Glina massacres

Coordinates: 45°20′22″N 16°05′29″E / 45.33944°N 16.09139°E / 45.33944; 16.09139
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Glina massacres
anti-Serbian sentiment, Greater Croatia, anti-Yugoslavism, Catholic fanaticism, Croatisation

The Glina massacres were killings of

Serbian Orthodox church before setting it on fire. The following day, approximately 100 Serb males were murdered by the Ustaše in the nearby village of Prekopi. Estimates of the overall number of Serbs killed from 11 to 13 May range from 260 to 417. Further killings in Glina occurred between 30 July and 3 August of that same year, when 700–2,000 Serbs were massacred by a group of Ustaše led by Vjekoslav Luburić
.

In many of these massacres, the prospect of conversion was used as a means to gather Serbs together so that they could be killed. Ljubo Jednak, the only survivor of these killings, went on to testify at the trials of the several prominent figures in the NDH after the war. Puk was captured by British forces in 1945 while attempting to flee to Austria and was extradited to Yugoslavia the following year, where he committed

State Security Service
.

An estimated 2,000–2,400 people were killed in the Glina massacres. In 1969, a monument was erected and a memorial museum was built to commemorate the victims of the killings. Following the independence of Croatia from Yugoslavia, the monument was removed by Croatian authorities in the town. After the Croatian War of Independence, the local authorities failed to restore it and dismantled it instead.

Background

On 6 April 1941,

Roman Catholicism.[12] The Ustaše then established numerous concentration camps where thousands of Serbs were mistreated, starved, and murdered.[13]

Minister of Justice, Mirko Puk, established a base in the town.[18]

Massacres

May 1941

The idea for the May 1941 massacre came from Mirko Puk, who was the Minister of Justice for the NDH.[19] On 10 May local Ustaše leadership met in Glina where they drew up a list of names of all the Serbs between sixteen and sixty years of age to be arrested.[20] After much discussion, they decided that all of the arrested should be killed.[21] On the night of 11 May, mass arrests of male Serbs over the age of sixteen began, regardless of occupation or class.[21][22] Most of the arrested Serbs voluntarily left with the Ustaše as they were told they would be taken in for questioning and subsequently released.[23] In historiography, two different versions of the massacre are described.

Some sources state that the Ustaše then herded the group into an Orthodox Church and demanded that they be given documents proving the Serbs had all converted to Catholicism. Two Serbs produced the required documents and were released. The Ustaše then locked inside[24] and massacred[25] those who did not possess conversion certificates, including priest Bogdan Opačić.[26] The bodies were then left to burn as the Ustaše set the church on fire[16] and waited outside to shoot any survivors attempting to escape the flames.[25]

Other sources provide a different account of the massacre and write that the men were first imprisoned in a small holding area of a former gendarmerie building.[27] Afterwards, on the night of 12 May, they were tied up in pairs, loaded into trucks and taken to a large pit where they were killed, primarily with guns.[28] Historian Rory Yeomans writes that they were executed with knives, meat cleavers, mallets,hammers and scythes.[29] The lone survivor of this first massacre was Nikica Samardžija, who managed to escape. He would later testify to the war crimes tribunal in Glina.[30] The crime was a precursor to an even crueler one that would occur three months later in the Glina Orthodox Church, where according to Slavko Goldstein 100 Serbs were killed.[31] On 13 May, further 100 Serb males were executed by the Ustaše in the nearby village of Prekopa.[32]

Estimates of the number of Serbs killed on 11–13 May vary. Historians

totalitarian dictator, there is no evidence that he had knowledge of the first Glina massacre at the time.[8]

July–August 1941

On the night of 30 July 1941, a massacre similar to the one in May again occurred in Glina.

Serbian Orthodox church in Glina where a conversion ceremony was to take place.[38] The Serbs who had gathered, thinking they were to undergo a conversion ceremony, were greeted by six members of the Ustaše[38] under the direct command of Vjekoslav Luburić.[39] When all were inside, the doors to the church were sealed. The Serbs were then forced to lie on the ground as the six Ustaše struck them one by one on the head with spiked clubs. More Ustaše then appeared and the killings continued.[38] Victims were killed by having their throats cut or by having their heads smashed in with rifle butts.[22]
Only one of the victims, Ljubo Jednak, survived after playing dead and later described what had happened:

They started with one huge husky peasant who began singing an old historical heroic song of the Serbs. They put his head on the table and as he continued to sing they slit his throat and then the next squad moved in to smash his skull. I was paralyzed. "This is what you are getting," an Ustaša screamed. Ustaše surrounded us. There was absolutely no escape. Then the slaughter began. One group stabbed with knives, the other followed, smashing heads to make certain everyone was dead. Within a matter of minutes we stood in a lake of blood. Screams and wails, bodies dropping right and left.[40]

The bodies were then put into trucks and were taken to a large burial pit, where they were left unattended long enough for Jednak to escape.[40] It is estimated that 200 Serbs were killed that evening. Killings continued on 3 August, when the Ustaše murdered the inhabitants of Serb villages in the vicinity of the church. About one month later, the church was burned down by the Ustaše.[32] Estimates of the number of Serbs killed from 30 July to 3 August vary widely. Sociologist Damir Mirković[22] and historian Paul Mojzes state that 700 Serbs were killed.[41] Journalist Tim Judah puts the number at 1,200,[42] and historian Iván T. Berend writes that the Ustaše killed 1,800 people.[43] Hoare writes that as many as 2,000 Serbs were murdered.[44] Historian Filip Škiljan notes that while many Serbs were killed in this massacre, the total number of killed, as well as its location and the manner in which it was done has not been fully established.[45]

