Blessed Aloysius Stepinac – Croatia, the War, and the Future

Communist Yugoslavia Verdict Against Croatia’s Blessed Aloysius Stepinac Quashed

July 24, 2016 by inavukic 43 Comments

Zagreb County Court Friday 22 July 2016
centre: Judge Ivan Turudic, presiding
Quashed 1946 communist Verdict
against Blessed Aloysius Stepinac
Photo: HINA/ Damir Sencar/ds

A true, brilliant face of justice stepped out into the streets of Croatia and the world last Friday!
On 22 July 2016 Zagreb Country Court issued a judgment of great historical and political importance, announcing the complete annulment of the sentence against the archbishop of Zagreb, Aloysius Stepinac, passed by the politically rigged communist Yugoslav court 70 years ago, in October 1946.
The Zagreb County court in Croatia, a panel of judges presided over by Judge Ivan Turudic, annulled, quashed the 1946 communist Yugoslavia treason conviction against Archbishop Aloysius Stepinac, ruling that he did not receive a fair trial. Belgrade (Serbia) driven anti-Croat hoards, whose mission was to ensure that Croatia was the only Yugoslav federation state to be made responsible for the crimes of the holocaust on Yugoslav soil despite the fact that as a result of having exterminated 94% of Serbian Jews by mid-1942 Serbia’s WWII regime had been among the first European states “judenfrei” (Jew-free), had in 1946 charged and convicted Stepinac with crimes of collaboration with the pro-Nazi Ustashe regime.

Dr Esther Gitman (centre)
presents Archbishop Aloysius (Alojzije) Stepinac
to EU Parliament conference
June 2016
Photo: eppgroup.eu

“In less than a month from the indictment, the communist People’s Court of Croatia found him guilty on all counts, and the verdict was handed down on October 11, 1946. Stepinac was found guilty on all charges. He received a sentence of 16 years of hard labor.
In 1950 a group of American Senators made freedom for Archbishop Stepinac a condition for American aid to Yugoslavia. Tito (Yugoslav president Josip Broz Tito), eager to improve his relationship with the West, agreed to the deal with one stipulation: Stepinac must leave the country. Similarly, requests were made also by Pavelic (Ante Pavelic, leader of WWII Independent State of Croatia), in both cases, Stepinac refused to leave arguing he would remain with his people unless they take him by force.
Finally, in December 1951, Josip Broz Tito ordered Stepinac’s release, but sentenced him to house arrest in his native village of Krasic. In 1953, when he was elevated to Cardinal by pope Pius XII, When reporters asked him whether he will leave for that occasion he replied: ‘As long as Croatia is not free, the whole country is my prison.’ ‘My place is in Croatia with my people, not in the Vatican,” Dr Esther Gitman quote at EU Parliament presentation from Nova Hrvatska (New Croatia), 30 Fleet Street, London E. C. 4, England, February 1960, p. 1. Dr Esther Gitman is a leading world researcher of WWII archive facts that indisputably place Archbishop Aloysius (Alojzije) Stepinac as one of the leading rescuers of Jews and all other persecuted ethnic groups such as Serbs and Roma in WWII Independent State of Croatia. Indeed, in June 2011 Pope Benedict XVI praised Cardinal Stepinac as a courageous defender of those oppressed in Croatia during WWII, including Serbs, Jews and gypsies/Roma.

