Serbian priest Aleksa Todorovic blessing the SVC soldiers:
Posted on 02/08/2009 12:26:55 PM PST by Ravnagora
From Iceland to Latvia, the growing financial crisis is triggering popular revolts. Several European governments are on the verge of being toppled. Yet, it is in the Balkans where the rising tide of discontent may have the most significant impact.
The bloody breakup of Yugoslavia left in its wake successor states - all of whom, with the exception of Slovenia, are mired in economic stagnation. The region's biggest disappointment, however, has been Croatia. It is now badly lagging behind its northern Slovene neighbor due to massive political corruption. Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader vows to lead his country into the European Union by 2011. Instead, he has transformed Croatia into a mafia state. The government's incompetence threatens to push the country toward economic collapse. It's no wonder thousands of protesters took to the streets in December demanding early elections.
Since coming to power in 2003, Mr. Sanader and his ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) have presided over a creeping authoritarian kleptocracy. Bribery, kickbacks and cronyism are ubiquitous. Most senior politicians possess unexplained wealth. Mr. Sanader has amassed a personal fortune, including a Zagreb mansion worth about 10 million euros and a luxurious watch collection valued at 150,000 euros. This kind of wretched excess would cause even former disgraced Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich to blush.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
You know, give or take a few thousand. Dio will simply deduct away a few thousand and bark about how misunderstood the Ustashi were and that Jasenovac was really a spa retreat.
It’s simply impossible since only 530,000 Serbs died during WW2 across the whole of Yugoslavia. So whoever made that claim was full of crap.
The simple fact is that you guys don't like it when Serbian crimes are exaggerated so you guys should be the first to understand why we don't like it when Croatian crimes are exaggerated.
Or do you support a double-standard?
Where have I denied that bad things went on at Jasenovac?
I’m not selling. You are simply innocent. Croats marched with Hitler, then with Stalin. — if you hired a hall in 1991-1992 in the USA and filled it with Serbs and asked them all to raise their hands if they came from Serbia, you got close to zero. These Serbs were cut off from Serbia in gerrymandered Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Serbs who served in the Yugoslav Army, fought Hitler in 1941 and were POWs in Germany, never went back to Churchill-FDR Yalta Yugoslavia.
Take it from this dog — Irish-American, brougt up Catholic by an Irish mother and an Irish-Amrican father, studied for the RC priesthood, learnt Serbo-Croat in the Cold War, served in US Army CIC, married an Austrian girl, whose mother and father spoke Slovenian. Whaddya say now?
Yet you fail to mention how Kosta Pecanac, Serbian war hero and head of the Chetniks, automatically put his forces at the disposal of the Germans upon the Yugoslav capitulation.
Yet you fail to mention the Serbian Volunteer Force put together by the Germans.
Yet you forget to mention Dmitrije Ljotic the Serbian Fascist leader of the Zbor Party who put his forces at the disposal of the Germans and who at the end of the war pushed for Mihailovic's Chetniks and Pavelic's Ustasha to regroup in Slovenia and Austria to create a common "anti-communist" force to fight Tito.
And yet you forget about Djujic's Chetniks in Croatia who never once fought the Italians nor Germans and fought on their side and accepted weapons from them.
And yet you forgot to mention the Chetniks of Hercegovina through Serbian politician Dobrosav Jevdjevic who sided with the Italians and later the Germans.
And yet you forget to mention Mihailovic's Chetniks in Serbia who accepted weapons from the Germans.
And you forget to mention Major Dangic's Eastern Bosnian Chetniks who signed an accord with the Germans only a few months after the start of the war to pursue a common anti-Partisan strategy.
Most Serbian forces collaborated in varying degrees.
Serbian priest Aleksa Todorovic blessing the SVC soldiers:
Yes, the Ljoticevi existed. But how large was this group, Dio? The Ljoticevi couldn't even win a single local election before the war -- they were a tiny faction, probably proportionally smaller than the American Nazi Party!
So you take a tiny faction, empowered by Germany only after Germany conquered Yugoslavia, and turn it into "all Serbs". That's nuts!
And how was Mihailovic supposed to be "pro-German" when he rescued 500 American Airmen even after the US had switched sides to Tito. Mihajlovic's Cetniks were killing Ljoticevi, so please tell me which one was pro-German? Mihailovic and the Ljoticevi can't all have been supporting Germany while they were killing each other!
