The Yugoslav Auschwitz and the Vatican: The Croatian Massacre of the Serbs During World War IIVladimir Dedijer Prometheus Books, 1992 - 444 pages First-hand testimony of survivors and eyewitnesses is compiled in this shocking and graphic account of the crimes committed during World War II at the largest death camp in Yugoslavia. At the small Croatian town of Jasenovac, the fascist "Independent State of Croatia" (a satellite state of the Nazi Third Reich) constructed a concentration camp where more than 200,000 people, mostly Orthodox Serbs, were systematically murdered. Among the participants in this genocide were members of the Roman Catholic clergy, from the Franciscan monk who became the camp commandant to the infamous Archbishop Stepinac, the spiritual advisor to the fascist state appointed by Pope Pius XII. Vladimir Dedijer, a close associate of Tito, has collected irrefutable documentary and photographic evidence, attesting to thousands of atrocities and the complicity of the Catholic Church in these crimes. The events described in this important volume provide a historical context to the current conflict in Yugoslavia and shed light on the motivations behind the apparently senseless ethnic and religious strife which is tearing Yugoslavia apart. The massacre at Jasenovac was the terrible culmination of centuries-old animosities between Orthodox Serbs and Catholic Croats and a dark episode in the history of the Catholic Church, one that the Church has attempted to hush up for fifty years. |
Contents
A Preliminary Note on the Historical Background | 9 |
Foreword to the American Edition | 15 |
Foreword to the First German Edition | 23 |
Introduction | 33 |
The Vaticans Attitude toward the Yugoslav Peoples | 61 |
Initial Contacts between Pius XII and Paveliæ | 75 |
The Participation of Roman Catholic Priests in | 83 |
Roman Catholic Dignitaries Welcome the Destruction | 92 |
The Various Methods of Killing in Jasenovac | 231 |
The Franciscan Miroslav Filipovic | 268 |
The Holy Masses of Ivica Brkljacic | 284 |
Reports about the Intimate Conversations with the Pope | 313 |
The Role of the Papal Legate Marcone | 331 |
Eyewitness Testimonies about the Compulsory Conversions | 348 |
The Interrogation of the Accused Alojzije Stepinac | 375 |
Cloisters and Churches as Ustasha Bases | 385 |
Decorations for Roman Catholic Priests | 103 |
Pope Pius XIIs Special Attention to Paveliæ | 112 |
The State of Catholicism | 129 |
The Massascre in the Karitska Jama Gorge | 155 |
The Massascre in the Church at Glina | 165 |
The Massascre in the Village of Urije | 172 |
Decrees Concerning Sending People to the Camp | 225 |
The Efforts of the Vatican to Save the NDH | 391 |
Archbishop Stepinac Preserves the Ustasha Booty | 414 |
I Was Guided by the Moral Principles | 419 |
Afterword | 425 |
From the Encyclopaedia Judaica | 433 |
Copyright | |