prewettjw - 06:51pm Apr 17, 1997 EST (#30

Very courageous article. You're sure gonna catch a lot of flack from Roman Catholics. Perhaps some day more critical attention will be paid to the inordinate degree of influence the Roman Catholic religious institution has over the United States government [and many other governments]. WBW, John

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A.M. Rosenthal: The Rebirth of Croatian Fascism

Share your thoughts on recent articles by columnist A.M. Rosenthal.

Go to Rosenthal's Op-Ed about the rebirth of Croatian Fascism.

doctor13 - 10:03pm Apr 18, 1997 EST (#34

In his historic visit to Zagreb, Pope John Paul knelt in prayer before the sarcophagus of Archbishop Stepinac. There are plans for the Vatican to elevate him to sainthood.

The letter that follows was written by the Croatian politician, Prvilsav Grizogono, on February 8, 1942 to Archbishop Dr. Alojzije Stepinac.

"I am writing to you as a man to a man, as a Christian to a Christian. I have been meaning to do this for months hoping that the dreadful news from Croatia would cease so that I could collect my thoughts and write to you in peace.

For the last ten months Serbs have been killed and destroyed in Croatia in the most ruthless manner and milliards of their property is being destroyed. The blushes of shame and anger cover the faces of every honest Croat.

The slaughter of Serbs began from the very first day of the establishment of the Independent State of Croatia (Gospic, Gudovac, Bosanska Krajina, etc) and has coninued relentlessly to this very day.

The horror is not only in the killing. The killing includes everybody, old men, women, and children. With accompanying barbarian torture. These innocent Serbs have been impaled, fire has been lit on their bare chests, they have been roasted alive, burned in their homes and churches while still living, covered with boiling water and then their skin peeled off and salt poured into their wounds, their eyes have been pulled out, their ears, noses and tongues cut off, the priests have had their beards and moustaches raised together with their skulls, their sex organs severed and put into their mouth, they have been tied to trucks and then dragged along the ground, nails have been pressed into their heads, their heads nailed to the floor, they have been thrown alive into wells and abysses and bombs thrown to them, iron nails have broken their heads, children thrown into flames, into boiling water, into lime klins, their legs thorn from them, their heads smashed against walls, broken thaie backs against rocks and tree stumps and many other horrible torture was perpetrated, such as normal people can hardly imagine.

The rivers Sava, Drava, the Danube and their tributaries have carried thousands and thousands of their corpses. Dead bodies have been found with the inscription: 'direction Belgrade - travelling to king Peter. In a boat which was found on the Sava river there was a heap of children's heads with the head of a woman (who could have been a head of one of the mothers of the children) with the inscription: 'Meat for the Jovanova Market in Belgrade'.

Horrifying is the case of Mileva Bozinic from Stabandza whose child was removed from her womb. There was also the case of the roasted heads in Bosnia, the vessels full of Serbian blood, the cases of Serbs being forced to drink tha warm blood of their slaughter kin. Countless women, girls and children, mothers in front of their children and children in front of their mothers were raped or else sent off to Ustashi camps to serve the Ustashi, rapes even took place on the altars of Orthodox churches. In the Petrinja county a son was forced to rape his own mother. The slaughter of the Serbs in the Glina Orthodox church and the murder of Serbs on the altar of the Kladusa church is without precedent in history. There are detailed and original accounts of all these horrors. Even the Germans and the Italians were astouned by these crimes. They photographed a huge number of cases of such slaughter. The Germans are saying that the Croatians did this also during the 30-years War and that is why tere has been a saying in Germany since then: God save us from the plague, hunger and the Croats. The Srem Germans despise us because of this and behave in a more human fashion with the Serbs. The Italians photographed a vessel with 3.5 kilograms of Serbian eyes as well as a Croat who wore a necklace strung with Serbian eyes and another one who came to Dubrovnik with a belt on which cut Serbian tongues were hanging.

The horrors

doctor13 - 10:12pm Apr 18, 1997 EST (#35

Continuation of the letter by Croatian politician Prvilsav Grizogono to Archbishop Stepinac on February 8, 1942.

The horrors of the camps in which the thousands of Serbs were killed or were left to die from exposure, hunger and cold weather, are too terrible to mention. The Germans have been talking about a camp in Lika where there were thousands of Serbs but when the Germans got there they found the camp empty dredged in blood and bloody clothing. In that camp it has been said a Serbian bishop also lost his life. Thousands upon thousands of Serbs in the camp of Jasenovac are still being tortured as they are spending this fierce winter in wooden Gipsy shacks with no straw or covering and with a ration of two potatoes per day. In the history of Europe there have been no similar cases. One would have to go to Asia at the time of Tamerlan or Genghis-Khan or to Africa to the countries of their bloodthirsty rulers to come upon similar situations. These events have shamed the name of Croatia for centuries to come. Nothing canabsolve us fully from this ever again. We will not be able to tell even the last wretched man in the Balkans about our thousand year old Croatian culture, because even the Gypsies never perpetrated such cruelties.

