RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE GENOCIDE

There were both tendency and practice for some of the Serbian children to be raised in the Croatian spirit and put on the Croatian military uniforms that were being sewn for them. The children’s camps for such purposes were founded. Ljubo Miloš says this about such camp in Gornja Rijeka at trial hearing: “I cannot tell you precisely when this concentration camp was organized, but I cerainly consider it was in the early spring of 1942. It seems that the idea for the establishment of this concentration camp was given by Didi Kvaternik, and the goal of this concentration camp was to raise small Serbian children who had no parents in the Croatian spirit and become, Kvaternik used to say, “the best janissaries“. The appointed commander of this concentration camp was Milovan Pavličević who was former lieutenant and later on became a warrior. The concentration camp was located in some castle in Gornja Rijeka, Kalnik. I think that the children were deported to Stara Gradiška concentration camp again, because I recall that there were really located some of the Serbian children that were dressed in ustasha’s uniforms and raised in ustasha’s spirit. I don’t know what happened with these children after“.

The bahaviour of the Catholic nuns toward the Serbian children whose parents were killed shoul be asked in the attitude of the Catholic church which proclaimed the Orthodox Serbian children as “schismatics“ i e heretics from the Christian church. This kind of tratement toward the Orthodox believers isn’t anything but the continuation of the work of inquisition in a massive and crueler form. The aide-memoire of head of the Catholic church in Croatia, Alojzije Stepinac, who sent to pope Pijo XII on 18 May 1943, tells about the dominant role of Vatican in creating an survival of Croatian state and asks from the pope:

Surely, he knew what happened to them, but it wasn’t necessary to establish the destiny of these unfortunate children because it was known that they were brought to the concentartion camp to be killed. The attempt of the authorities of the concentration camp to make “the best janissaries“ from those Serbian children stayed pretty risky, because those janissaries used to agitate in the Turkish Empire, and the results of those rebellions weren’t naive. What was sure – it was sure!

“… to watch over the Independent State of Croatia, because if that doesn’t happen the Catholic church could lose 240.000 of Orthodox Serbs who have been already converted to Catholics and Croats“.

 It is obvious here that pope was in accordance with the forceful converting to Catholics and Croats of the Serbs.

When the genocide in the Independent State of Croatia was performed over the Orthodox Serbian people during the World War II, then all the attention is focused on Jasenovac concentration camp, while failing to take into account the fact that the genocide was performed on the whole territory of the Independent State of Croatia where the total number of the innocent victims is certainly far more than the number of those violently killed off in the system of Jasenovac concentration camp. The Serbs were being killed wherever they could be found: in the houses, in the yards, in the fields where they were doing field works, in the hospitals, on the graveyards, in the offices, in the factories, in the Orthodox churches, on the weddings – everywhere where they happened to be. The Serbs were in the other concentration camps besides Jasenovac, such as: “Danica“, in Koprivnica, Gospić, Jadovna (on the mountain of Velebit), “Ovčara“, Slano and Matajna on Pag Island, Kerestinac (in the vicinity of Zagreb), Lepoglava, Kruščica, Caprag, Loborgrad, Ferićanci, Vinkovci, Sisak, Jastrebarsko, Tenja, Đakovo, Gornja Rijeka, Slavonska Požega, Bjelovar, Stara Gradiška, and others. According to racial laws that were passed by the Independent State of Croatia, the Serbs as the people were put outside the law, so they could be killed by any Croat wherever they happened to be. The ones to do these killings had no consequences and responsibilities for these acts.

When we are talking about the genocide that was organized by the Independent State of Croatia (1941-1945) and which Croatians performed over the Serbs, it would be historically unjustified to exclude the Muslims from Bosnia and Herzegovina as the citizens of the Independent State of Croatia from these crimes. And yet, their participation in that genocide wasn’t as massive as it was with Croats. I guess that it was so because the Muslims didn’t consider the newly founded state (they joined) as their own. The reducing of the number of the B&H Serbs that belonged to the Orthodox religion was favored by the Muslims, because it increased a chance in foreseeable future for some coming Muslim Bosnia and Herzegovina, since the Croats – Catholics were minority in that state. From there, the Muslims did not rejoice too much at the new state which the Croatian-Catholics created in a great fervor. It could be said that the B&H Muslim leaders had more realistic predictions that concerned the result of the war and the consequences that they could face with if Germany and its allies (the Independent State of Croatia was an ally too) would lose the war.