You think that you are defending Croatia by distorting Serbia's WWII history -- you aren't. You are just dragging a red herring into the argument.
It's the same kind of red herring that you've used with "Jasenovac wasn't a death camp because there were people who were released from there". You provided me with a "list of those released from Jasonovac", and when I looked at it, I realized that the names were virtually all Croats! Yes, some "Croat dissidents" may have been released from Jasenovac, but that didn't render it "not a deathcamp" for Serbs, Jews and Gypsies!
You are preying on the ignorance of the uninformed in selling "a story" that does not fit the historical evidence.
The Ljoticevci weren't the only group, Bokababe. They're just one example. As for not winning a single election, neither did the Ustashe in Croatia.
So you take a tiny faction, empowered by Germany only after Germany conquered Yugoslavia, and turn it into "all Serbs". That's nuts!
Nowhere have I said "all Serbs". Nor is that the only faction. We can discuss the Chetniks under Kosta Pecanac, the units under Milan Nedic, the various MVAC forces, etc.
And how was Mihailovic supposed to be "pro-German" when he rescued 500 American Airmen even after the US had switched sides to Tito.
Because Mihailovic played a double game. He was actively engaged in a civil war with the Partisans and willingly taking German weapons and assistance to wipe them out all the while hoping that the Allies would land on the Dalmatian coast at which point his forces were to turn against the Axis.
Recall though that this refers specifically to those Chetniks under his direct control. Other Chetnik groups under Draza's Ravna Gora Movement began collaboration much, much earlier with most never having had fought the Axis. Examples include Djujic's Dinarska Chetnicka Divizija which was legalized by the Italian Fascists as an MVAC force and which later took part in combined actions with Germans and Ustashi forces against the Partisans in and around Knin and which were rescued by the Germans after being routed by the Partisans in Northern Dalmatia.
Another example includes the Chetnik head of Central Bosnia Uros Drenovic who like Djujic took weapons from the Germans, assisted in their offensives, and signed deals with the Ustashi for joint actions and patrols.
The rule in the areas west of the Drina was for Chetnik units to serve as Axis auxillaries after the fall of 1941 to the end of the war with minimal exceptions.
Mihajlovic's Cetniks were killing Ljoticevi, so please tell me which one was pro-German? Mihailovic and the Ljoticevi can't all have been supporting Germany while they were killing each other!
Mihailovic's Chetniks and Ljotic's forces occasionally skirmished, but by 1944 they were in open alliance and the Chetniks faciliatated Ljotic's move to Slovenia where Draza instructed Ljotic to find out the situation with the Slovene Chetniks and to try to build an anti-communist coalition with Croatian forces against Tito.
Recall also that Momcilo Djujic of Dalmatia was a follower of Dmitrije Ljotic while at the same time being a Vojvoda in Mihailovic's Ravna Gora Movement.
You think that you are defending Croatia by distorting Serbia's WWII history -- you aren't. You are just dragging a red herring into the argument.
Everything I've said is factual and can be documented.
It's the same kind of red herring that you've used with "Jasenovac wasn't a death camp because there were people who were released from there". You provided me with a "list of those released from Jasonovac", and when I looked at it, I realized that the names were virtually all Croats! Yes, some "Croat dissidents" may have been released from Jasenovac, but that didn't render it "not a deathcamp" for Serbs, Jews and Gypsies!
The list I provided you, one of several that still exist, have names from all those groups.
You are preying on the ignorance of the uninformed in selling "a story" that does not fit the historical evidence.
Once again, everything I have stated is factual and can be documented from different sources, none of them from NDH.
As an example Bokababe, which units defended the town of Benkovac in Dalmatia from the Partisans and fought side by side? Take a wild guess.
As for Jasenovac, the bulk of the civilians taken there came from the Kozara during Operation Kozara. Besides German and Croatian units guess which Serbian units took part in that offensive on the Axis side?