In February 1992 the parliament of Croatia had passed a “declaration of condemnation of the political process and judgment against Cardinal Dr Aloysius Stepinac” (click on link for pdf of the Declaration), which states that he was convicted as an innocent person “for having rejected the communist powers’ orders to bring about a schism in the Church and bring about the separation of the Croatian Catholic Church from Rome and Vatican, which had the far-reaching goal of the destruction of the Catholic Church as the eternal keeper and protector of Croatian people’s identity and freedom.
He was convicted because he stood against aggression and crimes of the communist regime, just as, in the storm and cruelties of WWII, he acted to protect the persecuted, regardless of their ethnic origins or religious outlooks. Although the Croatian people and the Catholic Church had never accepted the judgment against Archbishop Stepinac, the Croatian Parliament, as the highest representative body of Croatia, by expressing its clear position towards the unjust judgment against Cardinal Stepinac now corrects an historic injustice and insult against the Croatian people.
By condemning the show-trial and judgment against Archbishop Stepinac, the Croatian Parliament does at the same time condemn the political trials against numerous innocent priests, monks and believers as well as condemning the communist regime.”

Having overturned the 1946 verdict against Stepinac, Judge Ivan Turudic read the court’s findings, which concluded that the 1946 trial had violated the right to a fair trial, prohibition of forced labour and the right to appeal. He said the goal of that verdict had been “revenge against Stepinac“.
The judge said that the rigged politically motivated trial against Stepinac, violated the right to a fair trial as well as rules of the law-based state.

Archbishop Aloysius Stepinac in the 1946
communist rigged trial

Judge Turudic said that it was evident from the minutes of the 1946 trial that prosecution’s witnesses had been instructed how to charge the defendant.
“The fundamental crime Stepinac was charged with was the fact that he was at the time of NDH (WWII Independent State of Croatia) the Archbishop of Zagreb. He himself asked at the trial ‘Well, what was I supposed to do? Go into a forest or escape to London?’ He decided to remain with his people with whom he also remained during the Yugoslav Kingdom dictatorship and during Tito’s communist dictatorship,” Judge Turudic said. Turudic also said that while in prison Stepinac was offered to sign a pardon form issued by the communist authorities but that he refused the offer, instead, Stepinac asked for a re-trial before an independent court or the quashing of the verdict. Of course, such a request was refused.

Judge Turudic said the 1946 trial was a “rigged political process.”

“After 70 years his will is fulfilled by the Croatian court in a free Croatian state and that is why this judgment has profound importance not only for the individual but also for the history of the Croatian people,” Judge Turudic concluded.

Boris Stepinac
nephew of Blessed Aloysius Stepinac
Photo: tportal.hr

“I’m very moved, I didn’t expect it would be resolved so quickly. I thank the Croatian judiciary for finally removing the stain which for years was not only put on the cardinal, but on the Catholic Church, the family, and the whole Croatian nation as well,” Cardinal Stepinac’s nephew who instigated the legal process for the review of the 1946 verdict, Boris Stepinac, told Croatian news media after the judgment was read out in the court. “Today, documents and arguments proved in a court that he was indeed a righteous man,” he added.

Cardinal Aloysius Stepinac

As expected the ruling fuelled protests and criticisms against Croatia, renewed false and hateful allegations that this ruling amounts to rehabilitation of the WWII Ustashe regime in Croatia. Such false allegations are concocted and propagated by the very top of Serbia’s leadership and its president Tomislav Nikolic stated that Stepinac was not tried and convicted in WWII Independent State of Croatia or today’s independent Croatia but in Yugoslavia, suggesting that Croatia had no jurisdiction to judge on judgment delivered in Yugoslav courts. This protest is enough to demonstrate how hopeless pursuits of truth and justice still are in Serbia. So, I choose to ignore any criticism on the matter coming from Serbia for Serbia’s leadership is evidently still incapable of separating true justice from political set-ups. Nikolic further stated that he relayed his opinion regarding Stepinac’s role in WWII to Pope Francis and I do trust that opinion has ended up where it came from: the dungeons of dangerous hatred against Croats Nikolic and his followers had demonstrated many a time, including during the genocidal Serb aggression against Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1990’s.

Blessed Alojzije (Aloysius) Stepinac
Oil painting Croatian Church Chicago

In 1998 the late Pope John Paul II beatified Stepinac – putting him on the road to sainthood – during a visit to Croatia. While Pope Francis seemingly procrastinates as to the date when Aloysius Stepinac will be canonised and declare a Saint of the Catholic Church, the majority of Croatian people already regard him as a Saint.