The Muslims knew that the major population in B&H was Serbian, and that the numerous Serbo-Orthodox population was driven out from the Independent State of Croatia to Serbia. They also knew that Serbia and Montenegro existed, and that all of this could reflect tragically onto the destiny of the Muslims in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It could be more tragic if it was known that they had belonged to the Serbian national and religion corpus, and that their ancestors converted to the occupier’s religion on the occasion of arrival of the Turkish occupier in Bosnia (1386-1463), and for that reason the members of an Orthodox church called them “a convert to Islam“. Of course, the hatred was mutual because of that. Literally, the B&H Muslims belonged further to the Serbian family, because the Osman Turks didn’t accept them as their own people, though they allowed them to accept Islam. The Osman Turks called the B&H Muslims – Poturi.

Naturally, the B&H Moslems saw in their own projection Bosnia and Herzegovina as their own state. The condition for creating their own B&H was to do a total physical extermination of the Serbs that belonged to the Orthodox religion. The Muslims worked together with the Croats on this thing. Although they, separated from the others- the Orthodox Serbs, did not have the demographic base because of which B&H could not belong geographically to them disregarding the fact that Germany and its allies won the war. States belong to people, but do not belong to religious groups.

Keeping in mind this fact, sixty prominent Muslims from Banja Luka expressed their disagreement with the treatments of the Independent State of Croatia toward the Orhodox Serbs in the act from 12 November 1941. Another reason for this action was the Muslim fright because of the consequences that would concern the B&H Muslims if it was about to happen that Germany and its allies would lose the war. They wrote: “We are familiar with a lot of examples of slaughtering and killing that ustashas carried out wearing the Moslim fez on their heads (fez is a kind of Moslim cap). That happened in Bosanski Novi where ustashas came in four trucks wearing the fez on their heads. There they united with the Muslim rabble and carried out the massive slaughtering of the Christians (they didn’t say that those Christians were Serbs). The same thing happened in Bosanska Kostajnica, 826 of Christians were killed the same way in a day. Kulen Vakuf was one of them too. Miroslav Matijević from Vrtoča was the one who distinguished himself in this town, 950 of Christians were slaughtered there what was the reason for the Chetnik’s revenge that happened on 6 September when Kulen Vakuf was burnt and 1.350 of Muslim men, women and children paid with their own lives. We know about cases where some ustashas-Catholics attacked the Christians shouting: Attack Mujo, hold Haso, don’t give them there Meho and so on. (These are the Moslim names.)

We are aware of the cases where Christians were whispered that we, backward Muslim peasants, are killing and exterminating them. If we had wanted to exterminate, kill and convert the Serbs and others to Islam, we could’ve done it easier a few hundreds years ago when we had more power that today and when such procedure could be carried out in an easier way than today. Provoking the heavy conflict between us, Muslims, and the Christians, we are drafted into the army to strangle the uprising of the Serbs and kill them while they were doing the same to us, chrushing and exterminating each other in that way. And what’s the worse the culprits of this chaos are withdrawing in the rear, parading in uniforms, being occupied with the plundering of the Serbian and Jewish properties to a great extent. We, the ones who live in Banja Luka, can see the best how the properties of the expelled and fleed Serbs and Jews are transformed into the sources of robbery and enrichment of the individuals and their families and friends“.

The following are the instructions to the Independent State of Croatia authorities:

“We are asking and suggesting to everyone together the following:

1.To establish the life and property security and religion freedom to all residents of the state as soon as possible

2.To protect the innocent people with the stronger military defense

3.Not to let any future actions that would cause the people’s rebellion

4.To call to court account all the lawbreakers who committed any violence or crime disregarding the religion and position, and punish the ones who ordered or helped such deeds in accordance with the law

5.The laws should be applied by the regular authority and army

6.To make every religious intolerance impossible and

7.To offer sufficient material help to those who were killed innocently in these disorders“.

 (From dr Viktor Novak book: “Magnum Krimen“)

 Did these Muslim prominent persons conceive the genocide plans and practice of the Independent State of Croatia correctly or they wanted to dissociate themselves from the massive crimes which were being carried out in their behalf? The fact that they estimated what could happen to B&H Muslims if Germany and its allies lost the war remained accurate.Vjekoslav Max Luburić confirmed that the Independent State of Croatia didn’t pay any attention onto the appeal of Banja Luka Muslims at a banquet on 9 October 1942 when he stated: “And, it happened that we slaughtered more people in Jasenovac this year than the whole Osman Turk’s Empire during their sojourn in Europe“.