For someone who hates the Titoists and the Yugoslav communists (and rightfully so, I might add) you sure do keep repeating their "talking points" over and over again in various threads. But, these charges you repeat are very routine when it comes to any discussion of General Draza Mihailovich and his Chetniks. I usually let this stuff go and turn the other cheek, but I think your challenge is worth addressing, if for nothing else but to present an "alternative" to the usually commie propaganda that's been part of the historial record with regards to the Chetniks for over six decades now.
I don't want to just spout off, so I'll put together something reasonably coherent to respond to your challenges and will post it at another time. For now, though, I think it's worthwhile to provide the following statements by U.S. officer who saw things firsthand and who has no reason whatsoever to lie.
_________________
STATEMENT OF COLONEL ROBERT H. McDOWELL TO COMMISSION OF INQUIRY INTO CASE OF DRAZA MIHAILOVICH
I. PERSONAL BACKGROUND
The undersigned, as part of a total 25 years residence in the Near East and adjoining countries, acquired a broad general knowledge of Yugoslavia. Prior to the recent war, as a professor at the University of Michigan, he taught Modern Balkans History. During the war he has been concerned with Balkans intelligence since [the autumn of I942; has been in close touch with all Allied groups covering this area; and has had access to all pertinent material.
The undersigned was employed by the Army because of his broad and intimate background of experience and study and because he had established a certain scholarly reputation for objective approach to and consideration of research problems. The Army record of Ithe undersigned demonstrates that in war service this objectivity and balance have been maintained.
The undersigned was sent on a mission to General Mihailovich~in August, I944, and left Mihailovich territory on I November, I944. During this interval of almost constant travel in Western Serbia and Eastern Bosnia the undersigned, the U. S. officers attached to him and the rescued U. S. airmen who were encountered were all given complete liberty of movement and of access to the population. Unlike the situation which prevailed where U.S. officers were attached to Yugoslav Partisan Headquarters, the U.S. personnel in Mihailovich territory on the one hand were permitted to be present at important staff conferences, on the other hand could pick their routes their night's lodging, and their associates, unaccompanied by Mihailovich officers or men.
Finally, it should be emphasized that the undersigned has been a lifelong liberal, at times labeled as a "pink" or Communist.
In 1942, before Tito received general recognition, he advocated military aid to the Partisans on the same basis as to the Nationalists. After the mission to Mihailovich, he volunteered to return to Yugoslavia for further investigaftion in the company of Partisans and Allied officers who supported the Partisans. This offer was refused.
2. SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS
a. The undersigned has seen and heard of absolutely no evidence serving to connect General Mihailovich personally, or officers under his direct command, with any form of collaboration with the Germans. This evidence includes not only personal observation but the totality of the documents seen and conversations held with U. S., Allied, and even enemy, personnel. This includes very highly placed and responsible British officials.
On the other hand, a very substantial body of evidence supports the conclusion, to which the undersigned completely subscribes, that General Mihailovich, a known bitter anti- Nazi before the war, devoted himself wholeheartedly to the task of driving the Germans and their satellites out of Yugoslavia. That he accomplished relatively little toward this end was due to circumstances beyond his control, particularly the civil war fostered by the Yugoslav Communist Party.
b. The evidence on which General Mihailovich is accused in part is false, in part is a distortion of truth. His accusers, whatever the mouthpieces they find, are the few Yugoslav Communists who, by deception, have prostituted and destroyed the popular resistance movement which they led and who, during the war, were repeatedly proved guilty of gross falsehood and misrepresentation.
The real crime for which General Mihailovich is accused is that in the minds of 80 per cent of the Yugoslav population he became, and remains, the symbol of the simple, sturdy Yugoslav peasant resistance to tyranny, whether foreign or domestic.
c. The nature of the movement led by General Mihailovich is widely misunderstood outside the country. As the General repeatedly emphasized to the undersigned, the Nationalist movement of resistance against the Axis invasion came into being spontaneously all over the country. As in the American Revolution, the primary loyalty of the followers in each district was to the local leader, of whom there were, and are, thousands. The role of General Mihailovich was to attempt to co-ordinate all activities, and the General was sincerely embarrassed by the propaganda outside the country which misrepresented his position. This form of organization gives strength to a movement�since its roots are so widespread�but is also a source of weakness in that co- ordination and discipline suffer. General Mihailovich was in full control of only his own small force and of the forces of a few other leaders. He was in partial control of numerous bands, whose leaders accepted the broad strategy laid down by the General, but had no control whatsoever of other bands of Chetniks.
