{349} Тhis book — a memorial — has been written to the eternal memory of the martyrdom of Jasenovac, of its new martyr victims — about three quarters of a million, or more — among whom about seven hundred thousand were Orthodox Serbs.

On September 2, 1984, a newly rebuilt church to the glory of the holiest name of God, to the honour and memory of St. John the Baptist, and to the new martyrs of Jasenovac, was consecrated in Jasenovac. This Memorial Book is dedicated to this Church.

The Memorial contains the first records, documents and testimonies about Jasenovac concentration camp, which in fact was and is a symbol of the general sufferings of the Serbian people and other innocents under the criminal Ustashi state. Although not the only one, but rather, one of a series of death camps and execution places in our territory during World War II, Jasenovac was the symbol of all victims and sufferings, of all the martyrdom and torture of the Ustashi under the Nazi-Fascist occupation. As was rightly said by a man who knew the Jasenovac death camp well: »The Jasenovac camp became and remains the symbol of all the brutalities of the four-year Ustashi terror«.

Jasenovac camp was the locus-in-quo of the genocide against the Serbs, carried out by the Croatian and Muslim Ustashis in this our, Yugoslav Medjurečje (Mesopotamia), just as the place of sufferings of the Jewish people had been the Babylonian Mesopotamia. One of the foreign researchers of Ustashi genocide against the Serbs, Edmond Paris, rightly noted: »Ustashi crimes against the Serbs should not be viewed as some kind of biological expansion of hatred — these crimes are part of a rational, well thought-out political terror. It was an horrendous genocide against the Serbs, lasting to the end of the National-Liberation War, always on an ascending scale, with certain oscillations, even regardless of the Chetniks' advance, so that it could not be justified by it.« This is the reason why the collection of documents and testimonies, at the beginning of this Memorial Book — although it is only a selection — contains a cross section of all the stages of the Jasenovac hell, — both the wartime, and the post-war stages. After the war attempts were made to obliterate all traces of Jasenovac, to reduce the immense total of victims, and totally to deny and forget it!

The inspired Serbian poet said the following about this evil of reducing the number of human victims:

{350} »No genocide can be understood. The genocide against the Serbian people cannot be accepted by the human mind... It is useless to pour concrete over pits and camps, and to obliterate the traces. Nobody has ever won a battle against innocent victims. It can end only by admission and repentance. The measure to which it is possible to distort the soul and defeat the mind is best shown by those who are now reducing the number of innocent victims. In this stumbling about, some have come to the number of 40,000, and this number seems small to them — almost as a proof that the evil-doers are innocent, that they had not killed anybody! Just imagine how you would feel if you had killed 40,000 birds or ants...« (Matija Bećković).

Jasenovac Memorial Church and this Memorial Book are mere signs of our constant human and spiritual remembrance. As His Holiness Patriarch German said at the dedication of Jasenovac Church: »We forgive, but we must not forget«. The aim of this Book is remembrance, not vindictiveness.

We cannot, and shall not, ever forget the sufferings of the innocent children in Jasenovac — mostly Serbian boys and girls from Kozara and Podkozarje, but also other innocent children — God's lambs, who gave their lives in Jasenovac without having been sullied by any evil, sin, or guilt, Dragoje Lukić, from Kozara, one of the children who survived, speaks in this book about the sufferings of children in Jasenovac and in many other Ustashi camps.

Dr. Dinko Davidov writes about the church in Jasenovac — itself a martyr, and other Serbian Orthodox churches and monasteries in the territories occupied by the Independent Croatian State which was sullied by the crime of »Magnum Crimen« and »Magnum Devastation« — so that this should also not be forgotten.

The eminent researcher of Ustashi genocide against the Serbs, Dr. Milan Bulajić, describes, based on documents, the post-war responsibility of the Vatican and the Zagreb Archdiocese for the crimes committed in Jasenovac — responsibility in protecting and hiding the criminals. Although this is a painful aspect of our mutual Christian relations in these Balkan and European areas, the full truth should be noted for history. Perhaps a fear of this full truth resulted in the tendency of some Roman Catholic prelates in Croatia, including Archbishop Kuharić himself to ignore the consecration of Jasenovac church.

In this book, readers will also find is brief description of the Serbian-Orthodox Diocese Slavonia as well as a short history of the building, destruction, and reconstruction of Jasenovac church. This Golgotha-Like road, garnering the necessary permits and funds is described by archpriest Boško Bosanac, both as witness and as participant.

At the end of the Book are other documents relating to the consecration of the Jasenovac Church of St. John the Baptist and the modern Serbian martyrs, as well other supplements.

As eminent cultural representative, a Jew, recently wrote the following: »One of the horrible spiritual crimes is the fact that what happened to the Serbs was hushed up in all the world. This is a post-war continuation of the horrible crime... The best service rendered to the West, and particularly to the Roman Catholic Church of the Croats, is to hush up the religious and biological crime of genocide committed {351} against the Serbian people during World War II. In the name of Christ and Christian love, the Head of the Roman Catholic Church should have raised his voice and condemned the eternal sin of Cain. This should be done as soon as possible« (Enriko Josip).

This Book, and Jasenovac church, as indeed the martyred Jasenovac itself, are a warning to all of us — not vengeance, not a remembrance or encouragment of malevolence. It is but a warning that a neglect of past evils can only encourage new evils. A too easy forgetfulness of evil means that it could be repeated; — as someone wrote on a wall in Dachau:

»Honour to the dead, warning to the living!«

JOVAN
Serbian Orthodox Metropolitan
of Zagreb and Ljubljana

{352} AN INTRODUCTION TO THE USTASHIS, THE INDEPENDENT STATE OF CROATIA (ISC), ITS LEADER AND THE »MYTH WHICH MUST DISAPPEAR«

The Ustashis are members of a fascist movement, of an ultra-nationalist and terrorist orientation, aiming at a Greater Croatia (Ustashi means »rebel«).

After the end of World War I and the breakdown of Austria-Hungary the South Slav nations united into a common State — the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes — later the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. But, contrary to the aspirations for common life of these people in a common State, there was in Croatia an extreme chauvinist movement, the most eminent representative of which was, at the time, the lawyer Dr. Ante Pavelić. In carrying out his policy he and his followers relied on the anti-Yugoslav — revanchist and irredentist — in Italy, Hungary, and Bulgaria, on the Austrian legitimists, and the revanchist forces in Germany. At the end of October 1928 Ante Pavelić founded the illegal »Croatian Ustashi Movement«, the programme of which was:

The secession of Croatia from Yugoslavia into a »greater Croatia« — a State which, in addition to Croatia, would also include Bosnia, Herzegovina and Srem — while the Serbian (Orthodox) population on these territories would be forcibly eliminated.

Having emigrated from Yugoslavia in 1929, Pavelić assembled the Ustashi emigrants abroad, founded an Ustashi terrorist organization. In Hungary, Italy and Austria — in Ustashi centers and camps — the Ustashis were trained to perform terrorist and subversive acts. While living abroad, Pavelić elaborated the Ustashi programme (»Ustashi Statutes« in 1932 and »principles«, amended in 1941).

Although not numerous in Yugoslavia, the Ustashi infiltrated the Croatian Peasant Party on the eve of World War, making intense efforts to attract its right-wing, separatist elements. Some of their secret bases in the country were certain Catholic convents and seminaries.

On the eve of the war between the German Reich and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the Ustashi established, in Tuscany, an »Ustashi army« of several hundred of their followers, and moved to the Italian-Yugoslav border. The German Ustashi group, had founded a »Croatian legion« in Austria, intensifying their anti-Yugoslav propaganda.

Yugoslavia was defeated in the short April war (April 6 to 17, 1941, between Yugoslavia on one side, and Nazi Germany and their allies — Italy, Hungary and Bulgaria — on the other). But even before Yugoslavia was fully occupied, the Ustashi — under the protection, and with the help of the fascists and Nazis — took over power (in Croatia, Bosnia, Herzegovina and Srem) and, on April 10, 1941, proclaimed the puppet and Quisling State — The Independent State of Croatia, (NDH) headed by Ante Pavelić as the leader.

With the establishment of Ustashi power, a reign of terror began. From the middle of 1941 to the end of April, 1945, Pavelić was carrying out his plan to annihilate the Serbs. The whole military, administration and police were directed to the achievement of this goal. {353} Several dozen cruel laws were proclaimed, giving legal form to the Ustashi criminal policy. The Ustashi carried out horrible mass massacres of Serbs, but also of Jews and Gypsies, as well of those Croats who were not in sympathy with the Ustashi (Yugoslav-minded citizens, anti-fascists, partisan prisoners). The Orthodox (Serbian) population was subjected to unbelievable terror and massacres, while mass executions were cruelly carried out tin many concentration camps, organized by the Ustashi in the NDH, modelled on the Nazi concentration camps. The largest among such »death factories« in the NDH was Jasenovac.

At the end of World War II a certain number of Ustashi leaders managed to escape. Pavelić also fled abroad in 1945 and, with the help of Catholic dignitaries, was transferred to Argentina. And so one of the most blood-thirsty war criminals ended his life unpunished by men for the Satanic evils which he had caused among them; he died in Madrid in 1959 of the consequences of an assassination attempt made against him. Almost all the escaped Ustashis continued abroad their terrorist activities.

By the initials of the infamous Ustashi Independent State of Croatia (NDH) this puppet State was called Endehazija, and their rulers and followers — Endehazists.

