document count: 76

 

After a revolution by junior military officers overthrew a Yugoslav government which had signed the Axis Tripartite Pact, Nazi Germany invaded Yugoslavia on Orthodox Easter, April 6, 1941. On April 10, Slavko Kvaternik arrived in Zagreb to proclaim the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) in the name of his master, Poglavnik Ante Pavelic.

Minorities (Serbs, Jews and Roma) made up more than half of the NDH's total population. Nevertheless, the Ustase regime immediately began a campaign to "purify" Croatia of those Interior Minister Andrija Artukovic would call "the insatiable parasites." Terrifying massacres outraged even hardened Nazi officers, who protested to Zagreb and to Berlin. Rebellion against the occupation began almost immediately in Serbia and Bosnia and probably would have occurred in any case, but Ustase atrocities against the civilian population threw literally thousands of new recruits into the ranks of the Serbian Cetniks and the Communist-led Partizans. Most shocking of all to Italian military and civilian observers was the participation of members of the clergy in the massacres; Pavelic's aggressive treatment of the "minority problem" enjoyed the unqualified support of the Archbishop of Sarajevo and dozens, possibly hundreds of lesser members of the clergy, particularly from the Franciscan Order.

The NDH suffered a blow following the Italian surrender in 1943. Two senior Ustase officials, Mladen Lorkovic and Ante Vokic, made tentative plans toward a coup d'etat which would replace Pavelic and other senior Ustase officials compromised by their virulent pro-Nazi stance, but the plot was discovered and the two ministers were placed under arrest. The rapid advance of the Soviet Army, increased supplies by the Allies to the Partizans and the presence of the British Navy in the Adriatic Sea accelerated the NDH's internal decay. On May 9, 1945, Germany surrendered, but Ustase loyalists in Croatia continued to fight. Pavelic, Saric, Artukovic and a horde of other Ustase ringleaders disguised themselves in a column of ordinary refugees fleeing the Communist advance for the Austrian border. It was the presence of the Ustase which drew attention to the group. Nearly all of the refugees were turned over by the British at Bleiburg, except for the cream of the Ustase leadership, who mysteriously escaped. Thousands were imprisoned and killed by the Communist government while the deposed government officials hid in Austria and Italy.

Estimates of the death toll of the Ustase regime in the Independent State of Croatia vary. According to Aaron Breitbart, Senior Research Associate of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, "Although exact figures for civilian victims of the Ustashi in the nazi puppet state of Croatia may never be known, the following numbers represent reasonable estimates as determined by reputable, scholarly sources": 30,000 Jews, 28,000 Roma, and 600,000 Serbs. In Breitbart's estimate, a further 250,000 Serbs were listed as expelled, and 200,000 "forcibly converted to Catholicism" - in line with the regime's stated goal in mid-1941 of "killing a third, expelling a third, and converting a third" of the pre-war Serbian population.

Pavelic's Radio Address to Croatia
April 5, 1941: Excerpt from a radio speech Pavelic broadcast into Croatia on the eve of war, urging the Croatian people to "cleanse" the land of enemies

A Telegram to Mussolini
April 8, 1941: Pavelic's letter to the Italian Duce on the invasion of Yugoslavia

Decree: On the First Croatian Government
April 16, 1941: Pavelic declares himself head of state and names his closest advisors as ministers

Katolicki List: The Foundation of the Independent State of Croatia
April 1941: Article from the Catholic paper Katolicki List lauding the formation of the Independent State of Croatia

News: In the Sign of Sacrifice
April 27, 1941: Excerpt from an article by Father Franjo Kralik praising the work done by Dr. Ivan Merz's Croatian youth group as being in line with the "spiritual program of the Ustase"

Pastoral Letter from Archbishop Stepinac
April 28, 1941: The full text of Archbishop Alojzije Stepinac's exhortation for priests to participate fully in the work of the Independent State of Croatia

Decree: On Racial Affiliation
April 30, 1941: English Translation of the Ustase Law "On Racial Affiliation"

Decree: On the Protection of Aryan Blood
April 30, 1941: English Translation of the Ustase Law "On the Protection of Aryan Blood..."

