing of King Alexander I in Marseilles in 1934.

NDH was proclaimed on April 10 in the German-occupied city of Zagreb

and Yugoslavia fell to the combined occupiers on April 17. The new state under tht
rule of the Ustashi held 6,300,000 people, a third of whom were Serbian Orthodo;
and 750,000 were Muslim. Pavelic had his own agenda for this mixed population.

The Serbian people had not long to wait before discovering what their neu
rulers intended for them. Their first goal was the destruction of the Serbian Orthodor
Church within their territory and the elimination of the Serbian population. On Apri

25,by special proclamation, Pavelic forbade printing in the Cyrillic alphabet

Orthodox elementary schools were closed by june 3. On |uly 18 the "serbiar
Orthodox Church" and its faith could no longer be mentioned; it was renamed tht
"Greco-Eastern Confession." Serbs living in Zagreb were obliged to wear blu<
armbands with the letter P ("pravoslavac," Orthodox).

In public speeches, Pavelic's cohorts began to spell out their programs. Milr
Budak, his chief spokesman, drew up the measures to be taken: "One part of th<
Serbian population we shall kill, another part we shall expell, and the rest we shal
convert to the Roman Catholic Church and thus transform them into Croats."
i--;;i:i:it:i
., i:Ii.

- 'l

'irrr'l r:i:r:,iIl.r]li 'l:i

Yugoslavia before

April. 1941.
..-.

.,

i.

:.riii:

The

was a different poliry toward the Muslims:

'lllfle ae a natisr of two faiths, Roman Catholic and Muslim... Communists

they could
'ft| Sclbs attack our faith above all, for they know ifthey
want."
ffioiirg flr faith they would be able to do whatever

succeed

in

The Muslims, in contrast, were called "the Purest Croats, Precious stones

uhkh rf,-e must put in the structure of our Independent Croatian State." Budak
rf*npd that fte Serbs mixed atheism and anti-clericalism with a nationalistic view of

di7iilt

and used churches and monasteries to expand the bounds of their rule into

Cxoatian lands- He concluded:

-We who have studied history know that the Almighty God made the river

Drirn the boundary line between the East and the West. By God's providmce we
becane the guardians of our frontier... for this reason we received the recogrrition
and title "antemurale Christianitis". The Ustashi movement was based on our
great faith in our just cause, in the Almighty who has never abandoned the
righteous, in our loyalty to the Church and the Catholic faith."

As the Minister of ]ustice, Mirko Puk, put it, the Serbs were newcomers who
had to go back where they came from. The administrator of Banja Luka, Victor Gutich,
poaically prophesied that "the roads will wish to see Serbs, but there will be no Serbs

busethem."
The Serbs were shocked and bewildered, disoriented and unable to react to
tlrese new developments. They could not believe what they were hearing and reading
in the new local newspapers, which were springing up like mush.rooms. All means of

communication were sending out a stream of hate propaganda and preaching

genocide.

As a high school senior in Banja Luka, who had finished gymnasium in those
days, I well remember the mood and the incredulity. School had been hurriedly closed
for the year before final examinations. I was walking with a school friend, talking over
the fast-developing events, when we
Banja Luka. An enormous banner over
forbidden to Serbs, Jews, Gypsies and
citizens had been deprived of their civil

approached the entrance to the main park in

the entrance proclaimed "Enkance to this park
dogs." Like dogs, the majority of Banja Luka's
rights as citizens, their legal persona.

The immediate plans of the Ustashi, defined in the public speeches of their
leaders, were followed by massacres of the Serbs. Almost immediately, they set about
killing priests, bishops, teachers and merchants. Among the first victims was Bishop
Platon of Banja Luka.On May 5 they broke into hls residence, took him outside the city,

tortured him and threw his body into the river Vrbanja. His body was found twenty
days later.
t"gs*

.*i

Partition of
Yugoslavia, 1941.
Breakup of7978-1941
Yugoslav territories
after defeat by Axis

in April, 1941.
--:#r. ":-l

=,
ffi*'.

a,&&,1':.,iial'i',,r',.i"'r'',.,:.a.rr'
BY-.*6iNS:,.i -:.3: :al;:):i:

The tortures and killings of individuals were soon followed by the

extermination of larger groups, including whole villages. In the village of Glina, in the
old military frontier, the Austrian line of defense against the Turks, all male Serbs
were taken from their homes and packed into the locai Serbian Church. When it was
filled with frightened villagers, the doors were bolted and the building was set on fire.
Armed Ustashi took up positions around the flaming church to prevent the escape of
the doomed Serbs, whose desperate cries were audible to them. This was a holocaust
in its purest form.
Serbian women and children were not exempted. On one of the early days of
the reign of terror, a train of six crowded box cars took women and children from the
city of Mostar in Hercegovina to a mountainous region. The train stopped at a cliff top,
from which the passengers were hurled over the ravine to certain death.

Archbishop Misic of Mostar protested to Archbishop Stepinac about this

with the authorities in Zagreb to

prevent such atrocities. But his appeal brought no result; the crimes continued
massacre, and appealed to him to use his influence

undiminished.
The Ustashi massacres disturbed the Cermans as well. A German security
officer in February 7942 reported: "The Ustashe units har.e carried out their atrocities
not only against Orthodox males of military age but in particular in the most bestial

fashion against unarmed old men, women and children." He saw an obvious
connection between the attempt to exterminate the population and the growth of the
guerrilla movements. Frequently, Serbs had to choose between remaining in their
homes and living a life of constant fear that one day they would be murdered or joining
the guerrillas in the surrounding mountains. Many of them did so.