All the larger concentration camps in Europe dating from World War II, have been preserved or reconstructed, as a reminder to future generations, so that a similar tragedy of annihilation will never be repeated.

On the territory of the former NDH, the traces of these monstrous institutions designed by distorted minds, and of the unimaginable horrors performed in them, »had to« be obliterated — or at least gradually to be removed and constantly reduced — so that everything would pale in the memory of the contemporaries, and little by little be forgotten; so that then, it could be suggested to the minds of Cain's descendents that everything had been »exaggerated«, even that it is »a myth that must disappear« — that it is a case of »historic forgeries« and »tendentious inventions«.

Even today, attempts are made to reduce the dimensions of the crime — to spread a veil over the genocide carried out against the Serbian people at the time of the infamous NDH. In articles written by the present-day Ustashi émigrés, one can read the statement: »The alleged Croatian crimes against the Serbs have always been artificially inflated« (!) But, unfortunately, we can also read in the Catholic press in Yugoslavia, for instance, that »it is important to inform the world that the number of Jasenovac victims is at least ten times lower (!), that among them probably (only) one third were Orthodox (!) and finally that, among the (alleged) Jasenovac skeletons is a still unestablished but considerable number of liquidated members of the NDH armed forces (Ustashis), made prisoner near Bleiburg« (when, they were fleeing the country in 1945, along with the forces of occupation).

In addition, absurd so-called »Serbian theses« are being formulated and circulated about the genocidal character of the Croatian people and of the Catholic Church among Croats, so that, defending {354} themselves from it — although no sensible person is alleging this — pro-Ustashi positions could be asserted.

In Yugoslavia, up to the end of the seventies, the Ustashi crimes committed against the innocent Serbian population during World War Il were taboo. During the first twenty post-war years, nothing was done to safeguard the authentic remains of the former Ustashi concentration camps. And then the largest death factory in the Ustashi »State«, the Jasenovac concentration camp, third in number of victims, but first in horror and suffering in occupied Europe during World War II — was turned into a horticultural park, in which the actual buildings have been replaced by allegories and symbols. Such an attitude permitted later manipulation of facts — lowering many times the number of victims of the genocide. It is significant to note that, although an exhibition about Jasenovac was organized in 1945 in Geneva — the United Nations files regarding war crimes have no documents about this death camp!

Foreign historians, who operate without constraint, have published, mostly in German, Italian and French, several books and other publications dealing »with a crime such as the world had never seen before«, as the authors themselves state. Those among whom Nazism originated have a heavy burden to bear — it would disappear if the world were able to forget the horrors of Nazi rule. This also refers to the milieu from which the Ustashi movement issued. At least up to a point, one can thus explain the post-war efforts — systematic and persistent — to obliterate the bloody traces and to deny the horrors — attempts to reduce the severity of the crimes committed in the Ustashi NDH in 1941—45. But »what has been done cannot be undone« —

FACTUM INFECTUM FIERI NEQUID!

{355} ATANASIJE JEVTIĆ

JASENOVAC — A MARTYRED TOWN

The Introduction to this collection of testimonies and documents regarding the Ustashi »death factory« in Jasenovac, i.e. the compounds of camps for the annihilation of people, describes eight camps within Jasenovac: Bročice, Krapje, Logor III Ciglana, Kožara, Uštice, Mlaka, Stara Gradiška, and Bosanska Gradina.

The author devotes due attention to each one of these camps, describing the creation, duration, and means of torturing Serbs, Jews, Gypsies and other Yugoslavs in these camps, attempting to establish an approximately exact number of victims in each of these »circles of hell« of the infamous NDH. Particular attention devoted to the largest place of the Jasenovac camp — Camp III in Ciglana, Bosanska Gradina and Stara Gradiška, because the highest number of innocent inmates had been executed there.

The description leads to the conclusion that number of victims in the Jasenovac camps was between 7 and 800,000, or about three quarters of a million people.

In the following 4 chapters the author presents numerous published and unpublished documents and testimonies given by the inmates and refugees from the criminal »Independent State of Croatia«, as well as testimonies by other persons and commissions about the sufferings in Jasenovac, and number of victims.

The first part contains the three earliest descriptions of the Jasenovac camp (early in 1942), while the second part describes the horrors experienced by Serbian and other children in the Jasenovac camps. The third part is the longest and contains three groups of testimonies: the first 6 statements are testimonies by witnesses about the beginnings of the Jasenovac hell; the next 8 documents testify about the sufferings of the Serbian people over a wider area around Jasenovac, mostly in Slavonia and Bosnia; the third group of 8 documents is made up of testimonies by former inmates who have survived.

The fourth part is made up of 10 documents, containing the findings of State Commissions, right after the war, and testimonies by other professionals about the number of victims, followed by texts about researches regarding the Jasenovac execution places or attempts to hide the truth about Jasenovac. A list of names of Serbs and other inhabitants of Jasenovac itself, during the war and the existence of the camp, who were executed, is also enclosed.

The author has not given any personal conclusion. He feels that the documents best speak for themselves. The message of this memorial of Jasenovac martyrs is that »The dead are opening the eyes of the living«.

{356} Contents

MARTYRED JASENOVAC

INTRODUCTION: Ustashi »death factory« in Jasenovac, a compound of camps for the annihilation of people.

PART I: THREE EARLIEST DESCRIPTIONS OF JASENOVAC CAMP (in early 1942)

1) About Jasenovac »death camp« (From the Memorandum of the Serbian Orthodox Church)

2) Vojislav Prnjatović: Jasenovac — captives' assembly camp in Croatia

3) Simo Djurković: Transportation to Jasenovac camp, and sufferings in it.

PART II: THE SUFFERINGS OF CHILDREN IN THE JASENOVAC CAMPS

PART III: TESTIMONIES BY REFUGEES FROM THE N D H AND SURVIVING INMATES ABOUT THE USTASHI HELL

A) Testimonies about the beginnings of the Jasenovac hell:

1. Statement by the Jasenovac priest

2. Statement by the Uštice priest

3. Statement by Olga Prpić from Jasenovac

4. Statement by a group of Serbs from Jasenovac and Uštice

5. Testimony by Jovanka Trivunčić from Jasenovac

6. Testimony of the minor Ljubica Rajković from Mlaka

B) Testimonies about the circles of hell around Jasenovac:

1) By Ilija Jovanović, priest of Stara Gradiška

2) Dimitrije Joka, priest of Koprivnica

3) Milan Radeka, catechist from Karlovac

4) by the priest Djordje Radić about the sufferings in Banja Luka and its surroundings

5) Another testimony about Banja Luka

6) Witness of sufferings on the way to Jasenovac

7) Two reports about the first camps in the NDH

8) Two witnesses from Bosanska Gradiška

C) Testimonies by surviving camp inmates and others about the hell of Jasenovac

1) Inmate Vojislav Prnjatović

2) Inmate Rastko Krnjajić

3) Inmate Radojka Tatomirović

4) Unknown surviving inmate

5) German officer about the number of Jasenovac victims

6) The Ustashi killed all the inmates at the end of the camp's existence

7) Surviving witness saved at the last moment

8) About the liquidation of Jasenovac and Stara Gradiška camps

{357} PART IV: SOME POST-WAR TESTIMONIES AND DOCUMENTS

1. Findings by the first State Commission (18. 05. 1945) and testimonies by four inmates

2. Report by the Commission for the establishment of crimes (15. 11. 1945)

3. Dr. N. Nikolić: What is the number of victims in Jasenovac?

4. Jasenovac: 600,000 victims

5. Researches of the large place of execution in Gradina (1961)

6. Who obliterated the traces of the Jasenovac camp in 1946-47?

7. Who is hiding the documents on Jasenovac?

8. Falsification of the truth about the number of Jasenovac victims

9. Monstrosity of the crime viewed through scientific eyes

10. List of names of Jasenovac victims

{358} DRAGOJE LUKIĆ

USTASHI GENOCIDE AGAINST CHILDREN IN THE NDH IN 1941-1945

The fate of children, particularly in times of large-scale warfare, has always aroused world indignation. The Nazi-Fascist occupation of our country, in 1941, resulted in the death of tens of thousands of children. This is our most ghastly national tragedy.

Solving the »Serbian issue« in the Ustashi NDH, created by the German Reich, from April 1941 to April 1945, over 40,000 children, between cradle age and 14, were murdered or otherwise killed. 25,000 children from Banija, Kordun, Lika, Slavonia, Srem, Bosnia and Herzegovina, had their lives extinguished by Pavelić's Ustashi, Hitler's soldiers and their servants. We now know these children's names, where and when they were born, who their parents were, where and how they died.

The tortures to which children were exposed in Ustashi death camps is a unique example of human suffering. Jasenovac camp alone, spreading over 210 km² from Krapje to Stara Gradiška, this inexhaustible lake of pain, swallowed 10,340 boys and girls. The Ustashi camps for inmates in diapers, were the only ones in Europe at the time. In Gornja Rijeka, Sisak and Jastrebarsko, 3,254 infants' lives were lost!

The genocide against 23,000 children from Kozara, pulled out of their mothers' embrace and thrown into the camp hell, after the offensive against this rebel area in the summer of 1942, is without precedent in our history.

The result of these crimes is horrifying.

A totall of 11,176 children — 6,302 boys and 4,874 girls, from 219 villages and settlements around Kozara, were murdered or otherwise killed in four years. The youngest were still in diapers, while the eldest were 14 years old. Their average age was 6½ years. For 18 of them it was not possible to establish their name and sex. They were killed before being baptized.