d. The term "Chetnik" is equivalent to guerrilla. There were Chetniks serving Mihailovich, but Chetnik bands also were raised by the Serb Puppet (sovernrnent, by the Germans, and by the Italians, and some bands accepted no higher sponsorship.
e. In addition to the Axis-sponsored bands, various resistance leaders, including both Communists and Nationalists, at various times made accommodations with the Axis authorities. As stated above, neither Mihailovich or those directly under his command can be accused of such accommodations. But certain leaders, Communist as well as Nationalist, made truces or agreements not to operate in certain areas, or exchanged supplies for munitions, etc. German au~~thorities constantly worked to bring about an increasing measure of collaboration. The Yugoslav Communist leaders today ignore their own record of accommodation and occasional outright collaboration with the Axis, and impute to Mihailovich actions with which he was not concerned.
f. The relative contributions to the Allied cause made by the Nationalists and Mihailovich on the one hand and by the Partisans ond their Communist leaders on the other, is a moot point. The evidence on both sides possessed by the undersigned may be summarized as follows:
( I ) Throughout the period of Axis occupation of ithe Balkans, on the average, Axis troops were concentrated as heavily in Nationalist territory as in Partisan territory.
(2) Axis reprisals against Nationalists, and particularly against men known to be loyal to Mihailovich, on the average were heavier than were those directed against Communists. There is ample evidence that over-all the Germans were more fearful of, and displayed greater venom against Mihailovich than Tito; Mihailovich Serbs suf fered greater reprisals than did Czechs or Western European resistance groups.
(3) Mihailovich was particularly active against the Axis during I94I and I942, when he made a very real confirmed, contribution to the Anglo-American campaigns in Africa through harassing of German lines of communication. During I943 and the first half of I944, the strength of German reprisals led him to adopt a more cautious policy, similar to that ordered by the Allies for other resistance groups in Europe. At the same time the Nationalists suffered constant attacks on the part of the Communist-led bands.
(4) When the undersigned reached Mihailovich Headquarters in August, I944, a general Nationalist mobilization had already been ordered. The undersigned was shown the plans and orders issued for an all out attack on Axis forces and, along with the other U. S. officers, personally witnessed the troop dispositions made for this offensive. The evidence was unmistakable that General Mihailovich has disposed his forces properly for a major effort against the German garrisons, depots, and lines of communication, but in doing this had been obliged to leave his rear and left flank exposed gto attack on the part of major Partisan concentrations which only recently had been attacking the Nationalists.
Insofar as the small group of American officers were able to cover the front and make observations, during September the Nationalist forces engaged German and Bulgarian forces tto the extent of their capability in equipment. Axis movements were thoroughly disrupted and considerable quantities of munitions and prisoners were taken.
At this moment the Communist-led forces of Marshal Tito attacked the Mihailovich forces on a broad front. This attack was personally witnessed by the undersigned and his staff. In a*acking the Mihailovich forces, the forces of Tito passed through the German line of garrisons on the Zap Morava River and ignored the Germans in favor of this attack against men already engaged against the Germans. Thereafter the principal effort of Tito's forces in Western Serbia was directed not against the Germans but toward the capture of General Mihailovich and the American Mission. These series of attacks forced General Mihailovich to retreat into Bosnia.
(5 ) There is good evidence, including the observations of a U. S. officer attached to the undersigned, that the forces of General Mihailovich, during October, were reorganized in Serbia and during that month, as well as subsequently, made a very substantial contribution to the defeat of German forces, including joint operations with the Soviet forces, until Communist intrigue and attacks led to their dispersal.
(6) The communiques issued by the Communist-led Yugoslav forces consistently presented a false picture of military operations. In Cairo during the first half of 1944, the undersigned was directly concerned with an Allied committee to evaluate the state of Axis lines of communication in the Balkans. This group had at its disposal all sources of information. The Communist communiques of their operations against German communications proved themselves so consistently untrustworthy that their evidence was finally deemed worthless.
