Posted on 01/23/2015 6:46:51 PM PST by Ravnagora
Memorial held for World War II era dictator Ante Pavelić, whose fascist regime was allied with Nazi Germany.
Ante Pavelić. (photo credit:Wikimedia Commons)
Hundreds of Croatians attended a memorial mass in Zagreb on Sunday for World War II-era dictator Ante Pavelić, local media reported.
Pavelić’s fascist regime was allied with Nazi Germany and was responsible for the murder of tens of thousands of Jews. Hundreds of thousands of ethnic Serbs were also murdered under his rule.
Protesters yelling “Oppose the glorification of fascism” and other anti-fascist slogans pushed against police, who blocked them from entering the church. In a video of the confrontation, posted on You- Tube, several policemen stood in a tight knot around the door of the church in falling snow, while others kept the opposing sides apart, at one point detaining a man who attempted to breach the lines.
The founder of the extreme nationalist Ustaše movement, Pavelić advocated armed rebellion against the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and engaged in acts of terror in furtherance of this goal. After the Germans conquered Yugoslavia in 1941, he was installed as head of the new puppet state, described by Yad Vashem as a “fiercely cruel regime” in which “hundreds of thousands of Serbs and tens of thousands of Jews were murdered in death camps and in other awful ways, such as being thrown off cliffs or burned alive in their homes.”
Following the war, Pavelić made his way to Argentina, where he was wounded in an assassination attempt. He died in 1957.
In a 2012 speech before the Knesset, Croatian President Iso Josipović apologized for his nation’s role in the Holocaust and asked that survivors forgive Croatia.
“Some members of my nation worked to systematically destroy parts of humanity. We must look in our hearts, at the darkest stain in our history,” he said.
Thirty-three percent of Croatians harbor anti-Semitic views, according to a recent Anti-Defamation League global survey, with over half of the respondents in that country saying they believed that Jews were more loyal to Israel than to their countries of residence, that they hold too much power in business and that they speak too much about the Holocaust.
“It is hard to believe that in the center of the capital of a member of the European Union, very close to Zagreb’s Jewish community, hundreds of people gathered yesterday to commemorate the memory of one of Europe’s biggest mass murderers,” Efraim Zuroff, head of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Jerusalem office, said in a prepared statement.
“Such a ceremony is an insult to the memory of Pavelić’s hundreds of thousands of innocent victims,” Zuroff said. “It is also a badge of shame for the Catholic Church, which allowed such a ceremony to take place in the Basilica of the Heart of Christ – who, had he been alive during World War II, would have been targeted for annihilation as well.”
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Forgotten History Bump.
Perhaps the Holocaust hasn’t been brought up enough if events like this draw large crowds. My God, have they even seen the pictures. Is that what they want once again? I’m afraid it is.
The Ustaše were so savage, even the SS was taken aback.
That says something.
I often wonder if Serbs had sided with the Nazis if Croatia would have sided with a Allies.
This happened INSIDE a Catholic church? Seriously? that’s messed up.
“I often wonder if Serbs had sided with the Nazis...”
Some did:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serbian_State_Guard
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serbian_Volunteer_Corps_(World_War_II)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslav_National_Movement
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chetniks#Axis_collaboration
“This happened INSIDE a Catholic church? Seriously? that’s messed up.”
Depends on how he died, really. But this is an interesting quote from a related article:
“Jewish groups are loudly complaining to the Catholic Church for allowing a memorial mass for someone they call a “murderer.” The Church responded by saying that memorial masses are available to all Catholics and are never denied.”
http://www.wiesenthal.com/site/apps/nlnet/content.aspx?c=lsKWLbPJLnF&b=8776547&ct=14419347
Sounds like this guy should’ve been fitted for a hempen necktie along with Eichmann. Too bad he didn’t get the same swinging experience.
This wasn’t a funeral. One where he died in a state of repentance. This was a mass to remember a Nazi, inside the church. Disgusting.
And he fled to Argentina and never repented. Conventionally he would be an odd person for the church to host memorial masses for. Unless of course,,,they were old friends.