Comparison Between Nazi and Ustase Racial Decrees
1941: Comparison between the decrees passed in Germany and the NDH giving precise definition to who was and was not Jewish

Stepinac Letters to Artukovic
April 1941-November 1942: Letters from Archbishop Stepinac to Interior Minister Artukovic on application of the NDH racial decrees

Order: The White Armbands
May 13, 1941: Order to the municipal leadership ordering all Serbs to wear a white armband designating them as Orthodox

News: Victor Gutic's Visit to Petricevac
May 16, 1941: Eleven days before murdering the Orthodox Bishop of Banja Luka, Ustase prefect Victor Gutic visits the Franciscan monastery at Petricevac

Decree: On the Establishment of Courts-Martial
May 17, 1941: The complete text in English translation of the decree which established courts-martial for civilians in the Independent State of Croatia, in which the only legal sentence permitted was death by firing squad

Article: Archbishop Saric on his meetings with the Ustase
May 1941: From a nostalgic newspaper article authored by Ivan Saric

Article: "Love Has Its Limits"
1941: Anti-Semitic article often attributed to Ivan Saric, but actually the work of his subordinate, Father Franjo Kralik

Report: Expulsion of Serbs from Slavonia and Srem
June 2, 1941: Just six weeks after the founding of the NDH, organized mass explusions begin

News: Speech by Minister Milovan Zanic
June 3, 1941: Excerpt from a speech by the Ustase minister exhorting the audience to "cleanse" Croatia of Serbs - and adding that it was state policy to do so.

Decree: Ustase Command-Dubrovnik Order No. 188:44
June 25, 1941: Prohibition on radios and forbidding Jews and Serbs from congregating at night, signed by Dubrovnik prefect Ivo Rojnica

Report by Laxa on Unrest in Hercegovina
c. July 5, 1941: Report by General Vladimir Laxa of the Croatian regular army forces on atrocities by the Ustase in Hercegovina in the first months of the NDH

"The NDH is an Islamic State"
Spring-Summer, 1941: Mile Budak on "Islamic Croats"

Book Excerpt: Wartime
July 1941: Milovan Djilas' description of a country ripped apart by Maks Luburic's henchmen

Letter: "The Franciscans Haven't Gotten a Dime"
Summer, 1941: Powerful letter from a Catholic priest in the NDH to his exiled Orthodox counterpart

Letter: "Nature Takes Its Course"
July 31, 1941: Letter from a Franciscan priest from Koraca to the Ustase Prefect at Dervanta, on the marriage of widowed Serbs to Catholic men

Letter from the Bishop of Mostar to Archbishop Stepinac
August, 1941: Response to Stepinac's inquiry as to the progress of forced conversions to Catholicism among the Serbian population

Letter: Slovenian Settlers on Massacres Near Vojnic
August 2, 1941: Found in the NDH Archives, this is a letter written by Slovenian settlers relocated from the German Reich, addressed to German General Edmond Glaise von Horstenau on the extrajudicial murder of 400 Serbs by the Ustase

Report: Seven Hundred Hostages Shot by the Ustase
August 6, 1941: Report on a rise in Chetnik activity and the corresponding massacre of 700 Serbian civilians from Sanski Most by the Ustase near Banja Luka

Police Report on the "Cleansing" of Serbs near Slunj
August 13, 1941: Shocking eyewitness report by the Croatian commander of a police platoon in Slunj about the mass expulsions, conversions, and slaughter of his area's Serbian inhabitants

Decree: On the Croatian Language, Its Purity and Spelling
August 14, 1941: Mile Budak on how people should talk and write, with a promise to "determine penalties for the protection of the purity of the language and its spelling"