Why am I writing this to you when you are not a political personage and can not bear responsibility for all this? Here is why: in all these unprecedented barbarian crimes which are more than Godless, our Catholic church participated in two ways. A large number of clergy, priests, friars, and organized Catholic youth took active part in all this. It has also happened that Catholic priests became camp guards and Ustashi accomplices and so approved of the torture and slaughter of Christians. A Catholic priest even personally slaughtered an Orthodox clergyman. They could not have done all this without the permission of their bishops and if they did, then they would have had to lose their jobs and be taken to court. As this did not happen it means that their bishops granted them permission.

Secondly, the catholic church made use of all this to convert the surviving Serbs. And while the soil was steaming from the innocent victims' blood, while groans shuttered the chests of the surviving victims, the priests, friars, nuns carried in one hand the Ustashi daggers and in the other their prayer books and rosaries. The whole of Srem is inundated with the leaflets written by bishop Aksamovic and printed in his printing shop in Djakovo, calling upon the Serbs to save their lives and property by converting to catholicism. It was as if our church wanted to show that it could destroy souls just as the Ustashi authorities destroy bodies. It is an even greater blot on the Catholic church as at the same time many Orthodox churches, all the Orthodox monasteries have been confiscated, their property plundered as well as many historical treasures. Even the Patriarchate church in Sremski Karlovci has not been spared. All this violence against conscience and the spirit has brought even greater disgrace to the Croat nation and name."

doctor13 - 10:24pm Apr 18, 1997 EST (#36

History repeats itself. Quotes from famous Jewish historians and scholars, including quotes by Croatian President Franjo Tudjman, among others.

"Thank God my wife is neither a Serb nor a Jew." -- Croatian President Franjo Tudjman, quoted in British Guardian.

"Genocide is a natural phenomenon, in harmoney with the societal and mythogically divine nature . . . Genocide is not only permitted, it is also recommended, even commanded by the word of the Almighty Yaweh, whenever it is useful for the survival or the restoration of the kindom of the chosen nation, or for the preservation and the spreading of its one and only current faith." -- Croatian President Franjo Tudjman from his book "Wastelands of Historical Reality."

"I must admit that I have been obsessed with the criminal character of the independent State of Croatia. Even the Germans were appalled by the crimes committed in it." -- Holocaust Historian Simon wiesenthal.

"What worries us, is that those in power in Croatia are largely the same as in the Nazi era. In some cases, they are exactly the same people, now in their seventies and back from exile under Communists. In other cases, they are children of the Ustashi." -- Jewish leaders, scholar and historian, Dr. Klara Mandich, The London Independent.

"The HDZ (current ruling party of Croatia) adopted the old symbols of the fascist Ustasha regime from World War II. The new Croatian authorities have chosen as the state symbol the same checkered shield. -- Menchen Shelah, Israeli Historian, University of Haifa.

"Croats will kill people for the color of their skins." -- U.S. Colonel Fontenot, Commander of NATO forces in northeastern Bosnia.

These are not my words, dear readers.

doctor13 - 10:31pm Apr 18, 1997 EST (#37

Continuation of quotes.

"But you can understand Croatia best by saying flatly that if there is one place in the world where a statue of Adolph Hitler would be revered, it would be in Zagreb." -- Edward Pearce, The (London) Evening Standard, 7 August 1995, "Victory smiles that hide the roots of evil."

"The Big Lie" technique is alive and well. Croatia has used the media and skilful image manipulation to hide its renewed genocide against the Serbs while at the same time ensuring that Serbs are themselves wrongly accused of the same type of crime and more." -- Gregory Copely, Editor-in Chief, Defense & Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy, London, 1992.

"The gigantic campaign to brainwash America by our media against the Serbian people is just incredible, with its daily dose of one-sided information and outright lies . . . What is today's reality? The murderers of Jews, Serbs and Gypsies are back (in Croatia) from the U.S., Canada, Argentina where they fled after World War II. The Serbs fought the Nazis, they paid a terrible price for standing at the side of the allies against Hitler. Humanity owes them a debt of gratitude." -- John Ranz, Chairman of Survivors of Buchenwald Concentration Camp, USA.

"This organized anti-Serb and pro-Muslim propaganda should causes anyone believing in democracy and free speech serious concerns. It recalls Hitler's propaganda against the allies in World War II. Facts are twisted and, when convenient, disregarded." -- Yohanan Ramati, Director of the Jerusalem Institute for Western Defense.

doctor13 - 10:41pm Apr 18, 1997 EST (#38

I wish to thank A.M. Rosenthal for giving me the opportunity to post these quotes as they are as relevant today as they were in World War II.

