[gorskivijenac]

Movie Dara of Jasenovac was based on a story of Jelena Buhač Radojičić. What happend after Jelena and her brother were saved by Diana Budisavljević?

"They also put me in one house, my boss was an Ustasha, a black legion. There were 12 children in that house. They put me on a chair and I then talked, said I was Croatian, I don't know why I said that, but I told the same story as I told you, only more vividly. They took me to church, Catholic, I prayed all the time in Catholic way to God, I went to church every night.

Boss, the father of the Ustasha, beat me so much that I had bruises all over my back. My mother came and saw those bruises they made with the whip. I was supossed to look over cows, I didn't say I couldn't, I didn't say I was barefoot and I couldn't but I said I won't, and when he heard me say that I won't do it, he came striked me with a whip, beat me and then his wife chased me to beat me. I had no contact with anyone, not even with my brother, even though we are here together, we are not together. Then when we bathe, I will be 13th in a row for a barrel. When I get lice, I get beaten up because I got lice, and in fact that Ustasha's wife went to him there and got them. I am a person who never expresses my desires and emotions, and when it is difficult for me, I always hide it. I never burden someone with my problems, it's probably from my childhood.

That landlady, when I was employed in 1956, I wanted to go there to see how I lived. She talked all day and night about how Serbs were enemies and disgusting. I couldn't wait for dawn to go back, I didn't even say goodbye, I never went back there."

[gorskivijenac]

I’m pretty sad to admit that the movie was very disrespectful to the victims of ustashas and its families. My boyfriend’s mother’s cousin was thrown into a fire when they made them dance kolo around it, they threw her baby into the fire and she jumped with it. It’s all real stuff that happend in that movie, but it’s no way to portray that. It just felt forced, like someone just said HERE, here you have the movie for your suffering for the first time stop bothering us, and it’s just awful. It was used for political matter by our government like those weren’t real people whose families were wiped out? It would be much much better if they picked one story to focus on and since they picked the story of Jelena Buhač Radojičić they could just stick to that, and actually talk to that woman to portray her story the best. They could show how Diana saved all those children and how they destroyed their documents or hid them after the war. All those scenes are real, nothing was made up, but it’s just such an awful way to “pay respects” and i will forever be so mad at them.

I hope Jelena finds her brother from whom she was separated when Diana saved her. I hope he didn’t die not knowing he had a sister out there and i hope he knew who he was.

[carbone14]

Serbe égorgé par les Oustachis (croates) – Camp de concentration et d'extermination de Jasenovac – Etat indépendant de Croatie – 1943

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“On the day when the Ustaše came down into the village of Prebilovci, they came from Čapljina and Stolac. They surrounded the village, but the Ustaše from Stolac were delayed, and thus our people managed to escape from the village, while women and children remained in it. The Ustaše stayed in the village of Prebilovci for about a month. During the first two days, they gathered all the women and children, including the first group of women and children whom they brought to the elementary school. That same day, after severe torture, abuse, and mass sexual assaults of women, girls, and even underage girls, the Ustaše drove all those women and children they had gathered on that first day toward Čapljina and placed them at a place called Silos above the village of Počitelj (Pasovići). I managed to hide in a bush about one to two hundred meters from the elementary school building, and with my own eyes I saw all those Ustaše atrocities. During the following night, I escaped across the hills and reached the village of Tasovčići, where I am originally from. The Ustaše drove the first group of women and children toward Tasovčići at around 2 p.m. I saw how during that day they gathered the others as well, locking them in the elementary school and keeping them under guard around the building.”

— Testimony of Mara Bulut, a survivor of the massacre in Prebilovci. She testified in Mostar on november 26 in 1946. Archive of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo

[jasenovacmemorial]

[jasenovacmemorial]

Forced conversion of Serbs to catholicism in a village of Mikleuš, Slavonia, Croatia, 1941. Museum of Yugoslavia

[jasenovacmemorial]

Forced conversion of Serbs under the Independent State of Croatia (1941-1945)

Forced conversion of Serbs in Mikleuš, Slavonia, Croatia, 1943. Museum of Yugoslavia

Organized and violent conversion of the Orthodox population to Catholicism was part of a broader process of persecution carried out through cooperation between the Ustaše authorities and the Catholic clergy.

The Ustaše government provided the “legal” framework for this action, while the church structure provided moral and organizational support. In this context, certain views within church circles linked religious affiliation with national identity, which in practice contributed to policies of ethnic homogenization. According to some records, Alojzije Stepinac had already expressed in 1940 the view that the conversion of Serbs to Catholicism would stabilize the region and resolve the “religious question.”

Shortly thereafter, Serbian confessional schools and kindergartens were abolished, the Cyrillic script was banned and its use declared a criminal offense. Systematic destruction of Orthodox churches began: some were demolished, others converted into Catholic churches. Monasteries and church property were confiscated and given to Catholic orders and institutions.

The conversion of Serbs to Catholicism was allegedly approved by a letter from the Vatican dated 17 July 1941, addressed to Alojzije Stepinac, which was interpreted as support for the process of Catholicization. Stepinac then organized the church structure for implementing the campaign, in which certain bishops and priests also participated. The Catholic clergy in many areas actively took part in forced conversions, and priests were sent to Serbian villages as “missionaries.” Those who refused were compelled by decrees. In some areas, priests directly pressured the population, using threats and violence.

It was ordered that entire municipalities be quickly “converted to Catholicism,” and that Orthodox churches be transformed into Catholic ones. The Catholic hierarchy in Croatia, according to documents, accepted the decisions of the Sacred Congregation for the Eastern Church from 1941, which allowed Orthodox believers to convert to Catholicism while retaining the Eastern rite. During 1941, the process of conversion to Catholicism was mostly carried out under pressure and terror. Due to reactions and the general situation, during 1942 there was a partial change in methods, but the policy of pressure continued in a modified form. In addition to conversion to Catholicism, there were also some cases of conversion to Islam, mostly as a result of pressure and fear.

Ante Pavelić and Stepinac claimed that around 250,000 Orthodox believers had already converted to Catholicism, emphasizing that this process was not spontaneous but organized and directed.

[bast38]

The forced conversion of Serbs by the Roman Catholic Croats in the Slavonian village of Mikleus, 1943.

[gorskivijenac]

Serbian women and children in the tower of the Stara Gradiška camp, Independent State of Croatia.

[gorskivijenac]

An entire Serbian family lies slaughtered in their home following a raid by the Ustasha militia. United States Holocaust Museum