Correspondence
Correspondence Bushed out New York To the Editors: The sentence I had in mind ["The Primary Points,'' March 28 ] referring to John Anderson began:' 'And he won second place in the...
...It is being steadily depleted by partisan killings...
...Since I am a Croatian Roman Catholic and would not like my reply to Denitch, a Serbian, to turn into yet another Serbo-Croatian diatribe, I will not refer to my personal experience in the Yugoslavia of 1945 but rather quote some instances from Evelyn Waugh's report to the British government on the subject...
...There is a difference between the slaughter in a civil war on both sides and the systematic policy of extermination carried out in massacres and death camps by a state...
...Some priests have simply been carried off by the partisans and never heard of again...
...and (c) it would draw the superpowers into this explosive area., 3. The civil war and resistance in Yugoslavia were bloody and cruel, and it comes as no news or surprise that the Partisans killed nuns, priests, and friarf whom they regarded as active enemies...
...At Sibenik eight priests have been killed...
...Write: Kenneth J. Uva, 24 Fifth Avenue, Apt...
...bogdan raditsa Professor Emeritus of History Fairleigh Dickinson University The author replies: Although there is something frustratingly repetitive in discussing anything whatsoever about Yugoslavia with Serb or Croat political emigre nationalists, I will try to deal with Prof...
...4. The church in Croatia did shamefully little to prevent the massacres of the Jewish and Orthodox population during the war...
...The right to emigrate or temporarily leave is something for which the overwhelming majority of other East Europeans envy the Yugoslavs as they also envy the Yugoslavs' right to strike and the greater freedoms the Yugoslavs enjoy in this admittedly imperfect, sometimes authoritarian, one-party state...
...b) it would be impossible to carry out fairly in any case since the populations are very intermingled in large areas...
...Other points that need clarification are: (1) The policy of self-management failed to the extent that more one million workers had to go abroad in the West to find work...
...My apologies to the 124,365 Massachusetts Republicans who put George Bush, not John Anderson, into first place...
...First things first Millbrae, Calif...
...On the other hand, if you add in write-ins in the Democratic primary, Mr...
...The sentence that found its way into Commonweal began: "And he won the Massachusetts primary...
...E. J. DIONNE, JR...
...Thus in Zagreb in June 1941 the archbishop Stepinac led a deputation to Pavelic (the leader of the Ustachi) to protest against the persecution of the Jews...
...Details are available in only three dioceses, Sibenik, Split . . . and Dubrovnik...
...Yugoslavia under Tito has already failed to solve the basic problems...
...At Split ten priests have been killed...
...Somewhere between thought and print, the sentence got garbled...
...during the Cold War (1947-1962...
...The great majority of the clergy . . . went about their duties, recognizing the authority of de facto Government . . . using their influence to mitigate barbarities...
...After Tito the issue of national stabilization promises to open even deeper disagreements between the Serbs and Croats, the Albanians and the Macedonians and Moslems on one side against the Belgrade centralism...
...In a long, documented report (Confidential [16805] /R 5927/ 1059/92/ No...
...What is interesting about Yugoslavia is precisely in what ways it differs from the other Communist states...
...That in turn is in good part due to Tito's role—which my article was about...
...I assume that the regime had no legitimacy and that its bloody massacres are in no way justified by the repressive, centralist, Serb-dominated pre-World War II government...
...Raditsa's letter, which is less unreasonable than most...
...The cardinal was also the vicar of the armed forces of this murderous fascist state: surely that was not required of him...
...I for one, prefer a policy which permits workers to work abroad to a Berlin wall...
...At Dubrovnik fourteen priests have been killed...
...Foreign Office, 4 April 1945), Waugh writes among other things: ' 'The Croatian clergy has already been depleted by killings by Chetniks, Germans and Italians...
...While only some elements in the church participated actively in the massacres and the civil war, the church as a whole accepted the legitimacy of the fascist puppet regime of the Ustachi in Croatia as did the Vatican...