This sad list of names of 11,176 children, in which, on the same line in the Book, the year of birth and the year of death have been written down — for many of them it was the same year — shows, as in a mirror, whose hand held the knife and in whose name prisoners in diapers were killed.

{359} Dr. MILAN BULAJIĆ

POST-WAR DOCUMENTS ABOUT THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE VATICAN AND THE CAPTOL
(H. Q. OF ZAGREB ARCHBISHOP)
FOR THE JASENOVAC CRIMES

The records of the Vatican and of the Zagreb Captol referring to the Ustashi crimes of genocide particularly against the Orthodox Serbs, in the Jasenovac death camp, are still not accessible.

According to documents kept in the archives of the Counter Intelligence Corps (C.I.C.) of the USA Army, the British and American occupation authorities in Rome were aware that those most responsible for crimes of and direct perpetrators of crimes in the Jasenovac death camp, among the most important the Ustashi leader Dr. Ante Pavelić, were hiding in the Vatican asylum, the Croatian Institute of St. Jeronimo, in Rome. This asylum was given by the representatives of the Croatian Catholic Church — the Archbishop of Zagreb, Dr. Aloizius Stepinac and the priest, Dr. Krunoslav Draganović, and others.

In 1947, American military intelligence personnel wrote that it was known that Pavelić had been maintaining ties with the Vatican, that the Vatican »sees in him a militant Catholic, who until yesterday had fought the Orthodox Church, and is now fighting Communist atheism«.

It is mentioned that Pavelić, during his stay at the Croatian Institute of St. Jeronimo in Rome, maintained contacts With the Secretary of State Cardinal Montini (later Pope Paul VI), who was supervising the activities of seminaries for foreign priests, among them, the Croatian Institute of St. Jeronimo. Cardinal Giovani Battista Montini — according to a C.I.C. report — belonged to the group of Vatican officials who sustained Ustashi's hopes regarding the overthrow of Tito and re-establishment of the NDH, considering that this would favour the spread of Catholic influence over the strategically important Balkans.

A note from the Secretary of State of the Holy See (dated March 27, 1946), addressed to the personal representative of the US President, is kept among documents in the archives of the US Army Command in Arlington (Virginia). This recommends an application by the Croatian Brotherhood of St. Jeronimo in Rome, regarding Croats »threatened by expatriation or repatriation«. It is said that they are the victims of political bias and »partisan hatred« often prevailing over »moral and political values«, so that this offers sufficient reason for the Croats residing in Italy not to return »to their homeland at the present time«.

In a telegram sent to the US Embassy in Rome, the Secretary of State of Pope Pius XII guarantees the »good character« of several Ustashi officials (at that time held by the allied military authorities), and asks that they should not be handed over to the Yugoslav authorities. The US Embassy noted that the Vatican's Secretariat of State, under the direct responsibility of Cardinal Montini, exerted pressure {360} to prevent the extradition of Ustashi criminals to Yugoslavia, where they would have been tried.

According to a »Memorandum about the Ustashi organization in Italy«, by the British Military Intelligence Service, »the aim of this organization (covering various camps for displaced persons in Italy, and many important church institutions) is the protection of persons known for their loyalty to the Ustashi cause (...), the dispatch of terrorist groups to Yugoslavia and, in general, with holding aloft Ustashi principles and political objectives until such times when the development of the international situation would again make possible their realizations.

»The nucleus around which the entire Ustashi activities in Italy were and are developing« is the »Croat brotherhood of St. Jeronimo in Rome«, receiving contributions from the USA. Beside the St. Jeronimo Institute, there are also other church buildings — such as the hotel in San Paolo alla Regola, 6, the Grottaferata convent about 30 km from Rome, serving as a hostel for Croatian girl students, the Centocelle convent, harbouring a number of the most eminent Ustashi war criminals.

The document of the CIC states that the channel used by Croat Catholic priests — headed by Dr. Krunoslav Draganović — for the illegal transfer of genocide criminals from Europe — was known in British and American intelligence quarters as the »rat line«. Some of the most notorious war criminals managed to obtain Italian residence permits, visas and other documents, an the basis of identity cards forged in the St. Jeronimo Institute, which enabled them to emigrate.

Dr. Krunoslav Draganović headed the Vatican agency »National Catholic Charity Organizations for displaced persons without passports, among whom were those escaping justice — the genocidal criminals from the NDH.

Funds needed for the programme aimed at saving Ustashi genocidal criminals, were raised by collecting contributions from the pro-Ustashi Croat communities in the USA, by exchanging gold and jewels — stolen by the Ustashi from their victims — for Italian currency, and by foreign means obtained from high-level Ustashi officials.

Material support, accommodation, provision of forged documents secured by the Vatican, enabled the Ustashi criminals not only to save themselves from extradition to Yugoslavia, but also to organize terrorist acts in Yugoslavia. The most spectacular criminal Ustashi action in Italy against the British military authorities was the organization (on the night of May 30-31, 1947) of the escape of »ten leading Yugoslav war criminals, who were under investigation, in the process of interrogation«.

Other sources of financial means were secured by various international organizations and by the emigrant Catholic clergy. The most important financier of this group was the Catholic organization in the USA, »The National Catholic Welfare Conference«.

The emigration of Ustashi to the countries of Latin America was organized by the Vatican institution Pontifica Commissione di Assistenza, helped by the British Inter-Governmental Committee of Refugees.

{361} The Vatican organized special missions to Latin American countries to negotiate there with catholic governments, with the help of the national catholic churches in these countries, in order to organize settlement of war criminals.

In the post-war period, the anti-Yugoslav activities of the Catholic clergy — with the tacit support of the Vatican and of the Zagreb Captol, point to a continuity of the policy of support of the Ustashi project of genocide against the Orthodox »schismatics« in areas covered by the so-called Independent State of Croatia (NDH).

At the initiative of the Union of Croat Catholic Priests in the USA and Canada, a »memorandum on the persecution (alleged) of Croats and of the Catholic Church in pre- and post-war Yugoslavia«, was published; the Memorandum was signed by 143 émigré priests, and was sent to »various governments, leading statesmen and religious leaders, newspaper editorial boards and news agencies«. It states that »regarding the religious persecutions, and the true status of Croatia and its people, the Croat Catholic clergy of the United States of America and other parts of the free world«, wishes to correct the »prevailing wrong opinion that the Axis powers brought about the creation of the Independent State of Croatia«. The signatories of the Memorandum wanted to prove that the »declaration of independence (during the war, in April, 1941, under the invaders' auspices) had been a spontaneous expression of the will of the entire Croat people«. The essential sense of the Memorandum was expressed in the concluding part, stating: »The Croat people does not wish to be part of any Yugoslav state, in any form«. A map of »Greater Croatia« — such as they imagine and such as they demand, was annexed to the Memorandum. This map corresponds to the map of the Ustashi NDH, except that it also includes Dalmatia which, during the existence of the NDH, was partly Italian.

At the time when the USA was considering the request of the Yugoslav Government for the extradition of the genocide criminal, the Ustashi minister Dr. Andrija Artuković, members of the Franciscan commissariat »Holy Family«, in 1954, undertook activities to offer moral and material assistance to Artuković, responsible for the crimes of genocide against Serbs, Jews, Gypsies and Yugoslav-minded Croats, in the Ustashi death camp of Jasenovac.

Various meetings and celebrations organized by Croat emigrants stressed the need to initiate a large-scale world campaign against the Yugoslav state, to demand, through influential Western figures, and the American Congress, that all assistance to Yugoslavia be stopped; the Croat clergy was appealed to not to desist in their fight against Yugoslavia, for the re-establishment of the NDH; demands were made to right all those who in any way accepted the idea of Yugoslavianism; consideration was given to the elaboration of a joint programme for the breaking down of the Yugoslav state, and to the establishment of a joint Croat political representative body. The Ustashi-Catholic press collected financial means to help terrorists caught in Yugoslavia — defending the terrorists and appealing for new similar activities.

The Roman Catholic priest, Dr. Krunoslav Draganović — a one time »brain of the Ustashi movement in Italy« — died in Sarajevo in 1982, after 15 years of peaceful residence in Yugoslavia! All the files and library owned by Dr. Draganović were allegedly taken over by the {362} Bosnia and Herzegovina State security service, but those documents have not yet been made available for research work.

The Vatican archives are still closed. True, a collection of acts and documents of the Holy See referring to World War II (ten volumes) have been published, but it is restricted to carefully selected documents which do not offer a genuine historical picture.

Vladimir Dedijer, Academy member, and Christopher Fairley, member of the International Russel Tribunal, on September 9, 1986 addressed a letter to Pope John Paul II, pointing out that »all the crimes committed in Croatia during World War II have not yet been revealed«, and that »Bertrand Russel had said that there is a big conspiracy by which the Vatican is trying to hide facts«. »Any State, fearing the truth, attempts to hide documents (...) Should the Vatican (in that sense) follow the example of secular states, it would be a serious blow to the principles which it itself is proclaiming (as the Church)«.

But no answer has been forthcoming for years. And the Catholic Church in Croatia, i.e. their spokesmen in the newspaper »Glas koncila«, and elsewhere, strongly attack Dedijer's book »The Vatican and Jasenovac«, judging it to be »obviously biased, fomenting hatred, unscientific, arbitrary, serving only to dig up the hatchets and sharpen the knives«. It is stressed that »Dedijer and the likes of him are attacking not only the Church, but the Croat people as a whole, that, in fact, a thesis is being proposed about the genocidal character of the Croatian people« (!) »It is a case of specific economic and regional (allegedly Serbian) appetites which are now merely camouflaged by atheism and anti-Catholicism (!), but are in fact only expressions of a certain unitarism, of certain aspirations, to hegemony to which the particular Croatian consciousness stands in the way«.