In April, 1941, there had been eight Orthodox dioceses on the territory
incorporated into NDH, each with its own bishop. \Atrhen the Ustashi seized power,
they killed three and expelled three; one was detained in an Italian prison camp, and
another survived in the region occupied by the Hungarians.They killed 217 priests in
the first wave of terror. Many were subjected to incomprehensible tortures before being
killed. The churches were destroyed and burned, and church property was plundered.
It is estimated that there were over two million Serbs in NDH, and 750.000, about a
third, were killed during this period. These atrocities have been described as the "great
catastrophe," genocide, holocaust or Magnum Crimen.
The crimes of the Ustashe also shocked some Croatians who were not living in
a mixed population. Some Croatian peasants around Zagreb started to ask questions
and to criticize the policy toward the Serbs. Pavelic's first deputy, Budak, was sent to
explain the policy. He drew a parallel with the Crusades:
"We must remember that the Catholic Church, which is not a terrorist
organizafion, led six crusades for the liberation of Christ's tomb...er.en the children
participated in these expeditions. If the church appror-ed these crusades, \\.e are
confident that it understands aLrc the purpose of our Ustashi struggle."

joseph Lonchar, a Roman CathoLic priest, continued to attack the policy, and
was punished bv imprisonment.

As far as n e knou', no public condemnation of the Ustashi genocide came

from the Croatian Roman Catholic hierarchv, nor did they publiclv oppose the
expulsion of Serbs from Bosnia and Hercegovina to Serbia.

The massacres drove huge waves of people from their homes into the
unknown life of refugees. Some, as we have seery took to the woods and joined the
guerrilla movements. Others flooded out over the border, the lion' s share into
conquered Serbia, Iying prostrate under a brutal German occupation, starving in the
blockaded city of Belgrade. By 7943, up to 400,000 homeless people had settled in
Serbia, among them Yugoslav-oriented Croats and Slovenes. 334 priests had been
driven there from their parishes. The German occupiers added to their distress by
announcing that for every German soldier killed they would execute a hundred Serbs;

i-p., r:i eie:l l\'otr-ie than this. Apart from the economic crisis, lack of food and
rre':::: =:li concern for 250,000 Serbs in German prison camps, they faced
rr:sr:::::inte ertermination as a people. They were well-justified in their despair.
l: rr e-: at this point that Serbian community leaders of economic, political and
a:"ie::-:: -ile in Belgrade turned to Milan Nedich, minister of Defense in pre-war
':
-i--s;r'ra. one of the very few generals who organized and resisted the advancing
Jer:.,a:r-c during the short war of 1941. They appealed to him to assume responsibility

-: :re LL-L-upied

country to save what could be saved. Nedich was understandably

:c:::tari; anr- dealings with the German conqueror was repulsive. Alexander Belic,
::$ident of the Serbian Academy of Sciences, begged him in tears to remember that
: -.:e
time has come to accept a task, indeed a dilficult and thankless duty under
.xcupation. The question today is the biological salvation of the Serbian people, whom
l-ou must not abandon." Nedich agreed to form his own administration under the
C,erman occupation with the goal of protecting the rights of the conquered people
guaranteed by intemational law.
The disorganized and deprived citizens set about doing what they could for
the refugees from NDH, fleeing for their lives. They were all cared for, especially
orphan children, the old and the sick. Even the members of the Communist youth
organizations were saved from sure destruction by the occupiers. Throughout Nedic's
regime, no laws against ]ews were issued under his administration, and no contingents
trom Serbia served alongside the Germans on the Eastern Front. Serbia was virtually
alone in holding out against Nazi pressure in these matters. Many owed their lives to
the selfless work of Milan Nedich and his co-workers.

I can speak about this from my own personal experience. That summer a
Croatian friend informed my father that he had seen my name on a list of Serbs who
,rvere to be taken to the Ustashi concentration camp. With this knowledge, and supplied
n"ith the identification card of a younger friend who was not obliged to leave the town,
I left home the same day, and under the name of Rade Miladinovich reached Serbia.
Although he did not leave his native Banja Luka, Rade survived the war, and he is still
alive and well.
I reached Belgrade, joining members of my family, and encountered some of
my school friends, who had left before me, each with his own story. In the special
ministry for refugees I met my orthopedic surgeon, who had been expelled from
Zagreb, also a refugee. He ordered a pair of orthopedic shoes, which I badly needed.
Within three weeks I received a well-made, well-fitted pair of shoes.
The story of Nedic has a bitter end. He escaped to Austria after the war, but
was handed back to Tito as a collaborator. He was to be tried for war crimes, but the
Communists apparently feared his prestige among the people. He was shoved out of a
window to his death before the trial. For the past fortv-five vears, Nedic has been
reviled as a "collaborator." Onlv recentlv have official historians dared to question the

prevailing dogmas. There is now hope that Nedic's contribution to his people's
survival during the tragic wartime years will be fr.rlly told.
Bibliographical Notes:
While writing this article, I found Victor Novak's Magnum Crimen mosl valuable. It contained a large
collection of materials md documents in SerbeCroatian about the Ustashe-and their atrocities. It was pubiished in
Zagreb in 1948, but soon disappeared from circulation in Yugoslavia. A second edition appeared in Belgrade in 1986.
The bmk was republished in this time of rising national antagonisms in the hope of opening a dialogue between Serbs
and Croats and averting a repetition of the catastrophic events of 1941-45.
The monumental work of Djoko Slipjepcevic,History of the Serbinn Church (in Serbo-Croatian, Munich,
7962-88,3 vols.), is probably the best available history that exists on the Serbian Church throughout the centuries,
including the origins and growth of this church in Bosnia, Hercegovina and other parts of Yugoslavia that were
mcorporated into NDH.
Veliko Q. f\ttric, The Ustashi and Orthodory (The Croatian Orthodox Church), Belgrade, 1989, in SerboCroatian, furnished a comiderable amount of new material from archives about the Serbian Orthodox Church under

ihe Ustashi

tenor.

