Miroslav Filipović
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Miroslav Filipović (1915 - 1946) was a Franciscan friar from Bosnia and Herzegovina who, among other posts, commanded the Jasenovac concentration camp in Yugoslavia during World War II. As an extreme Croatian nationalist and fascist, Miroslav Majstorović (as he would become known) combined his religion with his extremist political ideology.
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[edit] Pre-1942
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 so-called Nazi-puppet Independent State of Croatia.
The puppet state was formed after the destruction of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia by the Wehrmacht in 1941, and most of its military subsequently took part in warfare on the WW2 Yugoslav front of WW2, against the Yugoslav Partisans.
[edit] Ustaše chaplain
Chaplain Filipović was assigned to the 2nd Poglavnik Bodyguard Brigade (an Ustaše military formation) in Banja Luka. On 7 February 1942, they raided the Serb Orthodox villages of Drakulići, Šargovac and Motike located near the city.
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. |
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A total of 2,730 Serbs, including 500 children, died on that occasion.[citation needed] Filipović was forbidden from performing duties as a priest on April 4, 1942.[1] However, he was not excommunicated nor did he suffer any other repercussions by any of his superiors.[citation needed] He was only removed from the Franciscan order over six months later, on October 22, 1942, when he received his new assignment.[1]
Miroslav was singled out as extremely diabolic in Jasenovac for several of his crimes:
He admitted to have killed some 100 inmates himself, an estimation which was shown as incorrect (low) by witnesses interviewed by the Yugoslav State Commission for the Investigation of Crimes of the Occupation Forces and their Collaborators'.
Additionally, the commission states that many of the inmates killed by Majstorović were killed "with his bare hands".
One of the interviewed witnesses, Tomo Karkac, stated as follows:
| “ | Very often during my imprisonment in Jasenovac I saw Majstorovic shoot prisoners during so-called "public preformances. Majstorovic also kept this short rubber hose, which he sometimes held over his victims wounds, saying: "I want to get drunk of communist and Jewish blood." I saw when Majstorović and Stojčić amused themselves by killing three gypsies, ordering the first to kill the second with a sledgehammer, the third to kill the first, and then they liquidated the last one. |
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[edit] Post-war
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.