Any presentation of facts accusing sections of the Catholic clergy, active Ustashi criminals, and those who helped and supported them, is described as an attack »against the Catholic Church in Croatia«, and against the »Croatian national consciousness«! In fact, such qualifications are attempts to cover-up the crimes with counter-attacks, and to arouse the Croatian masses, because to this people is allegedly ascribed a collective responsibility for the genocide against the Serbian people, during the war years (1941-1945).

{363} DINKO DAVIDOV

DESTRUCTION OF CHURCH BUILDINGS IN THE „INDEPENDENT STATE OF CROATIA“

Serbian church in Jasenovac

Nowhere in occupied Europe in World War II were so many churches and monasteries destroyed as in the Ustashi »state«. The genocide against the Serbian people was accompanied by the destruction of their historical heritage.

Those ordering and executing these crimes were well aware that any destroyed church and its altar, liturgical books and icons, was aimed at destroying the Serbian being in a given area.

Over 450 churches, 450 iconostases — and each iconostasis in an Orthodox church, has between 30 and 50 icons — were destroyed in the areas of 9 dioceses of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Srem. Among the iconostases (destroyed) were some of the most precious works of Serbian art of the 18th and 19th centuries, such as: that by Jovan Četirević-Grabovan in Podravska Slatina, that by Vasa Ostojić in the Rakovac monastery, that by Teodor Kračun in the Hopovo monastery, and by Pavle Simić in Glina.

Numerous libraries and archives, until then meticulously safeguarded in the altars and choirs, rectories and monasteries of the Serbian Orthodox Church, were destroyed, burnt and plundered.

The documents elaborated after the war by the Commission for the establishment of war crimes committed by the occupiers and traitors, do not contain all the data about the destroyed and damaged churches.

A special investigative group was founded in Voyvodina. It toured Srem, the only part where churches and monasteries were destroyed, and on the basis of detailed documents, wrote a report entitled: »Crimes against cultural and historical monuments and objects« which is, unfortunately, now forgotten. And instead of undertaking the restoration of destroyed and damaged churches and monasteries, they became the object of social and political neglect. The ruins of Kuveždin and Šišatovac monasteries are still standing.

Neither in Croatia nor in Bosnia and Herzegovina (— although Institutes for the protection of cultural monuments were founded there after the war) was anything done to restore the destroyed buildings.

The Ustashi believed that the Serbian issue would be solved by destroying churches: genocide against the Serbs is directly linked to the burning and destroying of churches. In some places, such as Lika, the total destruction of all damaged churches was ordered after the war. Instead of helping the Serbian Orthodox Church to repair the damages, the Church was faced with a lack of understanding by political {364} authorities in the restoration of church buildings so that many of them are now surrounded by weeds and left in ruins.

The long-time Jasenovac priest Lazar Radovanović wrote in a letter to the Holy Synod, immediately after the war: the Jasenovac church, devoted to the birth of St. John the Baptist, was built in 1775. The building was 32 m. long and 12 m. wide, and the iconostasis was made in Černovci (Bukovina), in 1840. The church possessed precious objects and vessels, many liturgical books, a rich library and record books, kept in the parochial office. The Ustashi, in the summer of 1941, first desecrated it, keeping their cattle there and demolishing its interior, breaking the iconostasis, the icons and other objects in it. In October of that year, the destruction of the church began, with the help of detainees of the Jasenovac camp, forced by the Ustashi to do this. Finally, in the autumn of 1941, the church, with its iconostasis and cultural and artistic possessions, was destroyed. In the spring of 1945, the Ustashi also burnt the rectory, a beautiful building dating back to 1887.

So, in the so-called. »Independent State of Croatia«, in addition to numerous churches and monasteries, Jasenovac church and rectory were also destroyed.

{365} ARCHPRIEST BOŠKO BOSANAC

THE HISTORY OF THE BUILDING OF THE MEMORIAL CHURCH IN JASENOVAC

The Slavonian Diocese was named after the region of Slavonia within which the borders of this Diocese are located. It is an organized spiritual community of all Serbs, headed by the bishop and the clergy, and has played a significant role in protecting and educating the Serbian people, fighting Austria-Hungary and Turkey.

Thanks to the devotion and zeal of the bishops and clergy, the Serbian people in Slavonia have retained their ancient Orthodox faith, their name, their language and alphabet, their religious and folk customs. The Serbian people unreservedly trusted their spiritual leaders. All the settlements within the Diocese of Slavonia had churches, chapels, belfries and several monasteries. It also had a Serbian boys' teachers training school as well as a Boarding-school for poor students from all parts of Yugoslavia. The privileges of this school were also enjoyed by boys who were not Serbs of Orthodox faith. The population of the Pakrac district before the war was 78% Serbian.

As predicted, before his death, by the Pakrac bishop Miron, difficult days were ahead for the Serbs and their Church. 57 churches, two monasteries — in Orahovac and Pakrac — and 23 rectories were destroyed during World War II in the Slavonian Diocese. The Diocese archives, library, as well as parish libraries and registers were also destroyed. About 127,000 people were killed, including 18 priests.

In Pakrac, on July 15, 1941, »doglavnik« Mile Budak held a big rally during which he uttered the infamous words: »Serbs on willow trees«, »Run, dogs, across the Drina«!

There are mass graves in Pakrac and its surroundings: in Kukunjevac, 700 slaughtered victims, together with their priest. In Kusonje, in the church of the great martyr St. George — 480 victims were slaughtered; in the village of Derezi, 420 persons were killed; in Novska, the new church, built in the Serbian-Byzantine style, was demolished, and two priests — Djordje Bogić and Slavko Zjalić, were killed.

In Jasenovac, a quiet Posavina township, the church of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist was demolished in 1941. In its place, the Ustashi established a »Working camp« in the area of the big brick plant and a chain factory owned by the brothers Valić. Hundreds of thousands of Serbs met with their deaths in this camp.

Many Serbs and their priests found asylum in Serbia. The Belgrade Patriarchate took part in the organization of reception points for refugees, in the distribution of food and clothes, in their resettlement in various towns and villages of Serbia. Parishes were assigned to priests. Many of them did not get opportunity to return to Slavonia.

{366} Among those who returned there, after the war, was the author of this article, Boško Bosanac. During the war he served as priest in Markovac. After the war, he returned to Pakrac. He found the town demolished, the church of the Holy Trinity roofless, the facade demolished, as well as the mosaics. The church of St. Eliah had been destroyed. The Bishop's palace was turned into a hospital, and the parish rectory into an out-patients' clinic.

The first holy Liturgy was celebrated on Vidovdan day 1945 (June 28) in the cathedral, followed by a Requiem attended by representatives of the Government of the Republic of Croatia. After the service, five children were baptised.

It the spring of 1946, the administrator of the Diocese of Pakrac, suffragan bishop Arsenije Bradvarević, whose seat was an Zagreb, arrived in Pakrac. In 1946 he visited the parish centres several times.

At the session of the Holy Synod, in 1947, the bishop of Banat, Dr. Damaskin Grdanički was elected metropolitan of Zagreb and administrator of the Pakrac Diocese (later Slavonia Diocese). The newly elected metropolitan left for Pakrac on July 14, 1947 to take over his charge; organized and whipped-up crowds met metropolitan Damaskin and his escort in Banova Jaruga, and attacked them physically. The police, who were »incidentaly present«, took the metropolitan and his escort under its »protection«, put them in a truck and drove them to Okučani, and then returned them to Belgrade by the first train. Metropolitan Damaskin informed Patriarch Gavrilo about this incident.

In 1949, metropolitan Damaskin was granted as his Diocesan vicar for the Diocese Emilijan Marinović, priest of Medinci, and in 1951 the Holy Council of Bishops elected Emilijan as bishop of the Pakrac Diocese.

The situation in the Diocese was very difficult. The Bishop's palace and the building of the former Theological school in Pakrac had been taken over by the state authorities. Many Church properties and parish rectories remaining after the war, were seized. The reconstruction of demolished churches and rectories was prevented in different ways.

In the parish rectories into which the priests had moved, parts of the apartments were turned into prayer places.

One of the new places of worship was in Jasenovac. The resourceful Jasenovac priest Lazar Radovanović, upon his return from Serbia in the autumn of 1945, found several Ustashi barracks and garages in the grounds of the demolished church and parish rectory. He partitioned the barracks with boards and obtained three rooms as living quarters, and one as the parish office. Of the garage or workshop, he made a provisional »place of worship«, placed an iconostasis, erected a wooden belfry, procured a bell and organized the first Liturgy, on the day of the Presentation of the Virgin, on December 4, 1945.

The first church Slava, St. John's day in 1946, was joyfully welcomed. The holy Liturgy was celebrated as in a »real« church, in the presence of many people. Requiems were also held in front of the place of worship, and eight priests loudly read the names of people killed in the Jasenovac death camp. The surviving relatives and friends wished to light candles and lay flowers on the places of martyrdom in the camp, but the camp was no longer there. All traces of the »death factory« had been removed. When, in 1948, the brick-kiln — crematorium had been demolished, as a »pillar of shame of the Croatian people«, {367} there »remained only uncultivated land« on which, »maybe up to 50,000 people had been killed«. It was said that the liquidation of the camp, the erasion of traces, had been organized by Ivan Krajačić and Vladimir Bakarić. During this »cleaning« of the camp, several church bells were dug up, and handed over to the church for further use.