'.

Irr Pedro Ramet, ed., Eastem Christianity and Politics (Duke University Press, Durham and London, 1988),
Ranet's article "The Serbian Orthodox Church" is particularly good in recording the life of the Church in the

Commistsystem.
Thomas Kazich, "Bishop Vamava Nastich: Witress for Christ 1914-64," (mpublished master's essay, St.
1975) is an iropiring portrait based' on Bishop Vamava's letters to his relatives

\ladimir's Seninary, Crestwood, NY,

md triqds in Garv, Indiana.

USTASHI GEI{OCIDT OF CHITDREN

IN THT INDTPENDENT STATE

945
0F cRoATtA, | 94 t

-l

Dragoje Lukic

The Ustashi did not commit atrocities only on

adult men and women of the Serbian, Jewish and Gypsy
nationalities but also on children who were still infants

feeding on their mother's milk. It is difficult to find

adequate words to express this kind of Ustashi bestiality.
Infants were shot in their cribs, babies were hoisted on
bayonets, slaughtered with knives, razors, burned in their
homes, and boiled in soap-melting cauldrons.

The Nazi Fascist horde and occupation of

Yugoslavia in 7941 made it possible for the violent death
of tens of thousands of children in the Independent State
of Croatia (NDH) to become the greatest national tragedy
of the Serbian people.

From April 7947 to April 1945, 44,000 children from infants to 14-year olds
were killed. There is definite knowledge of about 22,000 youngsters - what their
names were, who their parents were, where and when they were born, where and
when they perished, and whose hands held the daggers that extinguished their
young lives. The following paragraphs are only fragments from the voluminous
documentary material relating to the mass killing of children.

Viktor Gutic, the most notorious representative of the Ustashi NDH, in

Bosanska Krajina during May and ]une 1941 held a series of speeches in Banja Luka

Prijedor, Sanski Most, Kotor Varos, Prnjavor Bosanska Gradiska, Kozatac and in
other places. On May 30,7941. he said in Prijedor: "These Serbian rabble whom the
Turksbrought to Bosnia our Croat state will immediately expedite into Serbia, some
by rail and others down the Sava River, without a boat. The undesirable elements
will be uprooted so that no trace is left of them and all that can remain is a bad
memory of their presence. The deportation of Serbs must be ruthlessly accomplished.
No pity should be shown to the aged, women or children. The first mortal shots were
fired by the Ustashi on April 28, 794'1. when 234 members of the Serbian nationality
from the villages of Gudovac and Brezovica near Bjelovar were killed. This was the
signal which was later used to turn many Serbian villages and towns in Slavonia,
Srem, Banija, Kordun, Lika, Northern Dalmatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina _into
execution grounds for the death of children who rvere still in their mothers' wombs.
From 6-9 Mav, 1941 the kiliing lasted with 520 men, women and children

murdered in the most cruel rvav. In mid-June 1941 the Ustashi launched the
extermination of the Serbian population in rillages surrounding Lirno. From Donji
and Gornji Rujani, Odzak and I istina alone 218 prsons rt'ere killed and thrown into
the Rzani Dolac pit. In July 1941 Serbian families n'ere rounded up in Livno and
Vrlika with the promise that the Croat authorities would resettle them in Serbia'
More than 300 men, women and children believed this promise but were killed in
Koprivnica forest near Bugojno. The Ustashi committed unprecedented acts of
bruiality before they finatly killed their victims. Victims' hands and legs were ct]t ang
their eyes gouged. Ustashi severed the heads of small children and threw these heads
into their mothers' laps.

In this way the Ustashi killed 1,243 Serbs, includ ing3T}children in the Livno
area in the course of 1947. The summer months of 7947 in Herzegovina were marked
by mass Ustashi slaughters of the Serbs in the environs of Nevesinje, !a9k9, Bilece,
Tiebinje and Capljina,at which time2,297 adults and567 children were killed. On the

t{'rp {, lgfl the Ustashi murdered 140 people h t!"- village of Korito near
$reh- ttrm into pits 30 meters deep. In the period from22 to 28 |une 1941
ma
Crcno
fu'grm Caf'lifua and its environs 526 men, women and children were .laughtered.

ryh

{rf

mwttn&es

har"e told incredible stories about the slaughter of the population of the

riWrgg ot Hilovci near Capljina. The Ustashi massacre lasted from 4 to'1.1. luly,
Ig'fl- Tlte rrc;t horrible scenes took place in a school in Prebilovci when the Ustashi
lgl'rcd in{ants from their cradles and crushed their heads against the school walls
in tront of their mothers. In Prebilovci on August 6,'1.941 the Ustashi threw 470
of the
Fusorrs into the pit and 237 children under 14. On the 8th of August,7947 one
of
about
the
slaughter
In
this
place
Stanj.
place
in
Mehin
took
crimes
monstrous
rrrcet
{3n in}Ebitants from Slunj, Vojnic and Kladusa took place. Deep anti-tank trenches,
nlrkh had been dug earlier along the boundary line between Bosnia and Kordun, 700
rffis long, were filled with Ustashi victims. More than 300 women and children
nere killedin the churchyard of the Orthodox church in Kladusa. Mutilated victims
rrere transported in trucks to these mass trench graves.

Ai the end of luly 1947 the Ustashi killed more than 300 women, children
persons from villages near Glina. on August 21., '1.947, they slaughtered
aged
and
1,029 Serbs in the Orthodox church in Glina, whom they had tricked into believing
they would be converted to Catholicism. These Serbs had been brought from the area
of Vrginmost.
During july and early August 1941 mass crimes were committed in Bosanska
Kraiina. According to a report filed by the commander of the Sanska County, General
Dragutin Rumler, on August 77,7941, more than 10,000 Serbs were killed during an
action against the 'rebels.' Mass killing of the Serbs began in Sanskimost and
surroundings on August 2,'1941, at which time the Ustashi massacred 4,000 men,
rromen and children.