Besides the presented numbers of Jasenovac victims, the statement of such a high Croatian official arouse some thinkings on the fact who caused the most awful troubles to Serbian people in their whole past: were those Turks, who were ruling the Serbian countries for centuries, or Croats? The newer historical researches confirm that the Turks were such a brutal occupiers as it was written or spoken about them. The truth is that the Turks were punishing strictly the rebels who rose up against their authority. They were even impaled, but those were the individual cases; they were choked with the silk braid as well, but those were individual cases too. The Turks were collecting tax from the non-Muslim subjects because of maintenance of the great Turkish Empire, but it was not the slightest cruel as the former Serbo-Croat ban Ivan Mažuranić described in his epos “The death of Smail-aga Čengić“. Doubtlessly, the Turks were converting the Serbs to Islam in Serbia (Sandžak) and Bosnia and Herzegovina, but the historian, Mustafa Imamović, claims in his book “ The history of the Bosniacs“ that the converting of the Serbs to Islam wasn’t being performed forcefully. Surely, it wasn’t performed forcefully in a direct way but through taking away of the Serbian children to Turkey in order to make janissaries out of them and giving privileges to the Serbian aristocracy. The Turks didn’t even think of the extermination of the Serbian people who lived in Bosnia and Herzegovina. They weren’t introducing the Islamized Serbs into their own people; they called them Poturi and not Turks. During the demsir programme, the Turks were taking the Serbian male children from Bosnia to Anadolija who later on became the best paid elite Turkish military named “janissaries“. Out of this population the high Turkish state administrative officials were formed. The Islamized Serbian young men were graduating at high military schools and becoming the officers of the Turkish Army, being promoted into high ranks. The supreme commander of the whole Turkish Army Mehmed-paša Sokolović, the creator of the bridge over the Drina that was located in his home place, was among them. Then, Omer-paša Latas, Mićo, born in the vicinity of Udbina, was the chief commander of the Turkish Army who crushed the insurrection of the Bosnian Muslims (1851) against Porta in the middle of the nineteenth century.

As far as the Croatians are concerned they cannot be compared with the Turks in anything. Their brutality toward the Orthodox Serbs is a unique in the world. They condemned the Serbian people to complete physical annihilation, at first, applying the most terrifying methods of torture and then killings. There was a wide selection of thought-out victimcs’ killing: the Croatians killed their victims with knives, burnt on fire (even alive), walled up in rooms without giving them water and food until they died. They were killing them with the most possible obtuse and hard subjects. They even walled up alive prisoners as the material in the embarkments in Jasenovac concentration camps, and they slaughtered small children in front of their parents and the parents before the eyes of their children. The nipples of the children’s mothers were being cut off and put in the small children’s mouths. The massive rapings of females were being performed regardless their ages. The killings of the women were being carried out with hammers and other devices for killing too. The Croats were throwing the victims into the river of Sava who were tied to metal subjects in order to sink into the river easier. Both the killed and alive were being thrown into the ovens for burning in various ways. The Serbian people were forced to convert to Catholicism and were killed then. Some converted Serbs were being kept in the religion, and then they were converted to Croats.

The things that cannot be neither forgiven nor forgotten are the massive cruelties which Croatians were being applied over their victims, including the breaking of the jaws and taking out of the teeth and gold crowns, then plundering of the tens of cases that were filled with valuables, storing them later on in the basement of archbishop’s castle on Kapitol in Zagreb.

The datae presented in the preliminary survey are telling us the best about the number of the killed innocent Serbs, the members of the Jewish people and Gypsies. Consequently, Max Luburić can be unreservedly trusted.

The continuity of genocide over the Serbian people continued in the People’s Republic of Croatia immediately after the end of the World War II. In order to free themselves from the Serbs that were making the largest part of partisan units, 11.500 Serbian households, who were saved from the Serbian partisan and Italian military, were moved to Vojvodina (Serbia) in the houses and properties of Vojvodina Swabians whose were expelled from Vojvodina in 1945 for that purpose. As soon as those Serbian households were moved, the People’s Republic of Croatia passed a Law on agrarian reform in 1948. The 4 article “d“ of that law was telling that the properties of the Serbs who moved were treated as “abandoned“ and booked in so-called public property – the governmental one without the approval and knowledge of owners; the owners weren’t given any compensation.

The moved Serbs from Croatia (colonists) didn’t acquire the right on the ownership over the granted properties in Vojvodina, because they couldn’t transfer them in following twenty years. It happened that those, mainly country’s, hoseholds remained without properties. The Croatian authority was notonly creating ethnically clear Croatia applying the genocide over the Serbs (1941-1945) but over the Italians in Istra and Dalmatia too. Treating Italy as the occupier of the Independent State of Croatia, though Italy was the World War II ally with the Independent State of Croatia, the Croatians moved around 200.000 Italians from Istra and Dalmatia exerting various kinds of pressure. Istra belonged to the state territory of Italy. In that way, Croatia, though the loser of the Worl War II, got 6000 square metres of the territory of Republic of Italy. In spite of that, Croatia joined Baranja that belonged to Dunavska Banovina, thus to Serbian Vojvodina.