On St. John's day, 1951, bishop Emilijan consecrated the newly built small parish rectory. It was decided then to apply immediately for a construction permit for the building of a new parish church in Jasenovac. Lazar Radovanović, the priest, asked the president of the Novska district for a permit to move the place of worship within the church yard. This permit was issued as late as June, 1953. Foundations were being dug, and bricks and stones from the demolished church were built in. On the third day, however, when the foundations were ready for the building of the chapel, policemen arrived and stopped the works. In spite of many requests and interventions, works on the church could not proceed, but visits to Jasenovac became more and more numerous. The need for the church was great.

In 1960, on the grounds of the former camp a Memorial Area was established. A monument »Stone flower« and several large burial mounds, representing mass graves, were erected. A vast cemetery was arranged in Gradina, on the other side of the Sava and Una, and July 4 — Day of the Fighters — set as the date for commemorative meetings. Nothing was said about the building of a church!

The Clerical Association of the Slavonian Diocese founded, on March 11, 1967 an Initiative Board for the building of the church in Jasenovac, with the blessings of the Slavonian Bishop Emilijan. The first meeting adopted several conclusions: to demand immediately the return of the former location for the church in Jasenovac, to ask the Patriarchate to design a project for the church, and to launch a large-scale campaign for the collection of funds for the building. An Action Committee was formed, made up of eminent personalities and headed by bishop Emilijan, as chairman of the Board.

A large-scale fund campaign was launched. Some bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church, as well as the church newspaper »Pravoslavlje«, appealed to the clergy and the people to help the building of the church.

The marvellous design of the new church was drafted in the Design Bureau of the Patriarchate, by Prof. Dragomir Tadić.

Problems arose regarding the location of the church. The Church demanded that it be built in the place where it had been before. But the Planning Department of Jasenovac proposed a new location, in view of the building of a bridge. Two years passed in negotiations (1971 and 1972).

In the spring of 1973, at the request of bishop Emilijan, permission was granted for the building of the church. The building material was purchased, contracts concluded with builders, and on St. John's day (July 7), 1973, a Charter on the building of the new church was placed in the church foundations. This marked the beginning of the construction of the Memorial church devoted to the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, on the location of the former grandiose Jasenovac church. The construction works were entrusted to Dimitri — Dimce Gigov from Donja Ljubota near Bosiljgrad, and the works started on June 30, 1975. The belfry and the cupola were erected by I. Tutić, M. Tabaković {368} and V. Omerović. The pace of the construction works was determined by the funds available through contributions made by people from all over the world.

After the death of the Slavonian bishop Emilijan, in 1982, the Zagreb metropolitan Jovan became the administrator of the Slavonian Diocese. He expended great efforts on construction and an early consecration of the church. He concluded a contract for the construction of a marble iconostasis, while the painting of icons was entrusted to the icon-painting school of »St. Luke« of the Žiča monastery. Again all people of good will were called upon to help with their contributions to finish the work on the church. The Board also decided to establish the fullest possible obituary with the names of the victims of the notorious Jasenovac camp. A request was sent to all the dioceses to establish, with the help of the clergy, the fullest possible list of names of people killed in Jasenovac. The lists would be kept in the Jasenovac church, and the names mentioned during requiems and prayers.

By the end of 1982 (November) deacon Milorad Skorić was ordained priest of Jasenovac.

In the summer of 1983, the facades of the church, the rectory and other church buildings, were finished. The consecration of the church was expected to be on September 18, 1983. Unfortunately, this day had to be postponed to September 2, 1984, when the church was finally consecrated. The consecration celebrations were conducted by His Holiness the Serbian Patriarch German, with the participation of eight Serbian bishops, numerous priests and monks, and masses of people. After many difficulties and hardships, the church of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist was built and consecrated in martyred Jasenovac.

{369} SLOBODAN MILEUSNIĆ

JASENOVAC MEMORIAL CHURCH

The old Jasenovac church was built in 1775 in the spirit of the then prevailing building tradition. It was a large church with a high belfry dominating Posavina region. In the same style as the church was the iconostasis which, in addition to the throne icons, also had three rows of icons: two rows of important feasts, all the apostles and 12 prophets of the old Testament. This church was demolished and destroyed by the Ustashi during World War II.

The building of the present memorial church devoted to the Nativity of St. John the Baptist began in 1973. The building heritage of the past has been weaved into its architectural form. It was designed by Prof. Dragomir Tadić, Belgrade architect. The basis of the church is cross-shaped. It consists of three parts: altar space, nave with jutting choirs, and the parvis with the entrance part. The church facade is decorated with a wreath of semi-arcades. In the central part of the church is a ten-sided cupola surmounted by a cross. The Southern and Northern parts have 5 window openings each, and two on the altar apse. As well as the main entrance on the Western side, an entrance to the church is also located on the Southern side. The whole church roof, together with the belfry and the cupola, is covered with copper.

The iconostasis is the work of Živan Milanković of Bele Vode near Kruševac. It was made in 1983, of white marble, with numerous decorative motives. The iconostasis' upper part is semicircular, with a cross, also made of marble.

The icons on the iconostasis and on the choir are the works of the well-known Žiča icon-painting school of »St. Luke«, and are designed in the spirit of Serbian medieval paintings. They are a gift by the monastery and Diocese of Žiča.

The wood-carvings in the Jasenovac church were made by the Belgrade engraver Mija Cvetojević. The Virgin's throne, as well as the bishop's throne are also made of engraved wood.

The lecterns with the icons to be reverenced, the candlesticks and other church inventory are also made of wood and engraved, and are the gift of Anka and Boza Zdelar from Niagara Falls.

The big chandelier with the icons — portraits of the 12 apostles (made by the icon-painting school of »St. Luke« in Užica) was presented to the church by Milica Čelar of Hamilton, Canada.

The rich engravings on the church treasures show an intermingling of Christian motifs with floral and geometrical forms, interwoven with national motifs (gusle and fire-steels). Historical dates in the history of the Serbian nation are also engraved.

On the left wall of the nave as a big marble relief representing the Kosovo girl, work and gift of Živan Milenković, to be a reminder of the Kosovo Golgotha, but also of the Jasenovac martyrdom.

{370} ARCHPRIEST BOŠKO O. BOSANAC

JASENOVAC AFTER THE CONSECRATION OF THE MEMORIAL CHURCH

The solemn act of consecration of the Jasenovac memorial church was performed on September 2, 1984 by the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church — His Holiness Patriarch German — with the assistance of eight bishops, seven priests and seven deacons, while the consecration was attended by almost all the bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church, many priests, monks, nuns, and a large number of people from all the dioceses of the Serbian Patriarchate. Representatives of the Roman Catholic Church, of the Evangelical Church, Jewish and Islamic religious communities in Yugoslavia, as well as representatives from Belgrade, Zagreb, Novska, Jasenovac, and Bosanska Dubica also attended. Our religious press reported the event at length, as the daily and weekly press, and the ceremony was also covered by the radio and TV stations.

In memory of that important day, Jovan, the Metropolitan of Zagreb and Ljubljana, at the time bishop administrator of the Slavonia diocese, called on all parishes, Church authorities and dioceses to mark the day of consecration of the Jasenovac memorial church each year by religious services in the first week after the day of the Dormition of the Mother of God.

The new diocesan bishop Lukijan proclaimed the very next year, in 1985 (on St. John's day, July 7), the Day of the Jasenovac Martyrs.

Since then, the Day of Jasenovac Martyrs is marked each year — the first Sunday after the day of the Dormition of the Mother of God — with the participation of an increasing number of believers, whose presence means not only the performance of a duty towards the thousands upon thousands of known and unknown martyrs, but also the search, in this holy place, both for consolation for wounded souls and hearts, and for healing of physical illness.

From the first time Bishop Lukijan introduced the commemoration of the Day of Jasenovac martyrs, in addition to nightly vigils, special prayer vigils, and the reading of the Achatist to the Virgin, the Apostles, the sanctification of oil for the sick, etc. These services in Jasenovac have become a real spiritual event. Thus is made sense the former proposal of the then competent bishop to found in Jasenovac a monastery of the Jasenovac martyrs.

The first post-war Orthodox church in Jasenovac was saved from destruction — it had been ordered that it be demolished. And this is the only remaining building from the compound of the former death camp. After the war it was used as a garage and later the building was adapted to become a provisional Orthodox chapel, and services were {371} held in it until the construction of the memorial church. In memory of the first prayers, first lighted candles, first tears shed during the common prayers in post-war days — this provisional chapel still exists for the lightening of candles (for the souls of the dead).

At the festivities held in Jasenovac in 1987, it was decided that after the triple walk around the church, the procession should stop in front of the chapel — this first post-war place for prayers in Jasenovac — and hold there the requiems with the reading of the long obituaries — lists of names of the modern martyrs. Some surviving relations, or acquaintances, still appear bringing the first obituary with the names of relatives tolled in the Jasenovac camps, whose names have not yet been inserted into the general obituary of the Jasenovac martyrs (whose names are mentioned in church prayers).

Considerable efforts have been made to rebuild the church in the village of Mlaka, a branch of the Jasenovac camp — for mothers with small children. This parish church was the last station and place of martyrdom to those infant martyrs and their mothers — genocide was committed in the church itself. Work on the reconstruction of the church in the village of Mlaka is soon to begin.