...JOHN THACKER More on Yugoslavia Rutherford, N.J...
...To the Editors:la our desperation for a social gospel, we have secularized everything beyond recognition...
...many of the clergy of Zagreb wore the yellow star in the streets to ridicule Pavelic's attempt to mark Jews in the Nazi manner...
...BOGDAN DENITCH Anti'Comiminisin New York, N.Y...
...However to mention Cardinal Stepinac's equation of the two sides in the civil war in terms of atrocities shows at the very least a moral insensitivity...
...The authentic figures register that more than four hundred priests, Franciscan friars and sisters were executed by the Communist partisans...
...Recently Archbishop Stepinac, still in German hands, issued a condemnation of the acts of cruelty committed by both sides...
...To the Editors: I would greatly appreciate hearing from people with personal knowledge of Catholic antiCommunism in the U.S...
...The two past heritages — Serbian domination in pre-revolutionary Yugoslavia and the brutal massacres in the Croat Ustachi state — dictated a federal solution for present Yugoslavia, to the continuing distress of both Serb and Croat nationalists who seem to learn nothing from history...
...2) national integration has never been so weak as now—as Milocan Djilas recently stated, the relations between Serbs and Croats are dominated by "a general hatred...
...KENNETH J. UVA Commonweal: 254...
...1. My argument, peripheral to the assessment of the role of Tito and the future of Yugoslavia, is that the wartime role of the churches and particularly the Catholic church in Yugoslavia (in con(Continued on page 254) Commonweal: 226 (Continued from page 226) trast with Poland) facilitated the consolidation of the revolutionary regime...
...5. The Yugoslav economy does face some serious problems, but they have less to do with the system of selfmanagement than with the general economic downturn in Europe...
...3) policy of non-alignment suffered a defeat when Castro, in agreement with the Soviet Union, took over its leadership...
...The present popularity of Cardinal Stepinac is proved by the fact that the tomb at the Zagreb cathedral is daily visited by hundreds of people and covered by flowers and candles...
...37) of the British military mission based in Croatia during the war...
...Perhaps we could begin to remedy this spiritual abdication at our Catholic colleges at the termination of the basketball playoffs...
...Others have been waylaid and shot down while they went about their parish duties...
...Father Petar Perica, a Jesuit of Dubrovnik, shot by the OXNA in November 1944 devoted himself entirely to the spiritual life...
...The republics might even ask for separation...
...1023, New York, New York 10011...
...Correspondence Bushed out New York To the Editors: The sentence I had in mind ["The Primary Points,'' March 28 ] referring to John Anderson began:' 'And he won second place in the Massachusetts primary...
...2. A new partition of Yugoslavia is unlikely and would be undesirable for at least three reasons: (a) it would require a bloody civil war...
...Anderson outpolled Mr...
...The Diocesan Conference of 1942 addressed a remonstrance to Pavelic under seven heads, itemizing acts of lawlessness by the Ustachi, which the parish clergy had been instructed to collect, insisting on the civil rights of the Orthodox Serbs and condemning as sacrilegious the forcible conversion which the Ustachi were attempting to impose in certain districts...
...To the Editors: In the March 14 Commonweal Bogdan Denitch singles out—in a most aggressive and unobjective way—the role that the Roman Catholic church played in Yugoslavia during the last war...
...This in no way justifies the excesses committed by the Partisans, especially after their victory...
...Captain Evelyn Waugh was a member (No...
...Bush, proving that writers dealing with numbers can always find a way out...
...Recollections of sermons and lectures in churches and Catholic schools would be especially helpful...
...That there were some protests, mostly late in the war and mostly individual and often about irregularities in forced mass conversions, I do not doubt...
...The Scandinavian formula would be the most useful to the Serbs and Croats to avoid, a new civil war...
...This could be said also for all other nationalities...
Vol. 107 • April 1980 • No. 8