Cardinal Josip Bozanic, celebrating the Eucharist,
said in Zagreb on 25 June 2016:
“God has already celebrated
the sainthood of Aloysius Stepinac,
and whoever goes against his image,
goes against God”.
Photo: laudato,hr

This Friday 22 July 2016 judgment from the Zagreb County Court clearly shows that justice is always reachable; that truth prevails in the end and justice wins. All we need is patience and persistence for the truth and in that spirit I would like to see a posthumous trial against Josip Broz Tito for all the crimes of his communism against innocent people and pray that somehow, in a brilliant world of the future, this will be judicially possible. Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps. (Syd)

A Cautionary Epistle To Pope Francis In Relation To Serbia’s Fabrications Against Croatia’s Blessed Alojzije Stepinac

September 13, 2015 by inavukic 48 Comments

Sarcophagus of
Blessed Alojzije Stepinac
in Zagreb, Croatia

Papal power is not absolute. The Pope does not have the power to change teaching (or) doctrine. The Pope does not have the power to reverse the Beatification of Croatia’s Blessed Alojzije (Aloysius) Stepinac but, uncomfortably as it may sit with many, the Pope can slow down the process of Canonisation of Blessed Alojzije (Aloysius) Stepinac as Saint in the Catholic Church.
There has been much uneasiness spreading within the 85% Roman Catholic Croatian population about the visit on Friday 11 September 2015 of Serbia’s president Tomislav Nikolic to the Vatican, to meet with Pope Francis and enter into issues relating to the canonisation of Alojzije (Aloysius) Stepinac – or rather Serbia’s views on it – as one of the talks agenda. Furthermore, President Nikolic and Pope Francis have reportedly discuss the establishment of a joint commission of the Serbian Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches that will study “historical facts related to WWII and Cardinal Alojzije Stepinac’s role in the Independent State of Croatia (NDH).”

Blessed Alojzije (Aloysius) STepinac

It is well known that both the Serbian Orthodox Church and Serbian state oppose the canonisation of Blessed Stepinac, accusing him unjustly of supporting the Fascist regime in Croatia, which they say was responsible for the deaths of Serbs in Croatia in World War II. The commission would study historical evidence to determine his role, which is and has been widely disputed. Serbia and its political allies say that he supported the Fascist regime aligned with the Nazis while many Croats (guided by factual findings through research of archives, such as that of Dr. Esther Gitman) oppose the communist Yugoslavia picture concocted about Stepinac, still actively promoted by Serbs and some former communists in Croatia. The facts are that Blessed Alojzije Stepinac saved and rescued many lives of Jews, Serbs and Roma.

Does Pope Francis truly understand Europe if Serbia’s president Tomislav Nikolic is one of his advisers on the canonisation of Croatia’s Blessed Alojzije Stepinac – asked journalist D. Likic on Croatia’s news portal Maxportal. In continuance of such a sentiment of doubt, one truly wonders whether Pope Francis understands the past role President of Serbia actually played in the tragic and genocidal war of Serb aggression against Croatia in 1990’s? One truly wonders whether the Pope realises the terrifying significance for Croatian people Tomislav Nikolic’s incitement to hatred and crimes against Croats has and had? One truly wonders whether Pope Francis realises that Serbia’s President is one of the powerful personalities who keep denying and hiding the terrible role WWII Serbia played in the perpetration of the Holocaust – by May 1942, 94% of Serbia’s Jews were exterminated so that Serbia could announce it was one of the first European countries to be free of Jews. Serbia’s powerful keep telling the world that it was the occupying Nazis who exterminated all those Jews in Serbia – wrong! Serbia’s government and people who supported it collaborated with the Nazis, marked the Jews for extermination and brought them to extermination camps.
If the Pope realises all that, then perhaps the commission formed between the Catholic and Serbian Orthodox Church has and will discuss all the historical facts of WWII, including those relating to the role of the Serbian Orthodox Church and this role meant peril and death to Jews, Croats and others. Including the fact that, judging from its past behaviour and statements, the Serbian Orthodox Church has no intention or morality to accept the true facts about the Blessed Alojzije (Aloysius) Stepinac and his deeds of rescue and saving of persecuted people. So, why would one want someone who has proven himself to be so biased and hateful against Croats in advance on a commission or committee deciding on facts in WWII Croatia?
Truly baffling! Truly disquieting!
According to Serbia’s news agency Tanjug, following the meeting with Pope Francis, Nikolic told Tanjug that he had had a very open discussion with the Pope about Cardinal Stepinac during which he had told the Pope that Cardinal Stepinac had played a very bad role in World War II.