Aftermath

Following the massacres, many Serbs from Glina and its surroundings fled to Serbia or were deported to Ustaše-controlled concentration camps.[46] The NDH collapsed in May 1945,[47] and the following year the Nuremberg trials judged that the persecution experienced by Serbs in the country was a crime of genocide.[25] Local Serbs returned to Glina after the war, partly out of a desire to remain near the graves of their deceased family members,[48] and lived peacefully alongside their Croat neighbours until the outbreak of the Yugoslav Wars in the 1990s.[49]

Puk, the organizer of the first massacre, was captured by British forces while attempting to flee to Austria in May 1945 and was extradited to Yugoslavia several months later, where he committed suicide by slitting his wrists with a

Minister of the Interior, Andrija Artuković, at his trial in Croatia.[55]

Legacy

From an estimated 300,000 Croatian Serbs that were murdered by the Ustaše from 1941 to 1945,[15] more than 18,000 were from Glina at its surroundings.[36] According to historians Hannes Grandits and Christian Promitzer, the massacres that occurred in the town in 1941 took the lives of approximately 2,000 Serbs.[46] Professor Mark Levene estimates that 2,400 people died over the course of five mass killings that occurred in Glina during 1941.[57] Sometimes called pogroms,[15] the killings have been described by Judah as being one of the most infamous of the early atrocities perpetrated by the Ustaše.[42] Professor Manus I. Midlarsky has noted that the burning of victims inside a church during the May killings "foreshadowed the later German massing of Jews inside their wooden synagogues in Poland ... [and] setting fire to the buildings as the congregants inside burned alive."[8]

The poem Requiem (Serbian: Rekvijem, Реквијем) by poet Ivan V. Lalić is dedicated to the victims of the massacres in Glina.[58] After the war, Yugoslav authorities removed the physical remnants where the church which had been burned down on 30 July had stood. In 1969, a monument by Antun Augustinčić and a museum (Croatian: Spomen-dom, lit. "Memorial home") were erected on the site and were dedicated to the victims of the massacres.[32][48]

Following the

Ministry of Culture, and to the Prime Minister of Croatia. They were publicly supported by writer Slavko Goldstein, but local Croatian Peasant Party politicians rejected their pleas.[32]

The annual commemorative event for the victims of the July–August 1941 massacres is held in the last week of July. The commemoration, which is jointly organised by the Serb National Council and the Antifascist League of Croatia, takes place both in front of the Memorial Home and at the Orthodox cemetery.

Notes

  1. ^ Jadovno & 27 August 2015.
  2. ^ Tomasevich 1975, pp. 84–86.
  3. ^ Tomasevich 1975, pp. 105–108.
  4. ^ Tomasevich 2001, pp. 62–63, 234–241.
  5. ^ Tomasevich 2001, pp. 397–409.
  6. ^ Hoare 2007, pp. 20–24.
  7. ^ Cox 2007, p. 224.
  8. ^ a b c Midlarsky 2005, p. 224.
  9. ^ Tanner 2001, p. 150.
  10. ^ Mojzes 2009, p. 159.
  11. ^ Israeli 2013, p. 79.
  12. ^ Judah 2000, p. 126.
  13. ^ Tomasevich 2001, pp. 398–399.
  14. ^ a b Mirković 1996, p. 30.
  15. ^ a b c Cox 2007, p. 225.
  16. ^ a b c d Tomasevich 2001, p. 398.
  17. ^ Judah 2000, p. 125.
  18. ^ Meier 1999, p. 127.
  19. ^ Goldstein 2013, p. 127.
  20. ^ Goldstein 2013, p. 128.
  21. ^ a b Goldstein 2013, p. 129.
  22. ^ a b c d Mirković 1996, p. 23.
  23. ^ Yeomans 2019, p. 10.
  24. ^ Cornwell 2000, p. 252.
  25. ^ a b c Singleton 1985, p. 177.
  26. ^ Rivelli 1998, p. 92.
  27. ^ Goldstein 2013, p. 131.
  28. ^ Goldstein 2013, pp. 131–132.
  29. ^ Yeomans 2019, p. 11.
  30. ^ Yeomans 2019, pp. 11–12.
  31. ^ Goldstein 2013, p. 135.
  32. ^ a b c d Pilsel & 16 July 2011.
  33. ^ Goldstein 1999, p. 137.
  34. ^ Ramet 2006, p. 119.
  35. ^ Hoare 2006, p. 22.
  36. ^ a b Rodogno 2006, p. 186.
  37. ^ Goldstein 2013, pp. 134–135.
  38. ^ a b c Glenny 2012, p. 500.
  39. ^ Goldstein 2007, pp. 22–24.
  40. ^ a b Falk 1990, p. 67.
  41. ^ Mojzes 2009, p. 160.
  42. ^ a b Judah 2000, p. 127.
  43. ^ Berend 1996, p. 376.
  44. ^ Hoare 2006, p. 23.
  45. ^ Škilјan 2014, p. 147.
  46. ^ a b Grandits & Promitzer 2000, p. 134.
  47. ^ Judah 2000, p. 124.
  48. ^ a b c Engelberg & 6 July 1991.
  49. ^ Štitkovac 2000, p. 162.
  50. ^ Dizdar et al. 1997, p. 334.
  51. ^ Dizdar et al. 1997, p. 242.
  52. ^ Tomasevich 2001, p. 401.
  53. ^ Dizdar et al. 1997, p. 306–310.
  54. ^ Tomasevich 2001, p. 562.
  55. ^ a b Blic & 20 May 1997.
  56. ^ Dizdar et al. 1997, p. 368.
  57. ^ Levene 2013, pp. 276–277.
  58. ^ Segel 2003, p. 327.
  59. ^ Ash 1999, pp. 166–167.

References

Books

Journals

Newspapers

Websites

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Glina_massacres&oldid=1202509423"