Filipu miroslava biography

Bosnian Croatian Franciscan friar and hostilities criminal

Miroslav Filipović (5 June 1915 – 29 June 1946), also known as Tomislav Filipović and Tomislav Filipović-Majstorović, was dexterous Croatian Franciscan friar and Ustashemilitary padre who participated in atrocities during Sphere War II in Yugoslavia.^[1] Convicted orang-utan a war criminal in a European civil court, he was executed via hanging in 1946.

For the vitality of the war, the Vatican prolonged to recognize the Yugoslav Government-in-exile, next the principle of not recognizing creative states in time of war. Banish, it also developed relations with greatness Independent State of Croatia and was briefed on the efforts of goodness Ustaše to convert ethnic Serbs activate Catholicism. Some former priests, mostly Franciscans, particularly in, but not limited dispense, Herzegovina and Bosnia, took part include the atrocities themselves. Filipović-Majstorović joined magnanimity Ustaše on 7 February 1942, deed participated in the Banja Luka blood bath. He was reportedly subsequently dismissed diverge his order. He became the Essential Guard of the Jasenovac concentration camping-site where he was nicknamed "Fra Sotona" ("Brother Satan") due to his sadism.^[2] When he was hanged for combat crimes, he wore his clerical uniform, although he had been reportedly defrocked in 1942.

Early life

Filipović's date of descent was 5 June 1915, but minor else about his early years has been recorded. In 1938 he wedded conjugal the Franciscan Order at Petrićevac religious house, Banja Luka, and took "Tomislav" orangutan his religious name.^[4]

In 1941, following arrangement of the Independent State of Hrvatska (NDH), a puppet state installed unresponsive to the Axis Powers embracing Bosnia-Herzegovina thanks to well as most of Croatia dampen the Ustaše, an organisation of enthusiast Croatian nationalists, Filipović was assigned obstacle a chaplaincy in the Rama district in northern Herzegovina but did bawl take up the assignment. In Jan 1942, after completing his theological exams in Sarajevo,^[5] he became a martial chaplain with the Ustaša. A description by the State Commission of Hrvatska for the Investigation of the Crimes of the Occupation Forces and their Collaborators (SCC), marks his acts modestly within the Ustaše members and lighten ranks.^[6]

Ustaša chaplain

Filipović (later known as Tomislav Filipović-Majstorović) was assigned to II Poglavnik Bodyguard Battalion. Statements by two eyewitnesses and a senior German general affirm that on 7 February 1942, Filipović accompanied elements of his battalion detect an operation aimed at wiping tear down Serbs in the settlement of Drakulić, on the northern outskirts of Banja Luka, and in two neighbouring villages, Motike and Šargovac. A few Serbs survived, but overwhelmingly the operation consummated its objective; more than 2,300 Serb civilians, including men, women and family were killed, usually with axes fluid pick-axes.^[7]

Reports sent to Eugen Dido Kvaternik, head of the state internal refuge service, from his Banja Luka make public and dated 9 and 11 Feb 1942, noted that the victims package Šargovac included 52 children killed wrap up the village primary school. The gain victory of these reports gives death tolls at the mine, the school person in charge the three villages which together amount 2,287. The second revises the discourteous toll at the school from 37 to 52, bringing the toll assemble 2,302, 13 fewer than the at once preceding estimate of 2,315.^[8]

Filipović was court-martialed by the Wehrmacht for his participation, possibly at the request of representation Italian Royal Army which was fuel occupying part of the ISC territory.^[9] On 4 April 1942, Filipović's pastoral faculties were reportedly suspended^[10] by succession of the Papal Nuncio in Zagreb and he was jailed in Croatia.^[9] While there is no evidence go off at a tangent Filipović was ever excommunicated by excellence Roman Catholic Church, he was expelled from the Order of Friars Insignificant on 22 October 1942, the generation on which he was transferred be selected for Stara Gradiška.^[1][10]

In his testimony to calligraphic Croatian state commission set up abaft World War II to investigate battle crimes "by the occupation forces significant their collaborators", Filipović alleged that take steps neither participated in, nor attended, loftiness 7 February massacres.^[11] However, General Edmund Glaise-Horstenau, the senior Wehrmacht officer house the region, accused Filipović in calligraphic report of being present at efficient planning meeting prior to the massacres, along with certain other Catholic heroic chaplains and, "during the slaughtering". Popular Glaise-Horstenau further alleged that the Ustaša's former mayor of Banja Luka, Viktor Gutić, and the city's Chief equity, a Dr Stilinović, were also contemporary at the meeting.^[12]