“He (Stepinac) should at least not have remained silent when someone is killing … citizens just because they are not of (Roman) Catholic faith,” Nikolic said.

The problem with this statement from Nikolic and all Serbia’s political and church leaders is that they choose, with evident intentional malice, to ignore the facts discovered (e.g. by research conducted by Dr. Esther Gitman) after government archives were opened in late 1990’s/early 2000’s when communist Yugoslavia finally fell. These facts irrefutably point to the absolute truth that Cardinal Stepinac, organising rescue missions and actions that would save lives also protested in writing against any killings done under the WWII regime, he became aware of, but his protests fell on deaf ears just as they are falling on deaf ears of Serbia today! Serbia’s Nikolic would like us to think, it seems, that an Archbishop (Stepinac) in WWII was more powerful that the country’s governmental leadership! Why else would he ignore Stepinac’s protests of which he is well aware?

Pope Francis speaks with
Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic,
during a private audience at the Vatican,
Friday, Sept. 11, 2015.
(Claudio Onorati/Pool photo via AP)

Serbia’s president Nikolic boasted that the Pope had told him at one point that he was in no rush to declare the cardinal a saint. If that is true, it is sad and pathetic.

“I think that I have come across a man who knows a great deal and who understands everything and who has accepted almost every statement and suggestion I put to him. This was a meeting between people who understood each other straight away,” Nikolic boasted further to the Serbian media.
God forbid! God forbid if Papal belief should be so easily filled!
Perhaps in the context of this commission established between the Catholic and the Serbian Orthodox Churches, and in the context that Serbia’s leaders and its Orthodox Church have been and still maliciously insist that Blessed Alojzije Stepinac is guilty of WWII crimes he had no part in committing or power to prevent, Pope Frances will find a way to point a revealing light on actual WWII facts for Serbia and wipe once and for all the foul drivel flowing out of Serbian political and religious leaders’ mouths for decades.
Pope Francis’ path so far has shown him as a kind of a revolutionary man; a man who only last week broadened the power of priests to forgive women who commit what Catholic teachings call the “mortal sin” of abortion during his newly declared “year of mercy” starting in December. On last Sunday, 6 September, he called for “every” Catholic parish in Europe to offer shelter to one refugee family from the thousands of asylum-seekers risking all to escape war-torn Syria and other pockets of conflict and poverty. He repeatedly has denounced unrestrained capitalism. His attacks on “compulsive consumerism” and industrial damage to the world’s ecology came to a head during a fiery July speech in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. He said poor nations shouldn’t be mere sources of raw materials and cheap labor, and called the unfettered pursuit of money “the dung of the devil”:

“Once capital becomes an idol and guides people’s decisions, once greed for money presides over the entire socioeconomic system,” he said, “it ruins society, it condemns and enslaves men and women, it destroys human fraternity, it sets people against one another and, as we clearly see, it even puts at risk our common home.”