As a result of the above experience the undersigned maintained a group of personnel to evaluate these Communist communiques on the basis of their own evidence. This long range study revealed that Communist claims of territory liberated in Yugoslavia and of defeats of Axis forces were consistently contradicted by subsequent communiques. It was evident that they were put out as propaganda, and they put in serious doubt all Yugoslav Communist claims of contribution to the Allied cause other than those actually witnessed by Allied officers.
Prior to the departure of the undersigned behind the lines in Yugoslavia, he was shown the official maps of the Yugoslav Communist Headquarters, showing the respective territory held by Mihailovich and Tito. The area into which the undersigned planned to drop to make contact with Mihailovich was shown as part of a laroer area of Western Serbia allegedly liberated and held by Tito's forces. The U. S. Air Rescue Mission and the undersigned with his group landed in this area and traveled all over Western and much of Central Serbia. Outside of the German held towns the whole countryside was held by the forces and administration of Mihailovich. There was no evidence that Communist control had ever been established in this area.
Subsequently, when the undersigned retreated into Northeast Bosnia with Mihailovich, he found all that area, outside the Axis held towns, held by Mihailovich forces. The population, as in West Serbia, openly wore the royal insignia, and there were Nationalist hospitals and schools. Yet at the very time the undersigned was traveling around this area, he listened to American broadcasts quoting the Yugoslav Communist communiques in statements describing their "liberation" of this area.
Subsequently again, in the Bosna River basin around Doboy, the undersigned spent some weeks traveling freely and meeting everywhere a joint Nationalist administration set up by Serbs, Croats, and Moslems in opposition to the German puppet regimes. During this period the undersigned again heard the broadcasts of communiques claiming Communist led operations in this area.
The undersigned is convinced by all the evidence that the rank and file of the movement led by Tito and the other Communist leaders sought to resist the Axis just as did the Nationalists. Hovvrever, the actual resistance offered to the Axis was strictly limited by the Priority imposed by the Communist leaders to the civil war and the effort to destroy the influence of Mihailovich. Under the circumstances no group of Yugoslav resistants was able to make a substantial contribution during 1944 and 1945.
3. GERMAN OFFICIALS AT THE HEADQUARTERS OF MIHAILOVICH
Much has been made of reports of visits to the Headquarters of General Mihailovich on the part of a certain Herr Starker, a German Foreign Office employee, in the fall of 1944. The following is the true account of this incident. German officials made a contact with the undersigned for the purpose of discussing the surrender of German forces. As is now well known there were many such German contacts during the last months of German resistance, and they had little significance due to the Nazi unwillingness to realize that the Allies were serious in their demands for unconditional surrender. The undersigned was instructed to listen to and transmit any German offer. General Mihailovich was most unwilling to have any contact with Germans but agreed to Starker's coming, on the insistence of the undersigned. The undersigned had two interviews with Starker. As the General was with the undersigned both prior to and after these interviews, there could have been no opportunity for the General to have had private meetings with Starker During the period covered by these meetings the Yugoslav Communist efforts to capture Mihailovich were so constant and severe that it must have been evident to the Germans that the General was in no position to aid them or to accept aid from them. The undersigned is convinced that this incident is simply an example of the effort made today to destroy the reputation of General Mihailovich by the distortion of facts.
ROBERT H. McDOWELL, Colonel, GSC. (Printed Report of the Commission of Inquiry, pp. 12-16)
The mistake you're making is that my points aren't Titoist talking points. I don't use Communist sources when it comes to the Chetniks but rather use firsthand Chetnik sources as well as Italian and German sources found in the archives in Germany and Italy after the war.
However, I found this hilarious tidbit from the comedic testimony that you posted:
The real crime for which General Mihailovich is accused is that in the minds of 80 per cent of the Yugoslav population he became, and remains, the symbol of the simple, sturdy Yugoslav peasant resistance to tyranny, whether foreign or domestic.
Considering that the Serbs formed roughly around 45% of the population of Yugoslavia at that time and that the Serbs themselves were split between the Chetniks and the Partisans (for the most part) and considering the attitudes of the Croatians, Bosnian Muslims, Magyars, Macedonians, Albanians, and pro-independence Montenegrins towards the Draza Chetniks, the 80% figure is absolutely hilarious.
Why does the testimony not contain any mention of Draza's key figures in his movement such as Dangic, Djujic, Bacovic, and Jevdjevic...all men who openly collaborated with the Axis?