Order: Request by General Laxa for Ustase to Leave Bosnia
September 11, 1941: Decoded communication from General Vladimir Laxa to the Ministry of Defense for "murdering and pillaging" Ustase units from Hercegovina to be removed from Bosnia at once before they provoke an even larger uprising

Italian Article: "The Renewal of Medieval Times"
September 18, 1941: Excerpt from an article in Il Resto del Carlino describing Franciscan complicity in the massacre of the Serbs

Letter: Bishop Aksamovic on Prayer for the "Crusade War"
September 24, 1941: Letter from the Bishop of Djakovo calling on Croats to pray for a quick end to the war after the Nazi invasion of the USSR - and honoring Pavelic and Hitler

Stepinac's Letter on the Resettlement of Slovene Monks
October 3, 1941: Letter from Stepinac to Ante Pavelic on Slovene monks taking over the cathedral of exiled Serb Orthodox clergy

Report on the Murder of 800 Civilians near Petrinja
December 3, 1941: Tersely-worded request for information by German General Edmund Glaise von Horstenau regarding the massacre of 800 "men, women and children" by the Ustase near Petrinja

Report on the Death of Peasants in Jablanica
December 4, 1941: Police report from Banja Luka on the massacre of 107 Serbs, "mostly boys from 12 to 15 years of age," and the massacre by the Ustase of mourners at a Serbian funeral

Decree: Declaration of War on the US and Britain
December 14, 1941: Delivered in Zagreb after the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor

Article: Jews as the "Insatiable Parasites"
February 26, 1942: Transcript of Artukovic's speech to parliament denouncing "Judeo-Communists" as ""poisonous and insatiable parasites"

The Career of Andrija Artukovic
Excerpt from Wanted: The Search for Nazis in America

Evelyn Waugh on the Sarajevo Franciscans
From the Catholic novelist who spent some time as part of the Allied mission to Yugoslavia in World War II

Letter: Rusinovic on Meeting with Cardinal Tisserant
March 6, 1942: Letter from the NDH ambassador to the Vatican on a stormy meeting with Vatican official Cardinal Eugene Tisserant

OSS File: Ante Doshen
March 31, 1942: "Doshen has been and still is, one of the best agents of Ante Pavelic in this country"

OSS File: Reverend Hugolin Feis
March 31, 1942: "This friar is a pronounced fascist and violently anti-democratic in principle"

OSS File: The Croatian Central Committee
April 7, 1942: The formation of pro-Allied, anti-Pavelich Croatian emigre organizations

OSS File: Serb National Federation
April 8, 1942: SK's report on the activities of a Serb group's reaction to the Ustase massacres in the NDH

OSS File: Croatian Fraternal Union Affairs
April 23, 1942: SK's report on internal dissension within the Croatian Fraternal Union

OSS File: The Croatian Home Defenders
April 29, 1942: The activities of members of the banned American branch of the Ustase, the Croatian Home Defenders

OSS File: The Croatian Catholic Union
May 3, 1942: Initial report on a group the OSS considered heavily infiltrated by Ustase adherents

OSS File: Activities of Dr. A. Pavelic's Exponents
May 5, 1942: Report on the pro-Axis activities of the former editor of the Independent State of Croatia

Letter of Nikola Rusinovic on Stepinac in Rome
May 9, 1942: Letter from the NDH's ambassador to the Vatican on the conduct of Stepinac during his interviews with Pope Pius XII

OSS File: Axis Propagandists Within the Croatian Catholic Union
May 9, 1942: Report on a meeting of the Board of Directors of the CCU, in which the pro-Allied editor is taken to task for his writing against Hitler and Pavelic

OSS File: "Pavelic's Cossacked Agents"
May 19, 1942: The Rev. Spiro Andrianich and other Pavelich adherents in America