The adaptation of the building of the Jasenovac Serbian School is also scheduled. In addition to the parish offices, it should have premises for the accommodation of pilgrims from far-away places.

The church authorities have also initiated a competition for the painting of icons inside the Jasenovac church.

But certain unpleasant things happened recently. The Jasenovac priest sent an official report stating that he and his family are subjected to intimations such as, for instance, between January 15 and 23, knocking on their door at night, and similar things. Also, several pillars of the church fence have been demolished, some tiles and all the glasses on the windows of the chapel have been broken, Nazi swastikas have been painted on its walls; on one wall close to the Orthodox church and parochial house, a poster was placed with threatening Ustashi slogans.

We would like, however, to believe that those are only passing unpleasantnesses.

{372} MILAN BULAJIĆ

VISIT TO JASENOVAC BY A GROUP OF MEMBERS OF THE SERBIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES AND ARTS IN 1985

A group of Academy members visited Jasenovac on October 15, 1985. When visiting Jasenovac — the Memorial area and the exhibits in the Museum — it is impossible to imagine all the horrors which took place in the camp. The Jasenovac concentration camp, by the number of victims, ranks third in occupied Europe in World War II, and spreads over a surface of 210 km².

In the first post-war years nothing was done to protect and mark the camp. And what was done was not done solidly. Some of the remaining camp buildings were unmarked, and were used as warehouses. The places where the victims were killed had not been researched. The river Sava, changing its riverbed, revealed new graves. This negligence of the competent authorities allowed the possibility of manipulating the number of victims killed in the Jasenovac camp. The question is raised »why did the partisans not attempt a large-scale attack against the camp, and liquidate it«, although Josip Broz Tito was also aware of the existence of the camp. The inmates themselves, although helpless and exhausted, undertook a breakout from the camp on April 22, 1945. Out of thousands of inmates, only 54 survived.

Why was the public not better informed of the sufferings of children in the camp, and of Ustashi crimes committed against children? The problems of reconstruction are enormous. Here was a camp with an area of 210 km², yet it is extraordinarily difficult to establish the number of victims with any degree of scientific method. It is extremely difficult to preserve memories merely through markings on the ground. It was necessary to attempt a visualisation on the model of the battle of Borodin and of similar reconstructions of the past.

The exact number of victims killed in Jasenovac camp between 1941 and 1945 is an open question, and is very difficult to determine.

Croatian Prime-Minister Tuđman and Cardinal Kuharić say that it was a case of 40,000 victims. The Croatian Commission for the establishment of the crimes of occupiers and their assistants mention the number of 500,000 to 600,000 killed. The Encyclopedias mention a number of about 700,000 killed. The surviving inmate Jovan Živković asserts that he heard when the Ustashi were celebrating the killing of the millionth victim, and the historian Terzić said that over one million victims had been killed in Jasenovac and the surrounding camps. Radovan Trivundžić who, as a child, was an inmate of the camp, and as an adult researched the number of victims in Jasenovac by diggings, considers that the total number is 700,000.

The surviving inmates present their various memories of the days spent in the camp. Mihajlo Marić from Bjelovar remembers when the {373} camp was visited by a Red Cross Commission. When two trucks entered the camp grounds, the Ustashi killed the truck drivers, painted over the trucks, and the next day announced, over loud-speakers, that the trucks had been attacked by the partisans, and captured. He asserts that the Jasenovac camp was visited by the Ustashi Interior Minister Andrija Artuković himself.

Risto Stjepanović from Sarajevo was arrested with his seven brothers in Janjina, near Bjeljina, on August 2, 1941, and left the camp as a participant of the breakout on April 22, 1945.

The camp was visited on February 6, 1942, by Vatican representatives who stated that the »situation is not as bad as is being said«.

The Jasenovac camp raises many questions! Why is there no Star of David, although a large number of Jews were killed in Jasenovac? Why was Jasenovac never visited by President Tito, although written invitations to do so were sent to him?

Dr. Stipe Šuvar, the then President of the Presidency of the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia spoke at the commemoration to the surviving fighters of the Jasenovac camp breakout, on April 22, 1989, and pointed out that the sense of marking the anniversary is »to be reminded, and never to forget, and to prevent forever the recurrence of the empire of darkness and evil to which the so-called Independent State of Croatia and its camp of Jasenovac belonged«. He also said: »This piece of land has become the biggest grave in this country of ours, and one of the biggest in Europe and the world...« The crime named Jasenovac never falls under the statute of limitations... »Jasenovac is a mass grave of hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews and Gypsies, who were slaughtered and burnt only because they were Serbs, Jews or Gypsies, but also the grave of tens of thousands of Croats, Muslims and people of other nationalities...« Stipe Suvar also said that the whole Croatian people should not be accused of the genocide in Jasenovac.

At a scientific meeting in Jasenovac, in 1989, Ljubo Boban defended the Vatican saying that it had not been directly guilty of the killings in Jasenovac.

Franjo Tuđman, at a clerical meeting in Vinkovci, addressing 166 Catholic priests, spoke about the unjustified accusations levelled against the Croatian people for the genocide in Jasenovac, against the Catholic Church, the Vatican and Cardinal Stepinac. Also, 143 priests, together with the Sarajevo Archbishop Šarić, signed a Memorandum attempting to »correct the unjust accusations against the Croatian people and the clergy of the Catholic Church«.

Thus, during their visit to Jasenovac, the group of scientists and Academy members, saw many things, heard the stories of the survivors, and, in the end, all came to the same conclusion: it happened, but must never happen again!

{374} Frontispiece:

HOLY MARTYRS, PRAY TO GOD TO HAVE PITY ON OUR SOULS, FOR YOU HAVE FOUGHT WELL AND HAVE BEEN CROWNED WITH THE WREATH OF MARTYRS

Zagreb metropolitan Dositej Vasić (born in 1877, ordained in 1899, bishop of Niš in 1913). Interned in Bulgaria during World War I. Elected first Zagreb metropolitan in 1932, and enthroned in 1933. As the oldest member of the Holy Synod, he was in charge of Church affairs during the illness of Patriarch Varnava, and until the election of the new patriarch. During World War II, he was severely humiliated and maltreated in Zagreb, and then expelled to Belgrade. In poor health due to his sufferings in the NDH, he died on January 13, 1945 in the Belgrade Monastery of The Presentation of the Virgin Mary, and was buried there.

The white-haired old man, metropolitan of Bosnia and Sarajevo, Petar Zimonjić (born 1866, ordained in 1895, metropolitan of Zahumlje and Herzegovina in 1903, and of Bosnia, in 1920), one of the most eminent Serbian dignitaries, remained with his flock in 1941. He was arrested on May 12. There are many testimonies of his heroic stand when he faced the criminals. He was innocently killed that same year. Several versions exist about his martyrdom in the NDH. The precise place of his death is not known.

The bishop of Karlovac Sava Trlajić (born in 1884, ordained in 1909, bishop in 1934, bishop of Karlovac since 1938); early in the war he refused the offer made by the Italian occupiers to move to Belgrade, and remained with his people; underwent many humiliations in the NDH and finally ended his life as a martyr. The place of his grave is still unknown.

The bishop of Banja Luka Platon Jovanović (born in 1874, bishop in 1936, and bishop of Banja Luka in 1939) died a martyr's death in the NDH, on May 5, 1941, and was thrown into the Vrbanja river. He was later buried in the military cemetery of Banja Luka.

Frescoes of these Martyrs in the Serbian church in Ljubljana, painted by Dragomir Jasović.

{375} Pictures in colour:

The former magnificent Serbian Orthodox church in Jasenovac (1775), devoted to the Nativity of St. John, was destroyed by the Ustashi on August 15, 1941, during the so-called „Independent State of Croatia“. The foundations of this new church, built on the foundations of the previous one, were consecrated by the bishop of Slavonia Emilijan (Marinović), on St. John's Day, July 7, 1973 — 32 years after the demolition of the former church. The circumstances under which the new church was built were such that its building lasted then for over another decade! In 1984, on Sunday, September 2, His Holiness the Serbian Patriarch German consecrated the new Jasenovac church — to the glory of the holiest name of God, in honour and memory of the Birth of St. John, the Forerunner and the Baptist of the Lord.

View of the Jasenovac church, from the South-West. Interior view — iconostasis of the new church.

The new temple arouses memories of the incomprehensible horrors and sufferings of the innocent victims of the Jasenovac field of martyrdom, during the four-year hell of the Ustashi NDH. It reminds all the new generations of the tragedy which should never be repeated.

On the day of the consecration of the new church, a large mass of people follow the service in the grounds surrounding the church.

III

The solemn act of consecration of the new Jasenovac church was performed by the Patriarch, with the participation of seven bishops; after the consecration, the Divine pontifical Liturgy was celebrated.

During the solemn act of consecration, at the altar of the new church (above) His Holiness Patriarch German (center) and the bishops Dr. Sava of Šumadija (left) and Pavle of Raska — Prizren (far left)

According to the Most Reverend Jovan, metropolitan of Zagreb and Ljubljana, the Memorial church in Jasenovac reminds everybody »not to forget the times of evil and sufferings, and, by remembering, to encourage hope for a better, happier future in the community of people, churches and faiths on this soil«.

{376} The consecration of the church and the Holy Liturgy were attended by: the Zagreb Roman-Catholic assistant bishop Dr. Djuro Koksa, canon Kukec from Zagreb, the local Catholic priest, the Zagreb imam Šefko Omerbašić, the Evangelical pastor, and others.