"What in the world is going on? How is it possible that some Jewish 'leaders' can be so blinded, brainwashed or corrupt and support Bosnian Moslems in their denying the Serbs their human rights." -- John Ranz, Chairman of Survivors of the Buchenwald Concentration Camp, USA.

"Jewish activist to Croatian leader: Don't bury Ustashe guards near Holocaust memorial . . .You now want to transfer the bones of those murderers to Jasenovac, so they lie next to the bones of those they had murdered in a joint memorial ground." -- Croatian Jewish leader Slavko Goldstein, in an open letter to President Franjo Tudjman, 8 February 1996. Not only did President Tudjman ignore the appeal from Mr. Goldstein to not bury his butchers next to their victims, President Tudjman's first official duty was to destroy all memorials to those who were exterminated Croatian death camps where over a million Serbs, Jews and Gypsies perished.

doctor13 - 11:47pm Apr 18, 1997 EST (#39

Please keep in mind when reading the following that Croatian-Americans today consider Ante Pavelic, as "The Greatest Man in Croatian History."

"The famous Italian writer Curzio Malaparte in his book "Kaputt" reports on his visit to Ante Pavelic, head of the Independent State of Croatia in 1942.

-- 'The Croatian people,' said Ante pavelic, 'wish to be ruled with goodness and justice. And I am here to provide them.'

While he spoke, I gazed at a wicker basket on the Poglavnik's desk. The lid was slightly raised and the basket seemed to be filled with mussels, or shelled oysters. Ante looked at me and winked, 'Would you like a nice oyster stew?' 'Are they Dalmation oysters?' I asked?

Ante Pavelic removed the lid from the basket and revealed the mussels, that slimy and jelly-like mass, and he said smiling, 'It is a present from my loyal Ustachi . . forty pounds of human eyes.' Quoted from page 2 of "Kaputt."

"Pictures of dead or wounded (or raped) Serbs often fill the screens of the world's television and print media, only to be re-labelled as dead or wounded or raped Croats or Muslims. Many Serbian victims -- and the bulk of the victims of the conflict, contrary to popular reports, have been Serbs either from Bosnia and Herzegovina or from Croatia -- not only sufffer the indignity of defeat in death; they also are used in death as models in the macabre image manipulation operations of the Croatians and Muslims Bosnians. -- Gregory Copely, Editor-in-Chief, Defense & Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy, London, 1992.

avoice - 02:02am Apr 19, 1997 EST (#40

The sad fact of the matter is that in this world no one cares much whether the Serbs hate the Croats (they do) or whether the Croats hate the Serbs (they do) or whether both of these people hate the Bosnian Muslims (they do). Nor does anyone much care why this is the case except the people involved, all who maintain vast ledgers of atrocities to which they add periodically so that the debits and credits balance. Most people just sit back and watch the balkanization of the Balkans passively. I think that the impulse to contain the Balkan wars has been the discomfort occasioned by the vast numbers of refugees pouring into Western Europe. It's cheaper to stop the South Slavs from killing each other off then it is to maintain then abroad.

doctor13 - 08:26am Apr 19, 1997 EST (#41

The question that A.M. Rosenthal asks, is there a rebirth of Croatian Fascism. The following excerpts are from newpaper articles supporting Mr. Rosenthal's position. In my opinion, it is not a question of "rebirth," but a question of "reestablishment." Consider the following headlines from primarily European newspapers, stories and headlines that just didn't seem to quite make it into the U.S. media, not from 50 years ago, but today. You be the judge.

Part 1 of 3 (Quotes)

"Role reversal is at the heart of the syndrome. They forever claim for instance that the Serbs are genocidal nazis, when history overwhelmingly proves that the honour -- or dishonour -- resides solely with the wartime Croatian Ustashe and SS Bosnian Muslims. . . They refuse to acknowledge that the only true genocide committed on the territory of the former Yugoslavia, was that committed against mainly Serbs, but also Jews and Romanies (Gypsies)." -- Johnny Byrne, August 15, 1996, "Heart of Croatian Darkness."

"Croatia Eradicates Traces of Its Serbs . . . Army Loots and Burns Krajina Homes." -- Michael Dobbs, "International Herald Tribune," September 4, 1995.

"EU report accuses Croatia of atrocities against rebel Serbs." -- Julian Borger, "The Guardian (London)," September 30, 1995.

Recently, Croatians greeted German troops. "The only thing that spoiled this milestone was the straight-armed fascist salute with which some Croats greeted the German, an expression of solidarity dating back to the alliance between Croatian fascists and the Nazis." -- Jerry Adler, "Newsweek," January 6, 1997.

doctor13 - 08:28am Apr 19, 1997 EST (#42

Part 2 of 3 (Quotes)

"In the presence of Catholic priests and senior state officials, the Croatian town of Omis has re-interred 100 Ustasha soldiers next to those who fell resisting the Nazi-supported World War II fascist regime." -- "Deja Vu," from the World Jewish Congress, December 1996.