Why is there no mention of which side the Chetniks appeared on during several key Axis offensives against the Partisans?
Why did Robert H. McDowell omit so much from his testimony?
There are numerous testimonies from many sources that were part of the “Commission of Inquiry of the Committee for a Fair Trial for Draza Mihailovich” hearings in New York in 1946 while Mihailovich was awaiting trial by the communist court in Belgrade. What I have posted here is just a portion of the conclusions of the commission which included McDowell’s testimony.
Do you realize that every time there is reference to Croatian crimes, you always bring up Mihailovich, the Chetniks, and the Serbs? It’s as if you want to distract and divert attention from one thing by focusing on another.
You are using very selective sources. There are many German and Italian sources that describe in detail how the Croatians behaved during World War Two. Gruesome detail. But you never quote the German and Italian sources when it comes to the Independent State of Croatia 1941-1945.
My Grandfather was one of them.
Dio is funny that way, he derides the communists but has no trouble presenting the communist argument when it suits him. Its all about that spit shine on that glorious Croatian past.
As for bringing up Chetniks, the Serbs here always bring up WW2 on topics that have no relevance to it like this thread. The lead article has nothing to do with WW2. So when the Serbs bring it up and try to suggest that Serbs were somehow non-collaborators, I have to pull out the facts and show otherwise.
Notice how Bokababe avoids answering the question about the Kozara anti-partisan operation in 1942. Serbs don't like to hear the fact that Vojvoda Radic's Chetniks took part in that operation to sweep the Kozara of Tito's Partisans and aided the Germans, Ustashi, and Domobrans in that action that saw those very same Serbian civilians and Partisans sent to Jasenovac.
Why don't the Serbs touch upon who defended Benkovac from the Partisans in the dying days of the war, fighting shoulder to shoulder with them? (It was the Ustashi).
I’m not presenting the communist argument. I’m presenting the facts based on Chetnik sources and military documents found in the German and Italian archives post-war.
The following is a letter by U.S.A.F. Col. James Jatras [Ret] published in The Washington Times on July 7, 1997 regarding Chetniks and Croats:
The June 21 Letter to the Editor by Mladen J. Udbinac, under the heading “Article condemning Croatia draws angry responses,” is a typical example of revising and twisting historical facts regarding the role of the Chetniks (Yugoslav nationalists) in World War II.
Mr. Udbinac also states that criticism of Croatia today is “without any sort of concrete evidence.” I would like to set the facts straight, as reported in this newspaper.
In a commentary in The Times of June 11, 1985, Milt Copulos wrote that, “Information contained in these documents [previously classified OSS files and Nazi documents] now make it clear that the leader of Yugoslavia’s nationalist forces, [ Chetniks ], General Draza Mihailovich, was the victim of an active campaign of subversion conducted by James Klugman, a highly placed Communist agent in British intelligence and close associate of master spy Kim Philby.”
Rather than collaborating with the Nazis as claimed by Mr. Udbinac, Serbian forces under Gen. Mihailovich were loyal to the Allies in WW II and rescued over 500 downed American pilots while at the same time Croats and Muslims were turning our airmen over to the Nazis. Due to disgracefull politics (we did not want to offend our Communist friend, Josef Tito - himself a Croat), our State Department denied the efforts by American pilots to have a monument erected to honor those brave Serbians wh o sacrificed their lives to rescue them. In his account of the rescue, Major Richard Felman, an American Jew from Tucson, Arizona, recalls, “I watched in horror with binoculars as the Germans executed the entire village of Serbians who refused to disclo se my hideaway with Draza Mihailovich’s forces.” On June 9, 1994, The Times carried an open letter to President Clinton from Major Felman and his fellow survivors deploring the bombing in Bosnia where Americans were killing “ the very Serbian people who saved our lives while at the same time helping some of the people who were shooting at us and turning us over to the Germans.”
Mr. Ubinac’s accusation of Serbian anti-Semitism is even more egregious considering Serbian families took in Jewish children as their own in order to protect them from the horrors of Croatia’s death camps. Upon being discovered protecting these children, entire Serbian families were executed.