Before the arrival of the Patriarch and the bishops,the church yard and the surrounding streets were full of believers.They came from all parts of our country and from abroad. Among them were many relatives and descendants of the Jasenovac martyrs.

Patriarch German, accompanied by the bishops and other members of his escort, by his hosts and representatives of State authorities, arriving at the place of martyrdom. This was the Serbian Patriarch's first visit here. He came to pray for the repose of the martyrs, and to pay tribute to the place of their martyrdom. He brought with him peace, love, forgiveness and the wish that the former horrible triumph of evil should never happen again.

VII

Having laid a wreath of white carnations, and lighted candles on the base of the Flower-shaped monument, the heir to St. Sava's throne held a memorial service on the site of the greatest martyrdom and cemetery of the Serbian people. The Patriarch's words have been deeply carved in our memory:

»Through the brilliant atmosphere of this solemn day, our souls are remembering the darkness of the days when the father of sin, evil and eternal darkness deployed his lethal wings and shed blood and tears, crimes and death, building as his temples Mauthausen, Dachau, Auschwitz, Jasenovac, Jadovno, Glina... Baptized people were the executors of his will — misled, fanatic, convinced that their own good could be achieved by the misfortune of others! (...)

It was another Golgotha, on which the forces of darkness crucified Christ, who said and is saying again: inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brothers, ye have done it unto me« (Mt. 25:40). It had been a real Golgotha on which the words of madness seem to have been heard again: »His blood be on us and our children« (Mt 27:25); but also the words of greatness of the sinless Son of God: »Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do!« (lk. 23:34). Those on Golgotha in Jerusalem knew not what they were doing — had they known, they would not »have crucified the Lord of Glory (l.Cor. 2:8). Those in Jasenovac did not know either, for had they known, they would not have turned Jasenovac into a Golgotha! (...)

Brothers, to forgive, we must, because such is the evangelical commandment, — but to forget, we cannot. Let the great-grand sons of our great-grand sons know that this enormous concrete flower on the field of Jasenovac is the witness of madness, which must never take place again.

{377} »Hatred breeds quarrels, and love covers all« (Prov. 10:12). This holy church should be a place where love will be preached — true Christian love. According to the words of the Apostle Paul, true Christian love »does not behave itself unseemingly, does not seek its own, is not easily provoked, does not think about evil, does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things« (1.Cor. 13:5-7)

VIII

After visiting and viewing the Memorial Museum of the Jasenovac death camp. Proceeding slowly along the wide wooden path, symbolizing the last journey of the martyrs, a muffled silence reigned, disturbed occasionally by some word of explanation. The Patriarch would stop for a few seconds, mutely observing the wide compound of the former death camp. Through the horrors and sufferings endured there, this place has ranked first among the camps of Europe.

{378} Illustrations

1. Because of the unprecedented horrors and cruel annihilation of people in Jasenovac, during the 1941-1945 war years, the name of this small Slavonian village, on the left bank of the Sava, has become part of history. At that time, the largest death factory of the Ustashi »state« existed there — third largest camp in occupied Europe by the number of victims, and first by the horrors and sufferings of the inmates.

Under barbaric Ustashi terror, on May 8, 1941, all the Jasenovac Orthodox Serbs were sent to the camp, and on August 15, 1941, the beautiful Serbian Orthodox church was destroyed (dating back to 1775). Most of its parishioners died as martyrs.

On the picture: Ustashis among things seized from their victims — on the arrival of a transport of prisoners to the death camp.

2. A facsimile of the telegram, dated June 2, 1942, demanding 200 domobrans (members of the »regular army« of the Quisling NDH) to capture 400 Gypsies and transport them from Zemun to the Jasenovac camp.

3. Traces of torture on the body of an inmate — picture taken in 1945 (From the photo archives of the Belgrade War Museum).

4. Insignia of the Quisling creation, the Ustashi NDH, 1941-1945. Those who lived under the terror of the Ustashi, called it »the protective label of crime« because under this sign crimes were committed against thousands upon thousands of innocent men, women and children. The letter »U« on it is the initial of the world Ustasha, but was read as Ubica (murderer).

5. Facsimile of the first page of the list of children under 14, killed in the Jasenovac camp in 1942. The age and place of birth are marked beside the names of the child martyrs.

6. Camps for the »rearing and reeducation« of children were founded by decision of the »leader« Ante Pavelić, in Gornja Rijeka near Križevac, in Sisak and in Jastrebarsko — as far as it is known, those were the only concentration camps for prisoners in diapers in Europe, and probably in the world. The tortures to which the children were exposed in Ustashi camps is a unique example of human sufferings. The lives of boys and girls, many of whom were still in diapers, {379} were interrupted most brutally. In the tragic percentages, Serbian children rank first with about 80%. The Jasenovac death camp swallowed many more children than was originally assumed.

»Tender plants were mowed down before they were fully developed; those you have taken, o Lord, plant them in the divine fields of eternal good« (From Song 5. of Children's requiem).

7. Newly arrived prisoners working in the camp.

8. Bestial Ustashi triumph over the bodies of helpless victims — »With what violent hatred they hate« (Psalm 25:19).

9. — 10. »How can one not say how they were beaten and tortured? killed with hammers, butchered with daggers, cut with knives, trimmed with hatchets, hung on trees, drowned in water, burnt in brick kilns ...« (Boško Pušonjić).

Upper picture: Ustashis also killed their victims with hammers — such as this, beating their victims on the head.

Lower picture: one of the thousands upon thousands of victims killed in the Jasenovac death camp.

11 — 12 Above: knife and hammer used by the Ustashi to kill their captives.

Lower left: iron bars tied to the legs of the slain inmates, whose bodies were then thrown into the river Sava.

Lower right: fetters used to chain the inmates.

Below: objects belonging to the inmates of the death camps — used by them during their remaining days of life — now in the display cabinets of the Jasenovac Memorial Museum.

13. A tiny part of the remaining traces of the Ustashi genocidal madness — scattered bones of the martyrs killed in the Jasenovac death camp.

The Ustashi genocidal plan was to »move — to expel to Serbia one third of the Serbs, to convert one third, and to kill one third of them«.

»Run, dogs, to the other side of the Drina« — one of the slogans invented by Milo Budak, a »deputy-leader« (A Croat writer), full of anger and hatred for the Serbs. Viktor Gutić, one of the most fervent representatives of Ustashi terrorism in Bosanska Krajina, was hissing: »We shall send these Serbian Gypsies to Serbia — some by train, others by — the Sava — without boats! These undesirable elements will be uprooted so that all traces of them will disappear; only a bad memory of them will remain. We shall kill all the Serbian vermin over 15, and place their children in convents — they will become good Catholics«.

The bodies of the Ustashi genocide victims floated down the Sava river, with inscriptions such as »Pleasant journey to Serbia«, and others.

{380} 14. Jasenovac camp: the Ustashi threw the bodies of the murdered inmates into the Sava. Picture taken in April, 1945 (Photo-archives of the War Museum in Belgrade).

15. Bodies of the martyrs killed in the Jasenovac death camp and thrown into the Sava, later emerging on the banks of the River; Croatia, 1945 (Photo-archives of the Belgrade War Museum).

16. Identification of victims — last martyrs of the Jasenovac death camp, killed in 1945 and thrown into the Sava. The bodies of these victims of the Ustashi genocide were taken out of the river near Sisak, in April, 1945 (Photo-archives of the Belgrade War Museum).

17 — 18. Ruins of the brick-kiln in Jasenovac, where the Ustashis cremated the inmates — picture taken in May 1945.

Immediately after the war, in the area occupied by the death factory (present Memorial area) everything was obliterated — nothing visible has remained of what had been there. The idea was to eliminate this tragedy as soon as possible«! Only the brick-kiln — »crematorium« remained, but in 1948 the order came to »raze it too«, because it would not do to safeguard this as a pillar of shame for the Croatian people. And so this was done, bit by bit, to end up with a clear field; then it would be possible to say that »perhaps up to 50 thousand people were killed there«.

19. After the war, German prisoners were told to remove the remains of the authentic buildings of the Jasenovac death camp. In the picture: prisoners are demolishing the camp's power plant.

20.Vestiges of the camp's power plant gradually disappearing.

21.The river wore away its banks, and the bones of martyrs emerged from a hitherto unknown pit — a common grave.

22. Soldiers of the 21st Serbian division which liberated Jasenovac.

23. Vestiges of some buildings in the Jasenovac death camp which remained at the end of the NDH, but which were removed soon after-ward.

24. »Now only a stone flower remains here. It sprouted forth from the most horrible field. It developed, and then stopped, petrified by what it reminds us of. The flower of reason, above the darkness of a time, soundless but so resounding because of its silence, the silence that hurts, cutting breath short, freezing one's blood (...) A flower ever shining. There is too much phosphorus in its roots ever to stop shining!« (Boško Pušonjić).

25. Orderly landscape of the former Jasenovac death camp — allegory and symbolism instead of the physical remains which had been preserved at the end of the war.

26. His Holiness German, Serbian Patriarch, holding the memorial service to the martyrs — victims of the Jasenovac death camp — at the base of the Jasenovac flower of concrete; »Give peace, o Christ, to {381} the souls of your servants, where there is no pain, no sadness, no sighing, where life is eternal«.

27. Part of the area of the Jasenovac camp compound, today: on the surface, there are no traces of martyrdom. Everything is under the earth, levelled by horrible death. The only surviving witnesses are the two rivers which, with their green eyes, had seen the horrors and terror of the 20th century — the mad savagery of crime, for a full four years.

