Reporting – Drina Martyrs

The Congregation of the Daughters of Divine Charity was founded by

Mother Franciska Lechner in Vienna, Austria on November 21, 1868. Born
in Bavaria, Germany, Franciska felt a strong call to religious life and
searched courageously for her place in the Church. For a time, she was a
member of the School Sisters of Notre Dame and then, after leaving that
congregation she worked with a priest in Switzerland where she founded a
hospital and several schools.

Mother Franciska still felt called to found a congregation and went alone to
Vienna, the capital of Catholic Austria, and applied for permission to
organize a women’s congregation. As the congregation grew, Mother
Franciska adopted the rule of Saint Augustine for her Sisters. She began
her work by opening St. Mary’s homes to provide housing for young women
coming into the cities during the European Industrial Revolution. Deeply
aware of the conditions of her time, she was determined to protect these
innocents from the physical and moral dangers that were rampant in the
cities of the 19th century. Within a short time, the Sisters began opening
schools in many areas of the Austro-Hungarian empire as well as
retirement homes for the poor.

Mother Franciska Lechner died in Austria in 1894 and the work that she
began continues today through more than 1000 Daughters. At the present
time, the Sisters are working in the following countries: Albania, Austria,
Argentina, Bolivia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Brazil, Croatia, Czech Republic,
Ecuador, England, Germany, Haiti, Hungary, Italy, Kosovo, Poland,
Slovakia, Switzerland, Uganda, Ukraine and the United States.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT
On 6 April 1941, Axis forces invaded the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, mixture of
Jews, Orthodox, Catholics, and Muslims. Poorly equipped and poorly
trained, the Royal Yugoslav Army was quickly defeated. The country was
then dismembered.
The extreme Croatian nationalist and fascist Ante Pavelić, who had been in
exile in Benito Mussolini's Italy, was appointed Poglavnik (leader) of an
Ustasha-led Croatian state – the Independent State of Croatia (Croatian:
Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, NDH).
NDH authorities, led by the Ustasha Militia, subsequently implemented
genocidal policies against the Serb, Jewish and Romani populations living
within the borders of the new state.
PICTURE OF GENOCIDE
 By mid-1941, these killings reached degrees of brutality that shocked
even some Germans. The Cyrillic script was subsequently banned by
Croatian authorities, Orthodox Christian church schools were closed,
and Serbs were ordered to wear identifying armbands. Mile Budak,
the Croatian Minister of Education, is reported to have said that one-
third of Serbs in the NDH were to be killed, one-third were to be
expelled, and one-third were to be converted to Roman Catholicism.
[10] The Ustashas also established numerous concentration camps
where thousands of Serbs were mistreated, starved, and murdered.
Two resistance movements emerged to combat the NDH and the Axis
occupiers—the royalist Serb Chetniks, led by Colonel Draža Mihailović, and
the multi-ethnic, communist Yugoslav Partisans, led by Josip Broz Tito.

Jezdimir Dangić was a gendarmerie officer (POLICE) prior to the outbreak

of World War II.
 In 1940, he was appointed to lead the gendarmerie detachment in the
Yugoslav royal palace. During the invasion of Yugoslavia, he was
responsible for escorting King Peter II to Nikšić Airport as he left the
country.
Dangić then returned to Belgrade and was in the city when it was occupied
by the Germans.
He obeyed the summons of Milan Aćimović, head of the first Serbian
puppet government, to serve in the gendarmerie of the Serbian quisling
state and did so until mid-August.

When news reached him of the Ustasha massacres of Serbs in Bosnia, he

sought permission to travel there and escort his family and relatives to
safety. In the summer his request was approved, and he travelled via
Mihailović's headquarters at Ravna Gora. Early on, Mihailović designated
Dangić as one of three men who were to succeed him as leaders of the
Chetnik movement in the event of his death or capture. Like Mihailović,
Dangić sought to avoid conflict with the Germans and began to pursue a
policy of "self-defence against the Ustashas and revenge against the
Croats and Muslims".

In August 1941, Dangić was sent by Mihailović to eastern Bosnia to take

command of the Chetnik detachments in the region and bring them under
Mihailović's control. He collected a group of Bosnian Serbs and crossed the
Drina River into the NDH, arriving in eastern Bosnia on 16 August. In the
beginning, his operations were directed primarily against the Ustashas and
the Bosnian Muslim population of the area. By early September, Dangić
had established himself as the leader of all Chetnik groups in eastern
Bosnia
Capture of Goražde
In late November 1941, the commander of the Italian garrison in Goražde
agreed regarding the Italian evacuation and hand-over of the town to the
Chetniks. On 29 November 1941, the Italians placed Goražde under the
control of Dangić's men. The town was under complete Chetnik control by 1
December. Upon arrival, Dangić gave a speech to a group of Serbs, Croats
and Bosnian Muslims gathered in the town's main square which contained
references to Greater Serbia and ended with Dangić proclaiming that Serbs
and Bosnian Muslims could no longer live together. Following the speech,
Chetnik bands spread through the town and began killing, raping, pillaging
and torching homes. A significant number of victims were killed on a bridge
over the Drina, after which their bodies were dropped into the river.
Croatian Home Guard prisoners and NDH officials were immediately
executed. Corpses of Muslim civilians were left hanging from trees and
lamp-posts. As many as several hundred civilians may have been killed in
the massacre. Chetnik forces in Bosnia, including those of Dangić, then set
about pursuing an anti-Muslim campaign through eastern Bosnia to
recompense for the persecution experienced by ethnic Serbs in the NDH.

Sources:
https://catholicsaints.info/martyrs-of-drina/
http://newsaints.faithweb.com/year/1941.htm
https://www.zg-nadbiskupija.hr/mobile.aspx?id=16522
http://fdc-sisters.org.uk/history/
https://vocationblog.com/2011/10/the-martyrs-of-drina/
https://www.vecernji.ba/drinske-mucenice-proglasene-blazenim-329937
https://saintscatholic.blogspot.com/2014/03/drina-martyrs.html
https://ba.n1info.com/english/news/a397867-anniversary-of-the-suffering-
of-drina-martyrs-photo/
http://mucenice.kblj.hr/biographies/
Goldstein, Ivo (1999). Croatia: A History. Montreal: McGill-Queen's Press.
Tomasevich, Jozo (2001). War and Revolution in Yugoslavia, 1941–1945:
Occupation and Collaboration. Stanford, California: Stanford University
Press.
Hoare, Marko Attila (2007). The History of Bosnia: From the Middle Ages to
the Present Day. London: Saqi.
Djokić, Dejan; Ker-Lindsay, James (eds.). New Perspectives on
Yugoslavia: Key Issues and Controversies. New York: Routledge.