"Croats rush to buy anti-Semitic book" "A Croatian version of the book Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a notorious fake published by anti-Semites in 1903, was selling briskly in Zagreb yesterday, despite protests from Simon Wiesenthal, the Austrian Nazi hunter." -- "International News," 9 November 1996.

"One thing Croatia has learned from America is how to manage the press. . . But the Croatian blizkrieg, tacitly supported by the United States, turned out to be a very American sort of operation, a model of, among other things, efficient media management. -- Michael Kelley, "The New Yorker," August 21 & 28, 1995.

"Male rape has been the scare story of choice along the Croatian croast ever since a young soldier claimed to have been sexually assaulted by a gang of Croatian men a month ago." -- Julian Borger, "The (London) Guardian," July 29, 1996.

"A British Soldier Dies After Being Beaten by Croats." -- London, (Reuter dispatch - undated).

"Croats are the clear winners in struggle between Muslims and Serbs. . . . The Croats are laughing. . . Germany's success in creating a strong Croatia will consolidate its pre-eminence in the European Union. -- Misha Glenny, "The Times" (London), September 2, 1995.

doctor13 - 08:36am Apr 19, 1997 EST (#43

Part 3 of 3 (Quotes)

"The real problem is getting Tudjman to drag the Bosnian Croats in line. But the guy lives in a dream world, surrounded by sycophants, and has a vision in his mind of a Greater Croatia, which, at this time is a greater threat than a Greater Serbia." -- The Christian Science Monitor, October 20, 1996.

"On a mural, next to images of Franciscan priests, is the local hero of the Ustash period, Ranko Boban, in the uniform worn by the Croatian nationalists who killed hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews and Muslims, as well as Croatian opponents to the Usstache. . . 'They say bad things about the Ustashe,' Sister Maximila said, 'But to us they were defending Croat culture, and they are heroes'." -- Mike O'Connor, "The New York Times International," February 13, 1996.

"Echoes of fascism at Croatian wedding." "While their President was ordering mobilisation in a midnight television broadcast, two young Croatian lawyers were giving the Nazi raised arm salute at a raucous wedding reception . . as the band played patriotic sonds." -- Philip Sherwell, "The Daily Telegraph," 7 October 1991.

"Fascist Salute Heard at Croatian Guardsmen's Funderal." --" The Associated Press," August 7, 1991.

"History is running backwards. We secretly approve of ethnic cleansing in Croatia, even if we do not admit it to ourselves." Anne McElvoy, "The (London) Spectator," 19 August 1995.

"And the Winner is . . . Croatia." -- Misha Glenny, The New York Times, 26 September 1995.

doctor13 - 09:33am Apr 19, 1997 EST (#44

I cannot disagree more with Posting #40 when it says that "in this world no one cares much" whether the Serbs hate the Croats or whether the Croats hate the Serbs, or whether the Irish hate the Brits, or the Brits hate the Irish, or whether the Tutsis hate the Hutus, etc., etc., etc. If the world didn't care, then what are we doing in Bosnia anyway, or in Haiti, or in Somalia, where 19 of our troops were mutilated, or in Saudi Arabia, where our kids were blown up protecting a privileged regime that does not permit one church nor one synagogue, and where our chaplains are obligated to to remove their religious patches from their uniforms in order not to offend the Saudis. Surely the blood of our children are worth some Islamic tolerance. These hatreds that you say "no one cares much" about, have led to the suffering and deaths of untold millions "in this world."

Croatia's fascist past is relevant. Why? Because their fascist mentality and behavior have not changed and because we are forcing, by our royal decree, that the Serbian people must once again live under fascist and Islamic domination (as though 500 years weren't enough). Can you imagine the outcry if, for the good of World Peace, our elite leaders decided to impose upon the Jews of the world to live under their Nazi executioners once again? Yet that is what we are demanding of the Serbian people. To live under their executioners, and to say to the world, "Gee, world, thanks." The point is, the Croat's do have an ideology. One of blind hatred against the Serbian people because of religion and ethnicity. Croatian hatred for Serbs has even reached the shores of this nation. However, the media prefer not to inform the American people of the desecrations of Serbian churches, by such methods of spray-painting Swastikas, obscene four letter words, urinating on church doors, and death threats by Croatian students at Arizona State University against the Serbian communities. This is today, my friend. This is now! Because some think "no one cares," I can guarantee, that the Serbian people whom we are forcing to submit to this obscenity certainly do and to the many of us who see the injustices that are being perpetrated by rewriting fascist history and denying the Serbian people at least the right to grieve for atrocities committed against them.

And yes, the devil does need to be exorcised.