28, 29 and 30. Present-day view of some parts of the Memorial area on the grounds of the former Jasenovac concentration camp compound. The prevailing opinion had been that the genocide camp should be turned into a horticultural park, where the criminally shed blood would be forgotten. During the first twenty post-war years, the most important ones from the viewpoint of safeguarding the human remains, nothing was done for their protection and preservation. The Memorial Area was founded only after 1960, when everything had already been demolished, and the camp's land bought from the Serbs who had owned about 90% of it. On the site of the former death camp, an administrative building, a memorial museum, a movie theatre, a big »stone (i.e. concrete) flower«; several large burial mounds have been built which are supposed to represent the mass graves, signs have been set indicating where everything was during the »active operations of the death factory, access roads have been made of railway sleepers; a large cemetery has been organized in Gradina, across the Sava and Una. On July 4th — Day of the Fighter — commemorations are held on the memorial grounds, paying tribute to the martyrs. Many groups, however, come with their priests and hold memorial services in the open, in this way protesting against the fact that there is no church and the faithful are denied the possibility to honour the martyrs — Jasenovac victims with prayers. But the official side responded: »Why do we need a temple, a memorial temple there«? »The Memorial grouds are functioning, the Stone flower has been erected, what more do you want?!«

30. »This place is soaked with the blood of innocents« (Prophet Jeremiah (19:4). At Jasenovac — the Zagreb and Ljubljana Metropolitan holds a memorial service for the victims of the Jasenovac camp (April 22, 1982).

32-33. Instead of the remains of some camp buildings, which were still there at the end of the war — authentic testimonials to the NDH horrors — a park was laid out with the building of the Memorial Museum.

34. Services in the unfinished new Jasenovac church, built on the foundations of the demolished old church.

Our prayer to the Lord was and always will be:

— that between all men, during this short and transient life, genuine, true, evangelical love should reign, true Christian relations and humanitarianism!

— that war or similar tragedies may never occur;

— that all men may live in peace, unity and love in this long-suffering country...

{382} 35. Building the new church — Southern part of the church.

36. Works inside the church — construction of the iconostasis

37. Holy pontifical Liturgy in the new, still unfinished church of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist in Jasenovac

38.Church under construction — North-Western side

The new Jasenovac church was designed by Dragomir Tadić, arch., retired professor of the Belgrade Higher Technical School — a very experienced church architect. The stone iconostasis was made by Živan Milenković, stonecutter from Bele Vode near Kruševac. The central royal doors, the choirs, the Bishop's throne and the upper part of the altar were made by the Belgrade engraver Miodrag Cvetojević. The icons on the iconostasis were painted in the icon painting school of St. Luke in Žiča monastery, and are a gift of Church institutions and individuals from the Žiča diocese. The chandelier is a gift by Dr. Nikola Brzović and family from Arizona, USA, a native of Žumberak. Two church bells are gifts of Serbs in Canada and the USA, etc.

39-40. Contributions to Jasenovac church were sent from all places where Serbs live — both in Yugoslavia and abroad. Our brothers from the USA, Canada, Australia and Western Europe did not forget their native land and the holy sites there, and lavishly helped the building of this church. When a campaign was initiated in the USA and Canada for contributions to this church, the Serbian youth there were among the first to send their aid and express their love for the martyrs of Jasenovac, and the native land of their parents. Due to so many contributors, the new Jasenovac church is truly an endowment erected by the whole Serbian people, from all parts of the world. This gives this church an even greater significance.

41. The Virgin's throne in new Jasenovac church. »Beneath thy compassion do we take refuge, o Theotokos, despise not our supplications in our necessity; but from perils deliver us, O only pure, and blessed.«

42. Interior of the church: hanging chandelier with many candles —in front of the iconostasis.

43. View of the iconostasis; in front of the ambo is the tetrapode —the small lectern with the icon of the birth of St. John to whom this church is dedicated.

44. Arrival of the bishops for the service in the church, on the day of the consecration on Sunday, September 2, 1984. Left to right: bishops Milutin of Timok, Sava of Sumadija, Irinej of Nis, and George of Canada.

45. Beginning of the Divine Liturgy, bishops sitting in front of the iconostasis (left to right): Sava, bishop of Šumadija, Pavle of Raška and Prizren, German, Serbian patriarch, Stefan, bishop of Zica, Nikolaj of Dalmatia, and Milutin of Timok.

{383} 49. A cross with fire-steels — the ancient popular insignia of the Serbs, is represented in several places on the church furniture. The Holy Cross is the symbol of obedience to God's will. The Golden fire-steels (resembling the letter C = in Cyrillic alphabet S — interpreted popularly as the initial of the word Sloboda — Liberty), are the symbols of golden Liberty — i.e. non-submissiveness to human arbitrariness. The eight-pronged star, at the base of this insignia, is the symbol of reliance on God's providence and God's grace.

50. To the right: Western part of the church — the belfry.

46—48 and 51. Left and Below: On the day of the consecration, numerous people followed the service in the grounds around the church — only a few of them were able to be present inside the church.

52. Vigil services on the eve of the consecration.

53. On the day of the consecration, at the altar during the Divine Liturgy. In the middle: His Holiness German, Serbian Patriarch; at the far left: Dr. Sava, bishop of Šumadija; at the far right: Nikolaj, bishop of Dalmatia.

54. Jasenovac — access to the church of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist.

55. His Holiness the Patriarch leaves for the grounds of the former Jasenovac camp.

56. His Holiness Serbian Patriarch German, accompanied by the Most Reverend Jovan, Metropolitan of Zagreb and Ljubljana, distributing crosses to the people gathered in Jasenovac.

57.The Patriarch in the grounds of the former Jasenovac death camp.

{384} Book end — paper

The Jasenovac concentration camp occupied a surface of 210 km² — in fact, it was a system of camps for genocidal torture and murder on the Sava river:

— from Stara Gradiška, in the East

— from Jablanac, Mlaka, Jasenovac, to the village of Krapje, in the West,

— and from Struga (camp Bročice, cemetery Krndija), in the North,

— to the line between Draksenić and Bistrica in Bosnia Herzegovina, to the South.

Reconstruction of the death factory — Jasenovac concentration camp — as it was in 1942, according to a drawing by Nikola Nikolić, one of the surviving inmates (in the book: Nikola Nikolić: Jasenovac Camp. Nakladni Zavod Hrvatske, Zagreb, 1948, pages 460-461).

Milica Čelar, a generous benefactor of the church of the Nativity of St. John, in Jasenovac

p. 344

Large benefactors of the church of the Nativity of St. John, in Jasenovac, and other contributors, during the consecration.

p. 345

In no part of occupied Europe in World War II were so many churches and monasteries destroyed as in the Ustashi »state«. The genocide against the Serbian people was accompanied by the destruction of their historic heritage (...) in order to destroy the Serbian national being in a given area, to obliterate and exterminate their historic existence and self-identity, their roots, their strength and beauty. — It was — a total genocide.

On the territory of the Ustashi »state« — in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Srem — over 450 Orthodox churches were destroyed.

Eastern part of the former Serbian Orthodox church (built in 1775) in Jasenovac. This church was demolished by the Ustashi on August 15, 1941. (Drawing by Janko Maglovski, from a photo taken in 1939).

Schematic view of the iconostasis burnt by the Ustashi in 1941. (Drawing by Janko Maglovski, from a photo taken in 1939).

pp. 210-211

{385} A Memorandum addressed in 1952 to »various governments, leading statesmen and religious leaders, journalists and news agencies«, 143 Catholic priests, headed by the Sarajevo Archbishop Ivan Šarić — a sworn Ustashi — states that »regarding the religious persecutions and the true status of Croatia and its people«, »the Croatian Catholic clergy of the United States of America and other parts of the free world« wish to correct »the prevailing erroneous opinion that the Axis forces enabled the creation of the Independent State of Croatia«.

The signatories of the Memorandum would like to prove that »the proclamation of independence was a spontaneous expression of the will of the entire Croatian people«. The basic sense of the Memorandum is presented in the conclusion:

»The Croatian people does not wish to he a part of any Yugoslav state, in whatever form«.

Annexed to it was a map of »Great Croatia« — such as the Catholic priests imagine it and such as they want it to be established — from Istria, including Boka Kotorska with Budva, Zemun, Subotica, etc. (143 signatures).

This map is a replica of the map of the NDH, except that it also includes Dalmatia, which belonged to Italy at the time of the NDH.

p. 223

A cross with fire-steels — an ancient popular insignia of the Serbs, was inscribed on church furnishings, in several places.

The Cross is the symbol of subjection to God's will.

Golden fire-steels (resembling the letter C, in the Cyrillic alphabet S) — interpreted among the people as the initial to the word Liberty Sloboda) are the symbols of golden liberty — or non-subjection to human vindictiveness.

The eight-pronged star, as the base of this insignia, is the symbol of faith in God's providence (leadership) and God's grace.

(Illustrations, 49)

ETERNAL MEMORY JASENOVAC THE PLACE SOAKED IN THE BLOOD OF INNOCENTS CONTENTS

{347} ETERNAL MEMORY

JASENOVAC

THE PLACE SOAKEDIN THE BLOODOF INNOCENTS

ON THE 50th ANNIVERSARYOF MARTYRED JASENOVACAND OF THE 7th ANNIVERSARYOF THE CONSECRATIONOF THE NEW CHURCHOF THE NATIVITY OF ST. JOHNTHE BAPTIST—MEMORIAL CHURCHJASENOVAC