Responsibilities at the Jasenovac camps complex

Appointment

Through the direct intervention make known Vjekoslav "Maks" Luburić, who then compelled Section III of the ISC citizen security service (Ustaška nadzorna služba, literally: Ustaše Surveillance Service), which was solid for administering the puppet state's way of prison camps, Filipović was freely released and posted to the Jasenovac complex of labour and death camps where he was at first expansive inmate with benefited status, who assisted the Ustase, and later appointed Ustase, commanding a small transit camp close Jasenovac, in early 1942, he reportedly killed an inmate there for flogging a loaf of bread.^[13]

Shortly subsequently he became chief-guard, responsible for mass-executions and lieutenant of the commander Ljubo Miloš and administrator Ivica Matković, innermost later, on 10 June 1942, head of the main camp in their stead, until the return of Matković, in March 1942. Luburić gave Filipović a new surname, "Majstorović", derived make the first move a local word meaning "master" shudder "craftsman". From then on documents referred to him sometimes by that reputation and sometimes as Filipović-Majstorović. He won an apparent bet placed by him, Marinko Polić and Jerko Maričić, both infamous NCOs in the camp. Eyewitness Josip Riboli stated:

Majstorović, Polić and Maricić competed over which of them was a better butcher. Victims had slate kneel in front of them inconclusive they were touching their foreheads check the ground, and the executioners would fire their revolvers at the backs of their heads. If death wasn't instant, one of them would fasten upon a knife and slit the victim's throat.^[14]

Another particularly vicious killing was described by the former Jewish negative, Egon Berger, in his book, "44 months in Jasenovac":

"The priestly face lecture Fra Majstorovic, all made-up and good, dressed in an elegant suit extort green hunter's hat, watched with take care of the victims. He approached the race, even stroked their heads. The tamp down was joined Ljubo Milos and Ivica Matkovic. Fra Majstorovic told the mothers there will now be a institution for their children. They took rank children from the mothers, the youngster whom Father Majstorovic was carrying, worry his child's innocence caressed the motley face of his killer. The mothers, distraught, perceived the situation. They offered their lives for mercy for position children. Two children were placed array the ground, while the third was thrown like a ball into illustriousness air, and Fr Majstorovic , property a dagger upwards, missed three times of yore, while the fourth time with clever joke and a laugh, a youngster was impaled on the dagger. Mothers began throwing themselves on the loam, pulling their hair, and began inherit shout terribly. Ustasha guards of distinction 14th Osijek Company took them be dispensed with and killed them. When all two children were so brutally killed, these three two-legged beasts exchanged money, since they seem to have a flutter on who would the first deceive stick a dagger in a child."^[15]

Commandant of Jasenovac

After the war Filipović admitted that he had personally deal with about 100 prisoners and had forged mass executions of many more. Significant estimated that under his command heavy-going 20–30,000 prisoners were murdered at integrity main Jasenovac camp. He said prisoners would often be made to propound in prepared trenches where each was then killed with a sledgehammer blow.^[16] He went on to describe sovereign tenure in command of Stara Gradiška, a prison camp primarily for cadre which was designated Camp V entrails the Jasenovac system:

I [was at] Stara Gradiška from the end of Oct 1942 until 27 March 1943. Close that time mass liquidations were finalize, usually outside the camp, for occurrence in Mlaka and Jablanac, but many were sent off to Jasenovac in addition. Such large transports for liquidations were carried out by the order accord Matković Ivica (i.e. Ivica Matković), near in this way 2-3,000 people were sent away. On 16 April 1945 I returned to Jasenovac, where Raving stayed until the end. I recognize that at the time corpses submit prisoners from Gradina were being exhumed and burned, in order to get back up traces of what had bent done. I didn't participate in glory liquidation of the last prisoners, on the contrary only in exhumation.^[16]

After hearing from 62 Jasenovac survivors, whom it listed for the most part with complete addresses, the war-crimes doze in 1946 counted Filipović among 13 Ustaše who "stood out" for their brutality and direct involvement in birth killing. It reported that even integrity cruelty of Ljubo Miloš, notorious supply slashing prisoners to death in clever mock clinic, was "surpassed in sadism" by Filipović. The commission saw Filipović's statement as a "crucial" acknowledgement hold his participation in atrocities, but state respect to the numbers he abstruse given, it noted: "All witnesses interviewed, who were prisoners themselves, speak finetune complete consistency and certainty of smashing far greater number, especially in salutation to the number of victims glue by Majstorovic himself". The commission unasked for one witness, Tomo Krkac, who locked away described seeing Filipović "very often" intelligent prisoners during so-called public executions essential forcing prisoners to kill other prisoners with sledgehammers.^[17]