During the same period, the Ustashi comrnitted massacres in Bosanska

In
the Risova Greda forest more than 800 Serbs were hurled into the abysses.
Krupa.
The women and children were subjected to unheard of brutalities. The women had
their hands tied through severed breasts, and babies were removed from their
mothers' wombs and slaughtered.

In the Cazin area the Ustashi killed 1,142 adults and264 children in 1941. In
the course of july and August the same year, the Ustashi klled770 Persons and 155
children in Glamoc. In the area of Jajce, mosfly from the viJlages of |anje and Sipovo,
about 600 men and women and 120 children were killed. In the villages in the vicinity
of Bosanski Petrovac also in July and August 1941 the Ustashi killed 7&1 persons. In
the village of Bravsko alone 134 women and 126 children were slaughtered. Within a
period of 20 days in August 1941 ihe Ustashi klled,2257 men and women and 465
children in the environs of Prijedor and Bosanski Novi.

At that time whole villages were burned down, the popuiation torbured and
thrown into pits, the children were stuck on bayonets. The murders took place
everywhere, in courtyards and at thresholds of homes, in gardens and in the market
places, and on the bridges and banks of the Sava River. Dusanka Radisic, a little girl
from Rudica near Bosanski Novi, was a survivor and eyewitness of the massacre of
her family and relatives: "ln the front yard of the home of Djoka Oljaca they
slaughtered us like sheep, clubbed and axed us to death. The house, farm buildings
and large courtyard were all covered with corpses. When the mothers cried out for
the children to be spared, the Ustashi did just the opposite. First they slaughtered the
children and then the parents." In the village of Citluk a child, Mikan jandric, who
vvas standing in his baby-walker, had both his hands cut off by the Ustashi. The
children Blagoje of 3 years and Mara of 6 months were stucli on a bayonet and thus
caried through the village.
The year of '1942 was the bloodiest year in tlre history of the Serbian people
childrcn.
Near |asenovac, in the village of Draksenic, on fanuary 13 and 74,7942
for
dE Ustashi massacred 208 inhabitants including 85 children in the village church.

The surviving eyewitnesses, Anka Lukac and Mara Blagojevic described this crime in
the following words: "The church was fuIl of corpses and blood was ankle-deep' A
woman named Nikola Dracina was placed on the altar piece, leaning against it as if
asleep. In front of the church, leaning on the wooden fence was Marta Vrnjic with her
two children. Both her breasts were slashed and the hands of her children drawn
thorough her breasts. The children's hands were tied with wire." A monstrous Ustashi
crime was committed on February 7,7942 when 2,300 inhabitants of Drakulic, Motika
and Sargovac, villages near Banja Luka, were killed. The peak of Ustashi barbarism
occurred with the slaughter of 551 children. The Pavelic bodyguard unit in this crime

was led by Miroslav Filipovic-Majstorovic, Franciscan chaplain of the Petricevac

Monastery. He was also known by the name-Friar Satan. He was given this name in
jasenovac as one of itd guards. When he slaughtered 7 year old Djura Glamocanin
Friar Satan urged his'hesitant men with a bloody knife in his hands: "ln the name of
God I am converting these infidels, and let all these sins be upon my soul."

(hildren in Ustoshi (ollettion ond (ontentrotion

Comps

What children experienced in Ustashi camPs is a unique example of human

suffering. Tens of thousands of children were killed in these camps. Mara VejnovicSmiljanic, a detainee in the Stara Gradiska Camp, in ]une 7942 has said the following:
"Horrible cries of human pairy sorrow, helplessness and desperation could be heard in
the camp when the Ustashi took small children away from their mothers. Usually a
group of Ustashi with bayonets on their rifles forced the mothers with children into a
iircle. First, they asked the mothers and children to volunteer to be separated-and then,
when this was not possible, they separated them - by force. The children and their
mothers clung to each other and cried out. Some others leaped on to the bayonets and
fell dead. The children were then placed in a big camp building. In some of the rooms
they squeezed up to one hundred children, where in such a small place they could only
stand upright." jelka Cihaber from Zemun, an inmate in the womenls camp in Stara
Gradiska, has noted down: "Most of the children from Mount Kozara were seParated
from their parents and placed in special premises of the camp storehouse. In these bad
conditions the children quickly weakened and became victims of all kinds of infectious
diseases. In addition to this, the Ustashi liquidated these children by putting into their
food quantities of caustic soda." Marijana Amulic, another inmate of the same camp
has testified the following: "On that day Maks Luburic, Ljubo Milos, Ivica Matkovic
with a group of Ustashi arrived in the Camp. Their purpose was to take the children
away from their parents. A horrifying scream went up from the mothers and from
children. The situation was horrible. The situation was catastrophic. The older children
started running away in an attempt to conceal themselves. This was followed by bestial
beatings. The women were crazed. They fought with the Ustashi for their children. All
to no ivail. The children lay about helplessly without any strength even to cry. They
died softly and gradually.

Later on, near the camP, grave diggers opened 11 big pits and buried
several hundred asphyxiated children. Ma-j" Cizmak was also an eyewitness of
murder of children in the Stara Gradiska Camp: "The killers Karamarko and
Oreskovic arrived at night. Karamarko went round the children with a long blade
and slaughtered them so that the tip of his blade was stuck deep into the throats of
the children. The smaller children were strangled by Oreskovic with his hands or
else lifted by their feet and struck several times against the ceiling. These men then
walked across both the living and the dead. One could hear the children's bones
cracking. The worst of all was that all this was happening to the children before
the very eyes of those who were waiting for their turn to come."