Pope John Paul II
Praying at the body of
Blessed Alojzije Stepinac
in Zagreb Croatia

Many of the 265 popes before Francis championed serious causes. Most recently, John Paul II crusaded against communism and beatified Croatia’s Cardinal Alojzije (Aloysius) Stepinac, and Benedict XVI decried moral drift that devalued human lives. Now comes Pope Francis’ determination to help people by the hundreds of millions escape destitution. Excellent. Perhaps during his visit to the United States this coming week he’ll discuss how market economies already have let other hundreds of millions prosper, and bless capitalism for its saving grace. Give credit where credit is due for in this day and age, without capital or money, there can be no welfare and no humanitarian aid. Perhaps, at some point he will publicly reflect on the meeting with Serbia’s Tomislav Nikolic and loudly pronounce that Nikolic’s malicious fodder cannot and will not stain the blessed and saintly soul and deeds of Cardinal Stepinac. That would match the courage and the leadership the Pope has shown in many instances so far. Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb);B.A., M.A.Ps. (Syd)

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Alojzije Stepinac, Blessed Aloysius Stepinac, canonisation of Croatia's Alojzije Stepinac, Croatia, dr Esther Gitman, Pope Francis, Pope John Paul II, Roman Catholic Church, Serbian Orthodox Church, Tomislav Nikolic

Prickly Croatia – Israel Relations: Aloysius Stepinac’s List Was Longer Than Schindler’s!

July 26, 2015 by inavukic 49 Comments

Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic
at Yad Vashem/ Israel with
Branko Lustig (in hat)
Photo: Office of President, RH

For reasons many cannot understand, even if their bias against Croatia is profound, Israel’s political establishment had in 1997 taken an anti Croatia, anti-Franjo Tudjman stand. Indeed, Israel had then pronounced Franjo Tudjman a “persona non grata” in Israel because, it was reported, Tudjman had in his books underestimated the number of Jews that perished in the Holocaust! Indeed, Tudjman was labelled by various Jewish organisations across the world as Holocaust denier and anti-Semitic because of the numbers he estimated perished in the Holocaust. Overestimates or possible overestimates of number of Jews that perished in the Holocaust had never, so many decades after the fact of the Holocaust, to my knowledge, set in motion such hateful and drastic measures on the level of state relations!

After Franjo Tudjman’s death in 1999 all three Presidents of Croatia had officially visited Israel, apologising for the crimes of the Holocaust that occurred during WWII in Croatia. Apologies, of course, are always the right thing to do as they contain, or should contain, the spirit of regret and compassion and, hopefully, determination that things apologised for shall never reoccur. Presidents Stjepan Mesic (2000-2010) and Ivo Josipovic (2011-2015) are both of hard-core communist extraction and had, as expected, molded their apologies for the Holocaust while in Israel in such a way to openly suggest that fascist or Nazi supporters were still active or “mysteriously in ghost-like fashion coming out of the woodwork” in Croatia – still. “Apologies” of this nature are nothing more than attempts, on false but politically potent grounds, to cover up communist crimes committed in Croatia during and after WWII. Many Croatia’s “leading” Jews had, particularly since 1991, followed the same line because I dare say, most were and are communists of former Yugoslavia.

It is of great importance to note that no president of Croatia has so far, it seems, “lobbied” to Israel regarding the factual research findings by Dr Esther Gitman about the significant work of Croatia’s Cardinal Aloysius Stepinac, beatified and in line to be canonised a Saint of the Catholic Church.

Blessed Alojzije (Aloysius) Stepinac
Oil painting Croatian Church Chicago

It is certainly not far fetched, by a long shot, to conclude that Croatian pro-communist Jewish and Serb lobby would not want Cardinal Aloysius Stepinac vindicated by indisputable facts which point to the overwhelming lies and false grounds upon which communists persecuted him as Nazi-collaborator immediately after WWII. Former communist operatives and influential persons within the Yugoslav Communist Party between WWII and 1991 have too much face to lose were the truth to be accepted as truth. No matter, the truth still stands and its enemies are identified in this case. The battles for truth and recognition of it may, hence, be easier than before.