“memorial masses are available to all Catholics and are never denied.”
Like passports to South America?
You’re reading half the story (as is often portrayed during discussions of Europe at the time). Many countries faced communist revolutions and saw their monarchies fall, and saw fascism as a preferable alternative to communism; especially after the massacre of Catholic religious in Spain during their civil war (8,000 priests - including a dozen bishops - executed, along with hundreds of nuns, without the “western allies” lifting a finger). Hitler & Mussolini intervened to suppress the communists is Spain and elsewhere (with the help of former monarchists), while the Soviet Union supported the communist revolutionaries. Within a short time other populations faced the same choice; second-guessing their decisions seems easy today, but the fact is that the west wasn’t intervening to contain communism as they would during the Cold War. The populations of eastern Europe had no idea that they’d been bartered away at conferences between Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill, and they paid a steep price for that; the enslavement of those populations subsequent to WWII certainly vindicates their concerns about communists.
THIS IS NOT A DEFENSE OF THE PERPETRATORS OF ATROCITIES OR NAZISM; IT IS SIMPLY PUTTING THE WHOLE SITUATION OUT THERE.
How many of the perpetrators of the Katyn forest massacre have ever repented or been brought to justice? How many of the perpetrators of the Holmodor in Ukraine? Both sides in these struggles were far removed from America’s ideals, but apparently only one is held to account. In the meantime, Red China (which forcibly aborts second children being born to women) is our trading partner and “friend”; our first lady (Hillary) even attended a women’s conference there...
Francisco Franco had it right; he saved his country from communism, then remained neutral as two devils fought for mastery of Europe (saving countless Jewish refugees in the process). Even he was ostracized by the west until the Cold War, when the US went to him hat in hand to ask about setting up bases in Spain; he accepted, and his speech at that time is touching - it reflects the ambiguity ot west in dealing with what he had done a decade earlier, and the new attitude of the US towards him was all the vindication he needed.
The issues in the former Yugoslavia were complicated by religion, ethnicity/language, and politics; it was bound to be brutal.
Oddly enough, the west that awarded all of those territories to Serbia after WWI (creating Yugoslavia, with Serbia’s king as the king of the new country) bombed Serbia into submission to release them 75 years later - after treating those minorities that fought against Serbian domination as enemies in WWII.
“Sounds like this guy should’ve been fitted for a hempen necktie along with Eichmann. Too bad he didn’t get the same swinging experience.”
Yeah, but the U.S. and the West thought he was useful so he was always protected.
“This wasn’t a funeral.”
I never said it was.
“One where he died in a state of repentance.”
How do you know how he died? Were you there?
“This was a mass to remember a Nazi, inside the church.”
Actually he was a member of the Ustase which held some views held by the Nazis. I don’t know if he ever became a Nazi party member.
“Disgusting.”
Yeah, but to many Croats he is a hero of their first modern independence. They don’t care how he did it or how many people he killed doing it.
“And he fled to Argentina and never repented.”
How do you know he NEVER repented? Seriously, how do you know he didn’t do it on his death bed, for instance?
“Conventionally he would be an odd person for the church to host memorial masses for. Unless of course,,,they were old friends.”
In Croatia many people view him as a hero. What one parish or even one diocese in Croatia does has no reflection on the Church in general.
“This was a mass to remember a Nazi...”
I think he was more of an opportunist. That’s the only way I can understand why he originally hired so many Jews or people of Jewish background to run Croatia when allied to the Nazis:
Vlado Singer was Chief Commissioner of the party. Then he was killed in a detah camp by his own party members.
Slavko Kvaternik was a deputy of Pavelic and married to Olga Frank whose father was a famous Croatian nationalist and of Jewish background (the father-in-law that is). I know there were several other Jews or people of Jewish background in Pavelic’s regime. I can’t recall their names.
I think Pavelic would kiss up to anyone who would make Croatian an independent state. If that mean the Nazis, then he would do it and adopt their evil policies as well.
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