An identical fate was experienced by the children in the other jasenovac

collection centers. At the end of ]une and early July1942 the children were
distributed in these camps as follows: Novska 700, Ustica 4,000, Mlaka and
]ablanac 5,680, Cerovljani 5,000 and Prijedor 2,450. A number of witnesses have
left very pathetic accounts of the unprecedented sufferings of 17,830 youngsters.
Mihajlo Komunicki from the Ministry of the Interior toured some of these camps
on ]uly 25,"1.942, accompanied by Dr Oskar Turina, the minister plenipotentiaryin
the NDH and member of Shtal's command on Mount Kozata. This is how he

described this inspection tour. "The first camp we visited was in Novska near
|asenovac. On this abandoned space of an old brickyard it was difficult to
recognize the men, women and children from the clay on which they were lying.
\Vomen with children in a desperate state sought pity with their eyes. In this
brickyard 2,800 persons were languishing and condemned to die. More than 700
rt ere children. Exposed to the weather, tortured through hunger and dirt, the
small children died here in groups."
The second camp we visited, Ustica near Jasenovac, displayed an even
rvorst situation. About 8,000 women and children were expecting their bitter fate,
here in the vicinity of Gradina. We also visited the camp in Prijedor, which at that
time belonged to the ]asenovac compound. Here also on bare bricks there Iay about

4,000 persons, among whom more than 2^500 children. They were in a pitiful state.
Their eyes were drawn and dry. They had no more strength even to cry. We did not

even get to jablanac and Mlaka, though we knew that there were many more
detainees in even worse conditions. Our inspection tour had no purPose at all. These
r.ictims were not helped by anyone. Dr Oskar Turina only took photographs and
laughed cynically."

Many authentic testimonies about the horrors in the camPs have been
preserved. We here cite only one such account: Dr. Velimir Dezelic, an official of the
Croat Red Cross, on September 3,7945 described the sufferings of the children in the

Sisak Camp. "The most ill-famed camp was the children's camp in Sisak. Antun
Najzer, a doctor and a one time camp commander, liquidated the Orthodox children
en masse with poisoned injections. We knew that the killing of the children was

catastrophic, but all our interventions were in vain. From July 12 to the end of
October 7942, 3,336 children were brought to the jastrebarsko camP from Jablanac,
Mlaka and Gornja Rijeka. The children arrived in Jastrebarsko in a desperate state
Kamilo Brestler recalls. They looked like skeletons, especially those from Stara
Gradiska Camp. Many were bloated from hunger. Their faces were emaciated, their
color was that of cement, and only their huge sunken eyes cortld be seen. Many were
toothless, and most of them were sick from infectious diseeises. There were children
n'ho fell dead at the least effort. According to a jastrebarsko Camp file, 458 children
died there. However, according to the evidence collected by Franja llovar, the guard
of the Jastrebarsko cemetery, who buried the children and kept a'diary of burials.'
168 bovs and girls died in this camp.

Learning of the pitiable fate of thousands of youngsters in camps, Zagreb

patriots, people who could not reconcile themselves to the Ustashi movement and
other persons from among prominent citizens, organized in the summer of 7942, a

deeply humane action. Thanks to the self-sacrificing efforts of hundreds of

participants of this movement, of medical personnel, Red Cross volunteers and
several hundred families from Zagreb and surroundings, everything was done to
halt the killings of the children. These noble people succeeded in saving from Stara
Gradiska, jablanac, Mlaka, Ustica and Prijedor 1'2,623 children. From Jasenovac,
however, they were not able to save one single child.
The ]asenovac execution ground extending from Krapje to Stara Gradiska
over 210 square kilqmeters, devoured more than 70,340 boys and girls whose
names have been ascelrtained. The initiators and the most prominent organizers of
these humane actions were Dijana Budisavljevic, Kamilo Bresler, Jana Koh,
Dragica Habazin-mother, and others. They have left their remembrances, diaries
and notes. Here are some of them: Dragica Habazin-mother, described her first
arrival in Stara Gradiska on |uly 9,'l.942. "When with Dijana Budisavljevic, fana
o
Koh and 15 nurses of the Red Cross I arrived in the Camp, the Ustashi were giving
a banquet in honor of German general Shtal. Until the evening nobody contacted
us. The following morning we began taking over the children from Mount Kozara.
A number of German officers from the Camp command were making a tour to
select the women in the camp who would be sent to labor camps in Cermany.
They gave us the children they had separated from their mothers.

'Then the camp doctor, Dr. Buki Konforti, took us to the so-called
children's hospitals. On the way he told us softly: 'I will show you everything,
everything. The hospital, the attic and the cellar as well as the Tower, and you
should transmit all this to the public. Every human being should know about this.
When one of us opened a door of the 'Tower', the children began falling out and
sliding down the staircase. These were the skeletons of dead children. Seeing at
the same time living children in an indescribably horrible state, it became clear to
us that we could not help them - but we nevertheless placed them in our transPort
so that people should see what was being done to children. At that time, we
brought to Zagreb about 1,000 seriously ill children. Five days later we again went
to Giadish. Dr. Konforti was no longer there. The Ustashi killed him. On that
occasion we saved about 700 ailing children."
"On two visitations we transported from jablanac and Mlaka more than
Mount Kozara. When Luburic banned all further collection of
children from this area, in Stara Gradiska alone more than 10,000 children
remained. |ana Koh described the same events in the following words: 'There was
a room of the size of 25 square meters and inside it pressed close against each
other and on top of each other were the chirdren's bodies! Small, unmoving
skeletons in which only big eyes were alive. These children were dying on.boards
ankle-deep in excrement. Thousands of flies were crawling over their bodies
sucking even the last &op of life out of their bodies."'

