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As a Serbian-American and a reader of this forum over the years, I have felt a strong sense of kinship and sympathy with the Armenian people, largely due to remarkable parallels in our history, of medieval glory and Ottoman defeat, of a lost Jerusalem, of displacement, and most tragically, of genocide.
I have posted this thread for two reasons: 1.) to acquaint the public with a little-known genocide, but one highly relevant to politics and modern history; 2.) to acquaint the public with the attitudes of the Roman Catholic church (i.e. Vatican) towards Orthodox Christians, and how this is a warning against ecumenism of the Armenian Church and other churches of the east with Rome.
The genocide of Croatian and Bosnian Serbs began in 1941 and ended in 1945. It coincided with Hitler's invasion of Yugoslavia, and the setting up of a puppet state called the Independent State of Croatia over the territory of what is today Croatia, Bosnia, and part of northern Serbia. This state was rabidly nationalistic, clerico-fascist, and it's main target of extermination were the Orthodox Serbs. Other victims of the genocide were Jews and Roma (Gypsies). The main party responsible were the dreaded Ustase. Bosnian Muslims were enthusiastic participants and collaborators in the genocide, with very many members of the Ustase being Muslim, as well as two SS divisions (SS Kama and SS Handzar). The Roman Catholic church was intimately involved, with very many priests and nuns participating in mass murder and actually running the death camps, including the death camp of Jasenovac. In total, about 750,000 Serbs were exterminated in Croatia and Bosnia and another 250,000 were forcibly converted to Roman Catholicism (otherwise they, too, would be exterminated). The main killing site was the death camp complex of Jasenovac, but people were killed in many other camps (there were a total of 80, of which about 7 or 8 camps involved mass killings), people were killed in village massacres, thrown into the Adriatic sea, thrown into caverns and caves and karstic sinkholes, or simply dumped into the rivers of Croatia and Bosnia. I would remind that these horrors were not the acts of German Nazis, but of Croatian and Muslim Ustase and other fascists. The extermination methods were so brutal, so vicious, that even Germans and Italians expressed shock and horror and Italian fascists did much to save the lives of Serbs and Jews from Ustase.
I have posted three YouTube video collections on this; they are well worth watching but they are graphic and horrifying. The first is about the genocide itself. The second is about the main extermination camp of Jasenovac. The third is about the extermination of children (including the use of camps specifically designed for killing and forced conversions of children, the only case of child-specific concentration camps in history).
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I have posted this thread for two reasons: 1.) to acquaint the public with a little-known genocide, but one highly relevant to politics and modern history; 2.) to acquaint the public with the attitudes of the Roman Catholic church (i.e. Vatican) towards Orthodox Christians, and how this is a warning against ecumenism of the Armenian Church and other churches of the east with Rome.
The genocide of Croatian and Bosnian Serbs began in 1941 and ended in 1945. It coincided with Hitler's invasion of Yugoslavia, and the setting up of a puppet state called the Independent State of Croatia over the territory of what is today Croatia, Bosnia, and part of northern Serbia. This state was rabidly nationalistic, clerico-fascist, and it's main target of extermination were the Orthodox Serbs. Other victims of the genocide were Jews and Roma (Gypsies). The main party responsible were the dreaded Ustase. Bosnian Muslims were enthusiastic participants and collaborators in the genocide, with very many members of the Ustase being Muslim, as well as two SS divisions (SS Kama and SS Handzar). The Roman Catholic church was intimately involved, with very many priests and nuns participating in mass murder and actually running the death camps, including the death camp of Jasenovac. In total, about 750,000 Serbs were exterminated in Croatia and Bosnia and another 250,000 were forcibly converted to Roman Catholicism (otherwise they, too, would be exterminated). The main killing site was the death camp complex of Jasenovac, but people were killed in many other camps (there were a total of 80, of which about 7 or 8 camps involved mass killings), people were killed in village massacres, thrown into the Adriatic sea, thrown into caverns and caves and karstic sinkholes, or simply dumped into the rivers of Croatia and Bosnia. I would remind that these horrors were not the acts of German Nazis, but of Croatian and Muslim Ustase and other fascists. The extermination methods were so brutal, so vicious, that even Germans and Italians expressed shock and horror and Italian fascists did much to save the lives of Serbs and Jews from Ustase.
I have posted three YouTube video collections on this; they are well worth watching but they are graphic and horrifying. The first is about the genocide itself. The second is about the main extermination camp of Jasenovac. The third is about the extermination of children (including the use of camps specifically designed for killing and forced conversions of children, the only case of child-specific concentration camps in history).
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