“Modern Croatia is not a successor to the World War II independent state of Croatia and its ideologies,” Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic told i24news, in an exclusive interview at the end of a two-day visit to Israel, 24 July 2015. Kitarovic, who during her visit participated in a Yad Vashem ceremony in which Croatian-American producer Branko Lustig donated his “Schindler’s List” Oscar to the Holocaust memorial, brushed off any connection to what she calls “a dark period in our history that casts a shadow on Croatia’s past.”

I find it regretful that there seems to have been no opportunity during this visit to refer to Blessed Aloysius Stepinac while at Yad Vashem or elsewhere in Israel. Cardinal Aloysius Stepinac had his own “Shindler’s list” and saved thousands upon thousands of Jews during WWII Croatia! After access to historical documents/archives had been possible at the fall of communist Yugoslavia his “list” is found to have been much longer than Schindler’s! His list was longer than Schindler’s and yet state politics keep this truth hidden or are not inclined to talk about it publicly!

A book by Esther Gitman

Part of Croatia’s World War II history, the collaboration with the Nazis has been a prickly issue in diplomatic relations with Israel, which were established in 1997. Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic has, on this occasion of visiting Israel, maintained the stance of her predecessors Mesic and Josipovic, and “focuses on building relations with Israel today and is strongly committed to the victims and survivors in order to prevent future atrocities”. “There is no connection today between the Nazi ideology and modern Croatia,” Grabar-Kitarovic said, and vowed that she feels “no resentment” from her Israeli counterparts, reports i24 news.
“In addition to the Ustashi regime, which was a collaborationist Nazi regime, there was comparably one of the biggest anti fascist uprising resistance movements in Croatia,” Grabar-Kitarovic said, mentioning that members of her own family participated in this movement. “These people who fought fascism and Nazism put Croatia on the right side of history, and what is embedded in our constitution today is our anti-fascist and anti-Nazi roots and the Homeland War that we fought back in the 90s in order to liberate Croatia from aggression and occupation,” Grabar-Kitarovic said in Israel last week.
„I use this opportunity to condemn every totalitarian regime – Nazism, Fascism, Communism,” said President Grabar-Kitarovic at Yad Vashem in Israel, and emphasised education as the strongest weapon against every form of radical ideology, divisions, hatred and racism. “We must tell the truth because we are denuded in this place, we have no and carry none of our official functions. We are here as human beings. As people, as parents, sisters and brothers we have the responsibility to pursue for the truth.”

All what President Grabar-Kitarovic said in Israel last week stands as truth but such plethora of historical references still omit the fact that many, including Cardinal Aloysius Stepinac, are considered as Nazi-collaborators, participants in the Holocaust, when the truth and facts point the other way – the righteous way! So, I often agonise and ponder: why is it so difficult for the Holocaust remembrance environment to accept the truth about Cardinal Aloysius Stepinac’s role in helping and rescuing Jews? An answer that comes to mind is that communists of former Yugoslavia have, on false grounds and utter lies, made Aloysius Stepinac synonymous with the concept and reality of the Holocaust in Croatia and to now accept him for what he truly was – innocent of those charges, would somehow take a significant part of the heavy gravity away from the act of the Holocaust! So, the Holocaust remembrance environment seems in part to prefer perpetuation of untruths rather than facing the truth. Nothing can take away the heavy gravity the Holocaust carries for human kind – for it was an abomination – but unjust treatment of individuals within this environment, unwillingness to recognise the actual rather than reported or estimated truth, do add to its tragedy for human justice. I do hope that the pursuit of truth of the Holocaust in Croatia will surface with the righteousness of Blessed Aloysius Stepinac: with a proud revelation of a Schindler’s List not even the revered Schindler could match! Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps. (Syd)