3,000 children from

Half a cenfury after this uurssacre of the Kozara

children, after the crirrre comrnitted by PaveliCs Ustashi,
a final count of 1,7,794 youngsters was ascertained as
having died in these camps. During four years of the
war, a whole generation of human beings was
annihilated from the Kozara area. The Ustashi criminals
brutally killed 6,302 boys and 4,874 girls. The names of
18 of these could not be ascertained, nor their sex, as
they died before they were baptized. The average age of
these 11,194 boys and girls was 6.5 years old.

FOURTY POUNDS
OF HUMAN TYTS
The f amous Italian writer
Curzio Malaparte in his book Kaputt
reports on his visit to Ante Pavelic,

head of the Independent State of

Croatia rn7942.
". . .The Croatian PeoPle," said
Ante Pavelic, "wish to be ruled with
goodness and justice. And I am here
to provide them."

While he spoke, I gazed at a

wicker basket on the Poglavnik's
desk. The lid was slightly raised and
the basket seemed to be fil1ed with
mussels, or shelled oysters.

Ante looked at me and winked,

"Would you like a nice oYster

stew?"

"Are they Dalmatian oYsters?" I

asked.

Ante Pavelic removed the lid

from the basket and revealed the
mussels, that slimy and jellY-like
mass, and he said smiling,"It is a
present from my loyal Ustashi. ' .
Forlv pounds of human eYes."

rQuoted from page 266 of Kaputt, E. P. Dutton &

Co-. Inc., New York, 1946)

This peasant woman's eyes were gouged

out for the eyeball collectioa of Ante

Pavelic

HELEN DELICH BENTLEY

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October 29,1991
Rt. Rev. Bishop Chrysostom
Serbian Orthodox Diocese of

Western America

Alhambra, California
Your Grace:
In remembrance of the 50th anniversary of the genocide of the Serbs, we must
take notice of the recent rise of the Ustashe in Croatia. The war in Yugoslavia has claimed
thousands of lives; countless truces have been broken. There is little, if anything,
encouraging in the bleak scenario facing Yugoslavia.
The picture is increasingly grim, both on the battlefield and in the United States
government, where various members of Congress, responding to the powerful Croatian
lobby, insist on blaming Serbia for all of Yugoslavia's present ills, and persist in
introducing legislation which favors Croatia and damages Serbia.
Serbs, both in Yugoslavia and outside of Yugoslavia, are outraged by the poor
image they have elicited from the media. Serbs in Yugoslavia have smarted under the
criticisms from the European community and the United States for their military
responses to Croatia's move for independence. However, they are determined not to let
another genocide take place against the Serbs and have decided to defend themselves.

Most Serbs in the United States tend to think there is nothing they can do to
combat the hugely successful Croatian program of propaganda. But, it is this attitude of
silence which is most harmful to Serbia. It is imperative that Serbs unite and contact their
federal government officials. Members of Congress need to hear from the Serbian
population here from the Serbian population here in the United States; otherwise, they
will make the mistake of writing legislation without knowing the whole story.
Sincerely,

Helen Delich Bentley

Member of Congress

IOlI

JIM MOODY

LonGwoFrH BurlDrnc

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November

2, L99I

Right Reverand Bishop Chrysostom

Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Western America
Alhambra, California
Your Grace:
Please accept my sincerest greetings as you gather in solemn
of this fiftieth year since the beginning of the
Ustashi genocide against the Serbs in Yugoslavia.
commemoration

The hundreds of thousands of Orthodox Serbs and Jews and

Gypsies wtro were slaughtered by the ustashi genocide in Yugoslavia
Uetween l-941 and 1945---the innocent men and women, and above all,
the children, whose only "crime" was that they were of a different
faith or nationality---can achieve some measure of peace and rest
because you have chosen not to forget them.
This commemoratlon ls a].so important for the living as wel1.
of the
Americans and the world community at large know little
Ustashi genocide, of the brutality, of the murderousness that was
beyond anything even committed by their most hardened German Nazi
and Italian Fascist Partners.

The religious institutions and neighboring countries who

abetted the forced converslons of the orthodox Serbs and aided in
the avoidance of justice by the murderers bear a heavy burden of
guilt that remains to this very moment. In Yugoslavia today' as
the political descendants of the Ustashi wrap themselves in false
ctoaks of democracy and deniat, we must not condemn all for the
brutality and inhumanity of some. But we must also not turn away
from the truth of history.
The torrent of tears shed by the descendants of the victims
these past fifty years must not sinply collect idly in sad and
forgotten poo1s. These tears of remembrance must help wash altay
the conspiracy of silence and denial that has covered over this
darkest corner of history and reftect the determination of the
serbian peopre to never a1low a forgotten past to become a repeated
reatity in Yugoslavia today.
Pl-ease extend my personal regards to the entire SerbianAmerican community on this most important and solemn occasion,

Jim

Moody

Member

of

Congress

THIS STATIONERY PRINTED ON PAPEN MADE OF BECYC@

FIAffi

MESSAGE FROM IEWISH WAR VETERANS,

FORMER CONCENTRATION CAMP INMATES
AND PRISONFRS OF WA& BELGRADE

Yugoslav Jews
participants in the armed struggle for freedom during World
War II, surviving inmates- of the Ustasha death camp |asenovac in Croatia and Nazi
camps, and former prisoners of war who now live in Belgrade, at their meeting adopted
' the

following message:

Living today in a country torn by fighting, destruction and loss of life, we

condemn this war, a war we could never have imagined would happen in Europe at the
threshold of the 21st century. But, with equal bittemess, we recognize the reappearance of
extremist and totalitarian nationalism at home, and German expansionism, and our
conscience does not allow us to remain silent.