John Ranz, Chairman of the Survivors of Buchenwald, USA writes, “In the Serbian mountains Jews were welcomed by the Serbian partisans with open arms, and the 5,000 that survived in Yugoslavia survived among the partisans. The Serbs protected them until the end of the war at the risk of endangering their own lives.”
Regarding Mr. Udbinac’s comment that criticism of Croatia today is “without any sort of evidence,” how does he explain “ the photographic and autopsy evidence of 3,200 bodies, mostly elderly Serb village women, their throats cut and their faces smashed in,” as reported by Edward Pearce in The Evening Standard (London), Aug. 7, 1995? A similar fate awaited elderly Serbs who were left behind when Croatian forces, trained by retired U.S. generals (”Retired U.S. brass sell military expertise,” The Washington Times, Nov. 25, 1995) “ethnically cleansed” 200,000 Serbs from their ancestral homes in Krajina and systematically shot or cut the throats of those who remained.
Hatred of the Serbian people, as exemplified by Mr. Udbinac’s misrepresentations and distortions, has shown itself in other ways. On August 9, 1996, St. Sava Serbian Orthodox Church in Phoenix, Arizona was desecrated. The church was spray-painted with swastikas, along with the dreaded “U” for “Ustashe,” Croatia’s Nazi party. Obscene words were sprayed on the walls in the Croatian and English languages. Signs of urination were evident on the church doors. There have been similar i ncidents in Chicago, Los Angeles and Toronto, Canada. Not long afterward, there was a series of e-mail messages, which included death threats, as well as a comment about “how do you like what we did to your stinkin [sic] church.” The messages gave the origin and the name of the student from Arizona State University who sent them. Despite numerous letters, telephone calls and messages to congressmen, police, and the university president demanding that the perpetrators be found and punished, the invest igation has been closed “for lack of evidence.”
Major Richard Felman and our rescued American airmen are still waiting for the United States government to show its appreciation to those who saved their lives. Serbian Americans in Phoenix, Chicago and Los Angeles are still waiting for action to find and punish those responsible for cowardly “hate crimes.” No American,including those like me who are not of Serbian descent, should remain silent while a proud people, our allies in two world wars, are vilified and their churches desecrated.
Col. GEORGE JATRAS
(USAF RET.)
__________________________
HEINRICH HIMMLER ISSUES ORDER TO DESTROY DRAZA MIHAILOVICH
Excerpt from Britain, Mihailovich and the Chetniks 1941-42
By Simon Trew
“While the Chetniks in Serbia were rebuilding their strength, the Communist-led guerrillas were losing what little remained of their own. The last of the Partisan odreds on the right bank of the river Drina was driven into Bosnia in March, while in the same month Bulgarian troops, legalized Chetniks and other Nedic forces dealt their detachments near Leskovac a heavy blow. By June there were only 852 Partisans in the whole of the country and after an offensive against the survivors in southern Serbia during July, barely 500 remained. However, although the near-destruction of his rivals could only be a source of satisfaction for Mihailovich, it did of course mean that the enemy’s attention was more and more likely to be turned towards dealing with his own organization. Certainly, by mid-summer 1942 the Germans were becoming increasingly worried by the revival of Chetnik strength and the potential threat that the latter represented. On July 17 Heinrich Himmler, the Reichsfuhrer-SS, wrote to one of his colleagues:
‘The basis of every success in Serbia and in the entire southeast of Europe lies in the annihilation of Mihailovich. Concentrate all your forces on locating Mihailovich and his headquarters so that he can be destroyed. Any means may be used to achieve this end. I expect the smoothest cooperation between all agencies concerned, from the Security Police and Security Service to all other branches of the SS and police. The head of the SS and police Meissner has already received instructions from me in this regard. Please let me know which clues we already have of Mihailovich’s whereabouts. Please inform me weekly about the progress of this action.’”
* * *
Yes, you are correct.
However, the Germans later turned on Mihailovic.
And, I would also point out to you that Tito's deputies (1943) also engaged in discussions with the Germans in Zagreb.
Look, the truth of the matter is, it's as you say - there was a civil war within a broader World War.
More specifically, for three years both Mihailovic and Tito moved their forces across the NDH territories locked in combat with one another, with the Germans, with the Italians, with the Ustashas, or in some form of triangular combination.
In view of the above, I can make plenty of arguments for "my side of the story."
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