Report on the Slaughter of Serbs near Pokupje
October 15, 1942: Report forwarded through the Interior Ministry regarding the killing of Serbs in Kordun and Banija since the NDH's formation in April 1941, including the notorious Glina Church Massacre

Letter to Minister Anthony Eden
November 13, 1942: An official with the Yugoslav Government-in-Exile in London informs the British Foreign Office of reports of mass slaughter in the NDH

Letter: The Fate of Father Franjo Rihar
November 17, 1942: Artukovic sends a Catholic priest to Jasenovac for refusing to celebrate the NDH and its Poglavnik

Letter: Lobkowicz on February 1943 Meeting with the Pope
February 9, 1943: Letter from the NDH's ambassador to the Vatican detailing his interview with Pope Pius XII

Letter: Lobkowicz on Meeting with Cardinal Spellman
March 6, 1943: Letter from the NDH ambassador to the Vatican on a meeting with New York Cardinal Spellman at the height of the war

Stepinac's Address to Pius XII
May 18, 1943: Aide-mémoire by Stepinac personally delivered to Pope Pius XII at their later meeting

Letter: Lobkowicz on Stepinac's Meeting with the Pope
June 10, 1943: Letter from the NDH ambassador to the Vatican describing the general impression among Vatican officials of Stepinac's second interview with the Pope

Letter: Lobkowicz on February 1943 Meeting with the Pope
July 13, 1943: Letter from the NDH ambassador to the Vatican on a July meeting with the Pope

Letter of Erwin Lobkowicz on Stepinac in Rome
May 1943: Letter from the new NDH Ambassador to the Vatican on Stepinac's second visit to Rome, in which he justified the persecution of the Jews as abortionists

Proposal for Decoration for Nada Luburic
1944: Proposal for a decoration for Nada Luburic, future wife of Jasenovac commandant Dinko Sakic, for bravery

Decoration for Nada Luburic, Maja Buzdon, etc.
1944: Order signed by Ante Pavelic himself bestowing a military decoration on female concentration camp guards at Stara Gradiska

OSS File: Memorandum on Yugoslav Groups in the US
June 28, 1944: Lengthy report which includes considerable background on Ustase agents in the United States

A Jasenovac Survivor's Testimony
Dr. Nikola Nikolic on the Franciscan executioner, Fra Miroslav Filipovic-Majstorovic

Book Excerpt: Genocide in Satellite Croatia
Maks Luburic on the efficiency of his concentration camp system

Letter: Glaise von Horstenau's Tour of Ustase Concentration Camps
Gen. Glaise von Horstenau's inspection of an Ustase Concentration Camp

Letter: Glaise von Horstenau on the Ustase Massacres
"The 'lucky' inhabitants were consigned to one of the fearsome boxcar trains; many 'passengers' cut their veins on the journey."

Special Assignment in the Southeast
Dr. Hermann Neubacher, the German Plenipotentiary in SE Europe, on the "Croatian Crusade of Destruction"

Judicial Trial: Measures Taken Against the Jews
Testimony by Alexander Arnon on anti-Jewish laws passed immediately after the founding of the Independent State of Croatia

Article: As the Surviving Jews Remember Artukovic
March 9, 1958: Transcript of an article from the Yugoslav Press on Jews' memories of Andrija Artukovic

Book Excerpt: Eichmann in Jerusalem
Hannah Arendt on the Destruction of Croatian Jewry

Judicial Testimony: The Trial of Adolf Eichmann (Excerpt)
Andrija Artukovic's role in the Holocaust

Judicial Decision: The Trial of Adolf Eichmann: Judgment (Excerpt)
"only 1,500 out of 30,000 Croatian Jews remained alive..."

Article: Under the Government of the Ustashi Monster
November 11, 1993: Review of the History of the Yugoslav Jews by Yosef Algazi, Haaretz

Article: Ivo Goldstein at the Sakic War Crimes Trial
June 1, 1999: Historian Ivo Goldstein on Jasenovac and the Jewish Problem

 

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