Our experiences through the centuries have taught us thatnationalism and

chauvinism lead to persecution and, as a rule, tum against our people in the form of antiSemitism. The tragedy of our people during World War II when they were the victims of
genocide, was for us an indelible lesson. For this reason, we observe with concem and
anxiefy the signs of the restoration of the past in some parts of our country. The most
drastic example are the current developments in Croatia, where forces of the past have
infiltrated the fiber of contemporary life.

One of the first steps taken by the new authorities in Croatia, installed in the
spring of 1990, as to rename the Victims of Fascism Square in the capitoi city of Zagreb.
This presaged the return to the scene of those who do not want to be reminded in any way
of the human sufferings caused by this Croatian neo-Fascist Ustashe in the quisling
"Independent State of Croatia". This state was set up by Germany and Italy in the spring
of 1941, after their invasion of Yugoslavia.
The deletion of the name of Victims of Fascism Square was accompanied by the
return to Croatia from abroad of a number of leading Ustashe, their penetration into
political life, and their appearance in the mass media, frequently with anti-Semitic
statements. Members of the ruling party in Croatia have been arnred, an afaming

reminderoftheNazimedrodsinC,ennany- Asystemof swearingloyalty,inwriting,to

the regime was irnposed in regions inlrabihd by ottrer nationalities. Proof of the pure
Croatian origin of both parents is a prerequisiE for errployurerrt in some govemment
departments and security services. Persons who rrade rrc effort to conceal their antiSemitism during the election campaign have corre to high positions. In his book
"Wastelands of Historical Realig/' published in L989, the cument president of the
Republic of Croatia, Franjo Tudiman, wrote that "soon afterwards (the second world war)
the jewish people became so brutal and pursued so genocidal a poliry towards the
Palestinian that they can rightly be defined as Judeo-Nazis".
Bombs exploded recently in the entrance to the Jewish Community building and
at the Jewish Cemetery inZagreb. The Memorial Center at the Iasenovac death camp,
which claimed the lives of thousands upon thousands of Jews, Serbs and Gypsies, has
been desecrated. The Memorial Museum has been stripped of the evidence of the
genocide committed there.

The present regime in Croatia has not clearly distanced itself from the quisling
"Independent State of Croatia", which declared war on the United States of America and
sent its troops to the Eastern Front against the Soviet Union.
President Tudjman went so far as to point up a degree of historical continuity
between modern Croatia, which is carrying out a secession, and the former "Independent
State of Croatra", which did everything in its power to annihilate its Jews and against
which we took up arms and fought on the side of the Allies.
The revival of the forces of the past in Croatia today primarily jeopardizes the
position and rights of the Serbs, the most numerous non-Croat people who predominate
in certdin areas of the republic or are mixed with the Croats. Following the genocide
committed against them in the "Independent State of Croatia", Serbs en masse joined the
National Liberation Struggle and, under the command of Marshal Tito, fought against
Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Ustasha Croatia.
The present authorities in Croatia have, with the new constitution, downgraded
the Serbs, a constituent people, to a national minority and turned them into second-class
citizens. This antagonized the Serbs and they refuse to live in the new state of Croatia.
We Jewish war veterans carmot forget that we fought together in Croatia with the
Serbs and anti-Ustasha Croats in the ranks of the partisans and units of the People's

Liberation Army of Yugoslavia. We surviving concentration camp inmates remember

that, after very rare successful attempts to escape from the death camps, we found refuge
and succor in territories liberated from the Germans and Ustasha; we former Jewish
prisoners of war remember the solidarity of antifascist and patriotic Serb officers who
backed us in our protest against the German camp authorities who ordered us to wear the
yellow Star of David.

APPEAL BY THE
RABBI OF YUGOSLAVIA
ADDRESSED TO POPE JOHN PAUL

The chief Rabbi of Yugoslavia Cadik Danon today addressed an appeal to the
Head of the Roman Catholic Church asking him to call on all the Roman Catholics of the
world to say a prayer for the souls of "all the victims of the crime of genocide committed
on the soil of Croatia during the second World War." The Yugoslav Rabbi expressed the
conviction that this would be a significiant contribution to calming the spirits in
Yugoslavia, which is being torn by civil war.

After the inva'gion of Yugoslavia, Germany and Italy created the Quisling
"Independent State of Croatia" which declared war on the Allies and deported Jews,
Cypsies, anti-Fascist Croats and a very large number of the Serbian people in Croatia and
dispatched them to the Jasenovac death camp. One of the main causes of the present civil
war is the refusal of the Serbs to live in a new Croat state which has been proclaimed as
such by an act of secession at the end of Jr-rne this year.
The statement made by Rabbi Danon reads as follows:

"Half a century separates us from the atrocious crime in the history of

Yugoslavia, that is, from Ustashi genocide in Jasenovac, on the soil of the 'Independent
state of Croatia'. During four years the Ustashi in Jasenovac exterminated in the most
brutal way hundreds of thousands of men, women and children. The Serbs, Jews, Gypsies
and others were the victims of the Ustashi who have placed on themseives and on their
protectors the heavy burden of responsibiiity for the crimes that cannot be forgotten.
"We are again reliving dark davs because of intolerance and hatred. The most
ominous forebodings har.e become realitr.. lVhat is happening these past few months
confronts us with the dark side of history that is being repeated. Churches are being
desecrated as well as monasteries, temples, slrnagogues and cemetaries; religious
dignitaries are being humiliated and shamed. Jasenovac, the symbol of sufferings, should
be a permanent shrine for pilgrims of all religions who would come to pay their respects
to the victims. This is also a place for all those who should re-examine their conscience, to
say a prayer before the innocent victims, to repent and ask for forgiveness. God is
merciful and he forgives even the most hardened sinners if they truly repent.
"The civil war now raging in Yugoslavia is taking its toll in blood. The culprits
of the fratricidal war, blinded by their fanatic nationalism, are not stopping at anything
and, even not at turning religious edifices into bunkers and machine-gun nests.
"We who stand at the head of religious communities feel the full weight of
responsibility and the obligation to use our influence so that the voice of reason and love
might prevail over the rumble of guns.

