Miroslav Filipović
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Miroslav Filipović (1915 - 1946) was a former Franciscan friar from Bosnia and Herzegovina who commanded the Jasenovac concentration camp in Yugoslavia during World War II.
As a Croatian extreme nationalist and a fascist, Miroslav Filipović/Majstorović (as he would become known) combined his religion with his extremist political ideology.
He was born Miroslav Filipović, and became part of the Franciscan order in 1938 at the monastery in Petrićevac (near Banja Luka), when he took on the name Tomislav as his religious name.
In January 1942, he had completed his theological exams in Sarajevo and was subsequently assigned as a chaplain in the Rama-Šćit region (northern Herzegovina). However, he returned to Petrićevac and instead of going to Rama, he signed up to become a military chaplain for the Ustaše, the Croatian ultra-nationalist organisation that controlled the Independent State of Croatia.
Filipović was assigned with the Second Poglavnik Bodyguard Brigade (an Ustasha military formation) in Banja Luka. On 7 February 1942, they raided the Serb Orthodox villages of Drakulići, Šargovac and Motike located near Banja Luka.
The book "Magnum Crimen" ("The Great Crime") written by Viktor Novak in 1948 describes the scene:
- A brother of the Petrićevac Monastery, Tomislav Filipović, entered the classroom during class with 12 Ustashe, imitating Jesus Christ and his twelve apostles. He ordered teacher Dobrila Martinović to bring a Serb child to the front of the class.
- Suspecting nothing, the teacher called Radojka Glamočanin, a pretty and neat child, the daughter of Đuro Glamočanin, a respected citizen of Drakulić then imprisoned in Germany. The brother gently received the child, lifted her to the lectern and then slowly began to slit her throat in front of the other children, the teacher and the Ustashe. Panic broke out; the horrified children screamed and jumped. The brother calmly and in Jesuit-like, dignified fashion addressed the Ustashe: Ustashe, by this in the name of God I baptize these degenerates and you should follow my example. I am the first to accept all sin onto my soul; I will confess you and absolve you of all sin.
- The priest then ordered the teacher to take all the Serb children into the schoolyard. He issued the same order to teacher Mara Tunjić in another classroom. In the schoolyard, on the trodden snow, he placed the 12 Ustashe in a circle and then ordered the children to run next to them. As each child passed, an Ustashe would gouge out an eye and push it into the child's slit belly; he would cut off an ear from a second, the nose from a third, a finger from a fourth, the cheeks from a fifth... And so on until all the children collapsed. Then the Ustashe finished them off in the snow.
A total of 2,730 Serbs, including 500 children, died on that occasion.
The Franciscan authorities had ordered him not to enlist in the army, and after finding out that he was part of the raid on those three villages, immediately suspended him. On a subsequent report of his actions at the 1942 spring Definitorium of the Franciscan Province of Bosna Srebrena, on 29 March, and 1 May 1942, the elders decided to expel him from the order, but it must be pointed out that there has never been offered any concrete proof that he was ever defrocked or excommunicated. Indeed he was wearing his Franciscan robes when he was hanged
Filipović progressed in the Ustaša ranks and went by the name Miroslav Majstorović. He became a commander of the Jasenovac concentration camp in autumn 1942. In the four months of Filipović/Majstorović's reign as camp commander, many Serbs, Jews, Croats and Gypsies were tortured and executed.
He purported to continue in his role as a member of the religious order while commanding the camp, earning him the epithet Fra Sotona ("Father Satan") among the inmates. He wore friar's robes when giving confession and murdering prisoners in the camp.
A Croatian doctor who resisted the Ustashe, Dr. Nikolić, a prisoner at Jasenovac, spoke about his first meeting with Filipović in this way:
His voice had an almost feminine quality which was in contrast with his physical stature and the coarseness of his face... I was hardly seated, and as I sank into my sad thoughts, I heard the orders Fall in-Fall in!...
An old man called Ilija, an Ustasha, appeared in the threshold of the hut, a revolver in one hand and in the other, a lash ... Before us passed six men, their hands tied before their backs with chains. The Ustashe had their revolvers loaded and aimed. Fra Sotona (Filipović) walked over and approached our group. Where is our new doctor? I knew he meant me. He is here, someone replied. He came a little nearer, looking at me with an insolent, ironic, bizarre manner. Come here, doctor, he said, to the front row, so that you will be able to see our surgery being performed without anesthetic. All our patients are quite satisfied. No sighs, nor groans can be heard. Over there are the head and neck specialists, and we have need of no more than two instruments for our operations.
And Fra Sotona caressed his revolver with one hand and his knife with the other ... Looking at these victims who, in a few moments would be in another world, fear written on each face, no one could penetrate the depth of their moral abyss. They silently watched the gathering crowd of more pitiful people, more condemned people like themselves. Fra Filipović approached a group of them. Two shots rang out, two victims collapsed, who began to twitch with pain, blood surging from their heads intermingling with the brain of one or the eyes of the other. Finish off the rest! cried Filipovic to the executioner as he put his revolver away.
After the war, he was put on trial for war crimes, where he claimed a personal daily kill tally of at least one hundred people, including children. It is unclear whether this referred to the four months of his commandment of Jasenovac, or to the entire course of his involvement in the war (around four years). In the former case, that would amount to twelve thousand victims; while in the latter case it is likely hyperbole because it would imply he single-handedly killed 146,000 people, which is highly improbable.
Filipović/Majstorović was sentenced to death. He was hanged wearing the friar's robes he often wore in the camp.