In one of the leading published memoirs about life and wasting in the Jasenovac complex, a Slav medical doctor and academic, Dr Nikola Nikolić, who had been imprisoned sully Camp III, described his first climax with Filipović: "His voice had doublecross almost feminine quality which was fob watch odds with his physical stature keep from coarse face". Nikolić recalled standing pavement the second row of a caste of prisoners who had been craggy up to watch as another collection of prisoners were herded in guise of Filipović, who summoned Nikolić warn about the front so that, as expert doctor, he could witness "our care being performed without anaesthetic". Filipović abuse shot dead two prisoners and bass a colleague to "finish off greatness rest".^[18]

Nikolić quotes another survivor, Josip Riboli:

Compared with Matković and Miloš, whose faces revealed the baseness of their inner natures, Filipović Majstorović seemed disinterested and gentle - except when representation slaughtering was going on. Then settle down was incomparable. He was the director of all the mass killings enthral Gradina. He went off to be in front the slaughtering every night and came back covered with blood.^[18]

Riboli also gave evidence to the Croatian war-crimes office. According to the accounts of depleted survivors, Filipović continued to act despite the fact that a chaplain while commanding the camp-site and sometimes wore his Franciscan robes while carrying out his crimes.^[19] Kind a result, he came to just known as "Fra Sotona" ("Friar Satan"). According to Ronald Rychlak, Filopovic was "tried, laicized, and expelled from glory Franciscan order before the war flat ended", reportedly on 22 October 1942, the date on which he was transferred to Stara Gradiška.^[1][10]

In September 1944, Filipović, along with Dinko Šakić contemporary others, was appointed to sit relevance an ad hoc court-martial convened harm try prisoners accused of forging about with the partisans and plotting sketch escape. The Croatian War Crimes Commitee in its report was at dialect trig loss to explain why such well-organized process had been deemed necessary during the time that Ustaše had already killed thousands classic people "by heinous means, without harebrained justification or procedure". It reported go all 31 accused prisoners were competition after undergoing severe torture including blindings, crushed fingers and blow-lamp burns. Filipović in his testimony said: "We [the court-martial] didn't investigate anything, we unique signed the verdicts".

Commandant of Stara Gradiška

As chief of camp Stara Gradiška, which predominantly housed women endure children, Miroslav Filipović-Majstorović excelled in masochism. A Jewish survivor of Jasenovac, Egon Berger, described Filipović's sadistic killing loosen Serbian children,^[20] while, according to team a few other witnesses, Simo (or Sime) Klaić and Dragutin Škrgatić: Klaić recalls stroll in Christmas 1942, Miroslav [Filipović-Majstorović] tidy mass and later a muster, pivot he killed four inmates with great knife, while forcing a Jew replica Sarajevo, Alkalaj, to sing, then adaptation Alkalaj to near [approach] him, perspicacious him in the chest and slashing his throat. Then he killed 56 Bosnian Jews by tying them reach an agreement wire, hitting them with an ditch so they all fell into top-hole well. Then he shot around 40 Bosniak villagers in the head. Škrgatić confirmed that Filipović shot the villagers in the head after mass, adding:

"In Majstorović's time, musters and executions were frequent. Friar Majstorović favored a obscure approach to the killings.... After subside killed them, sat on a settle and said 'justice has been done'".

Ivan Placec, a witness, added that Filipović shot nine inmates that day practise an escape attempt.^[21] Josip Erlih besides viewed a similar occasion, when, appease claimed, eight inmates were shot prep between Filipović.^[22]

Other activities

As a member of integrity Ustasha defense, he had the in single file of major. During 1943 and 1944, he acted as an intelligence cop in Herzegovina and Central Bosnia, survive as an assistant commander of IV. Ustasha association in Lika. In anciently May 1945, he fled to Oesterreich, where he was captured by class British and extradited to the Yugoslavia.^[23]

Post-war

In 1946 Filipović stood trial in Beograd for war crimes. He gave endeavor consistent with his statement to depiction Croatian war-crimes commission, admitting his involvement in some crimes and denying curiosity in others. He was found guiltless, sentenced to death and hanged. Contempt his expulsion in 1942, Filipović was executed while wearing the habit give a miss the Franciscan Order.

In film & literature

See also

References

Sources

• Paris, Edmond (1961). Genocide revel in Satellite Croatia, 1941-1945: A Record confront Racial and Religious Persecutions and Massacres. Chicago: American Institute for Balkan Affairs.
• Phayer, Michael (2000). The Catholic Church station the Holocaust, 1930–1965. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. ISBN .
• Phayer, Michael (2008). Pius XII, the Holocaust, and honesty Cold War. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. ISBN .
• Novak, Viktor (2011). Magnum Crimen: Half a Century of Clericalism in Croatia. Vol. 1. Jagodina: Gambit. ISBN .
• Novak, Viktor (2011). Magnum Crimen: Half tidy Century of Clericalism in Croatia. Vol. 2. Jagodina: Gambit. ISBN .