http://grayfalcon.blogspot.com/
GRAY FALCON (USA)
Monday, April 11, 2005
A Missed Anniversary
Sunday was the 64th aniversary of the date when the "Independent state of
Croatia" (NDH) was declared on the heels of the Nazi invasion of Yugoslavia.
Its leaders, the Ustashe, matched their Nazi sponsors in hatred and often
exceeded them in brutality; and while they have killed tens of thousands of
Jews and helped the Nazis kill even more, their preferred targets were
Orthodox Serbs.
While allegations of Vatican's complicity in Nazi crimes have been raised
but remain controversial and heavily disputed, there is no disputing the
role of the Catholic Church in Ustasha crimes. The NDH was militantly
Catholic, and the focus of its genocidal policy were the "Eastern
Schismatics," as Catholics saw all Orthodox believers.
With the full knowledge and blessing of the Church, the Ustashe launched a
policy of murder, expulsion and forced conversion of Serbs almost
immediately after establishing the NDH - and long before Hitler's
endloesung. The methods used by the Ustasha and the joy with which they
murdered horrified even some German observers. In addition to massacring
Serb civilians and hunting royalist and communist partisans, NDH units also
fought for the Reich, mainly in the East.
After the war was lost, Croat clergy used its Vatican connections to smuggle
notable Ustashe and Nazis out of Europe; the Allies did not interfere, as
the same organization smuggled valuable Nazis into the West, where they
would be enlisted for the looming standoff with the Soviets.
Alojzije Stepinac, the Archbishop of Zagreb and the vicar to Ustasha
poglavnik Ante Pavelic, was arrested and imprisoned by the Communists for
his complicity in Ustasha crimes. He died under house arrest in 1960. Pope
John Paul II beatified him in 1998, setting off a storm of protests from
Serbs and Jews.
After the war, thousands of NDH troops were captured and executed by the
Yugoslav Communist forces, along with other non-Communist militias (many of
which collaborated with the Germans). Their deaths are now referred to as
the "Path of the Cross" (krizni put).
In 1990, Franjo Tudjman's Croatian Democratic Union - funded in part by
Ustasha emigres - won the general elections in Croatia, and proceeded to
rehabilitate the NDH, sometimes in name but more often in fact. Most
criticism has focused on Tudjman's reintroduction of the checkerboard flag,
but far worse offenders has been the vocabulary resurrected from NDH days.
Tudjman even introduced the "new" currency, named after the NDH currency of
1941-45. Furthermore, Tudjman resurrected the anti-Serb rhetoric of Pavelic,
setting off a civil war after Croatia's secession from Yugoslavia. The war
resulted in almost-complete expulsion of Serbs who lived in territories
claimed by Croatia, something even Pavelic failed to accomplish. The day
Croatian armies entered the capital of the rebel Serb republic is now a
national holiday, "Homeland Gratitude Day."
Tudjman died in 2000, and the successive governments visibly moderated their
position on Serbs under the pressure of international public opinion. But
Tudjman's NDH-inspired imagery, language and holidays remain. The Catholic
Church is refusing to admit wrongdoing in the NDH, and is proud of its
support for Tudjman. So one should not be surprised that small groups of
open NDH sympathizers celebrated Sunday's anniversary, but that there
weren't more of them.
posted by Gray Falcon at 23:46