"It is in this sense that we must welcome the repeated appeals of the head of the
Roman Catholic Church His Holiness Pope john Paul to ali Roman Catholics in the world
to pray for peace in Croatia. I am convinced that an e\.en greater conlribution to calming
the situation would be a call from the same place to the Roman Catholics to pray for peace
of the souls of all the victims of the Ustashi genocide in Croatia during the Second World
War.
"If all of us together raise our r.oices and condemn the crimes committed then,
we will help arouse the consciences of men and open the path to lessons to be learned
from the past."

Dear Fellow Serbians,

There is recognized an_indisputable imbarance in the approach of

American media and the United States Congress to the ..r.."i-rt'yugoslav

crisis. This imbalance is the direct result oiinsufficient informatioln and
superficial analysis of the current situation, rather than a comprehensive

evaluation of all of Yugoslavia's historicar, legal, moral anh political

elements.

S A

V A

ii"r" i, critical need for Yugoslavia,

Serbia and serbian-Americans to

adopt a more aggressive approach in dealing with the serious lack of
understanding concerning the diveiie issues i"';; tG.;iu-,riu"i'r'g".r"ral and Serbia
in
particular. This problem of ignorance and passive noi-.urio.rr", once irerely nettlesome
and

frustrating, has now become dangerous.

. 4t aggressive campaign !o tnject balance and perspective must be undertaken immediatelv

in order to stem the tide of public and govemmentil op'inion against vrlgosluuia u.,j
ig;* F;l
the past several months, those membeis of Congress *no nurrE alied th%mselves with
Croatian
or Albanian factions have.become vocal opporients of the-.Serbian Republic. Within in" plri
eight months alone, they have introdu."d io-u twenty-five bills anh resolutions critical
of

Serbia, such as:

' 5.7793/Oct 2, to restrict U.S. assistance for Serbia, Sen. Alfonse D'Amato said:
"The massacre being undertaken by Communist dictator Slobodan Milosevic
and
Serbian guerrillas against the innocent citizens of Croatia, Slovenia and Bosnia is
unconscionable." Senator Pell and Glenn also went on to criticize Serbians,

"atrocities."
o s.Res. 776/sept 11, by Bob Dole introduced a resolution
to condemn the
"policies of violent aggression perpetrated by serbian[s],, with regard to croatians,
Slovenians and Albanians in Kosovo. That same resolution was liter called up and
passed by the Senate that same evening.
o On October B, Rep. Tom Lantos, David Bonior, Bill
Bloomfield, James
Sensenbrenner, et. al. introduced H.R.3518 to impose economic sanctions on the
Republic of Serbia. The text of the bill suggests that the root cause of the crisis in
Yugosiavia is Serbia's "effort to hold on to power and privilege.,,

While all of this is qoing-9n, I have seen almost nothing on human rights abuses against
ethnic Serbs within the Republic of Croatia; the atrocities oY Trdy-un and the role which he
deputies played in the extermination of Serbs, Jews and Gypsies during
3:.l.Jlb..gli"cipal
WW[; Iittle on the slaughter of ethnic Serbs by a resurgent Usiasa
-oveme-.,t in Croatia";
nothing o1 jhe fl-ight of more than 100,000 Serbi from Ciatian persecution;
nothing on the
history of the Albanian overrunning of Kosovo; nothing of Seibian cooperation iritn tn"
United States and its democratic allies throughout,moder"n history; and nothing on the true
European role or motivation in the Yugoslavia-n conflict.
The Serbian-American community in the United States, one couid observe, has failed to
organize itself as an effective participant bloc in the American politicai system. The result is
simple - truth and fairness have beeneffectively silenced.
Croatia, on the other hand, hired Norman Bailey, former Reagan NSC employee, and the
public relations firm of Ruder Finn, Inc. As a result of this onJ-sided.urn1iuigt,'C.""ti""
forces are
verge of accomplishing-the impossible; namely, getting tt. Silt"'o"p".t*""i
9n fh9
and the Administration actively involved in the Yugoslavian ciisiX - wlin a co.rg.essfor,ul u11J
public opinion mandate to do so with an anti-Serbiair bias.
. U'S. foreign policy is built upon a foundation of American public opinion and the
activities of the legislative branch - both of which are significantly influenced by the media. Ii
Yugoslavia, Serbia, and the Serbian-American commun"ity can concede those iealities, as has

Croatia, then they must also recognize the threat of"failing to influence those factors
themselves.

'SAVA has succeeded in gaining a great deal of exposure, domesticallr-and

internationallY, us u result of its successful "g1ass roots lobby"'effort in challenging ,".""t

legislation offensive to the Serbian-American cdmmunity.

'SAVA will continue to provide the effort and expertise necessarv to pursue fufure
legislation in political perspective, to inform our elected representatives oi' o,rr'co.rcems, and
to educate and instruct the Serbian-American commurlltv as to horl to respond to and
influence the political process.

'SAVA will continue to strive for improvement, to include a rsell-orchestrated

information network designed to keep o.,. constitrents informed.

.SAVA's recent success is the resuit of a ,,dedicated ieu-'.; ho11-g1,.r. rr-e
rr-ill continue to
solicit support throughout the Serbian-American crrmmunitv ir.rm tho:e rrhtr recognize the
o
importance oi representation in our \ation_< Capittrl.

SAVAISYOLR "GTass Roos Lobhr-" - SL?PORT

IT:

/bZU,
David Vuich, president