The war reparation that Italy should pay to Yugoslavia, actually to the Serbs, it compensated the property to those Italians which properties in Istra and Dalmatia remained in Croatia.

The similar thing happened to the Serbs who moved from Croatia to Vojvodina. From the quota of the war reparations which Germany was obliged to pay to the Serbs from Croatia, instead the expelled Swabians from Vojvodina were compensated. It happened that the Serbs became neither the owners of the properties of the expelled Swabians nor they got any compensation for the damages that German Army committed to Serbs during the World War II.

It was spoken that from the remaining war reparations that Germany should’ve paid to Yugoslavia Krško nuclear power station was built, the station that was supplying both Croatia and Slovenija with the electrical power.

Republic of Croatia committed particular crime agressively occupying Republic of Srpska Krajina in 1995. Yet, during the lasting of the civil conflict that began 1990, the Croatians killed Serbs – the citizens of Croatia, robbed their property, carried out forceful of Serbian families from their flats (in which they moved in Croats), the Serbs from their firms and governmental services usin various methods of pressure, performed converting of the Serbs, especially Serbian children, converting them to Croats and so on. Beside the occupation of Republic of Srpska Krajina, 200.000 Orthodox Serbian population were expelled from its governmental territory during the so-called “Oluja (Storm)“ military operation.

On 11 December 1946, the general assembly of the United Nation Organization proposed a Resolution under the number of 96, according to which that assembly proclaimed the genocide as the crimes against the International law that are in opposition with the spirit and the goals of the UN and which condemns the civilized world. UN adopted the Convention on preventing and punishing of the crimes of the genocide on 9 December 1948 which means: complete or partial extermination of some national, ethnic, racial or religious group:

a)Murders of the members of a group;

b)A heavy violation of physical and mental integrity of the members of a group;

c)Deliberate exposing of a group to such living conditions that can lead to total or partial extermination of that group;

d)Measures directed toward the preventing of birth in the scope of a group;

e)Forced transfering of the children from one to another group.

During the actions toward the Serbs, Gypsies and Jews from 10 April 1941 to 1945, the Independent State of Croatia committed the genocide according to all items of the Convention of UN Organization adopted on 9 December 1948.

The genocide over the Serbs committed the People’s Republic of Croatia too immediately after the end of the World War II. Republic of Croatia did the same from 1990 to hither:

Explanation:

a)The massive killings and slaughtering were carried out over the Orthodox Serbian people on the whole territory of the Independent State of Croatia, and especially in the concentration camps of death, such as: Jasenovac, Stara Gradiška, Gospić, Pag, Jadovno and so on. Beside the massive physical liquidation of the members of the Serbian people in the concentration camps of death, the Independent State of Croatia was killing the Serbs on the whole state territory too.

b)The relations toward the prisoners in the Croatian concentration camps was extremely inhuman. The massive mutilation of men, women and children by cutting of some parts of their body were performed with all possible subjects, such as: knives, axes. The bodies of the people were burnt on fire; the prisoners were exposed to heavy physical labors until they were totally exhausted; the killings of the people because of the sadistic pleasure, the revenges over the group and the number of these often “attacks“ were reaching the tens of individuals.

c)Keeping of the prisoners in cold rooms in extremely unsanitary living conditions especially during the winter when people were massively dying; starvation of the grown-ups, women, children and other persons until the complete physical exhaustion; physical mistreating – until they die, when the great number of men, women and children were disappearing. Killing of the prisoners on the scaffolding of “Granik“, in Jasenovac concentration camp, then throwing of the corpses of the ones who were killed on that scaffolding into the river of Sava together with the weights on some parts of their bodies. These kind of actions were being performed during the whole lasting of Jasenovac concentration camp (1941-1945).

d)The massive raping of the women and often the juvenille girls who were slaughtered with the knives then or were being killed in other, various ways such as: cutting up of their entrails and taking out of the unborn children out of the pregnant mothers stomachs; massive killing of the females having the goal to rescind the birthrate of the Serbian people.

e)Killing of the tens thousands of the children. According to the information of the Federal Statistics Bureau, 74.360 children were killed in different ways in the Independent State of Croatia. They were aged from 1 to 14 years. Beside the torturing and killing of the children in different ways, the children were given to Croatian married couples. The explanation was: “The salvation of the Serbian children“. Those “saved Serbian children“ were given other names; they were converted to Catholic religion and to Croats as well. In this way, the real origin of these children was hidden.

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