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Banja Luka massacre

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Banja Luka massacre
Part of World War II in Yugoslavia
LocationDrakulić, Šargovac and Motike, municipality of Banja Luka, Independent State of Croatia
Date7 February 1942
TargetSerbs
Attack type
Ethnic cleansing, mass murder, genocidal massacre
Deathsc. 2,300
PerpetratorsUstaše
MotiveSerbophobia, Croatian nationalism, Croatisation
A memorial plaque with the names of those killed on February 7, 1942 in Drakulić, Šargovec, Mortike and the Rakovac mine

The Banja Luka massacre was the mass killing of 2,300 Serb civilians by the Croatian fascist Ustaše movement on 7 February 1942, during World War II in the villages of Drakulić, Šargovac and Motike near Banja Luka, which were then part of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH).

After the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia, Adolf Hitler set up the Independent State of Croatia (NDH), a puppet state ruled by the fascist Croatian Ustaše regime led by Ante Pavelić.[1] The Ustaše then embarked on a campaign of genocide against the Serb, Jewish and Roma population within the borders of the state.[2]

On 7 February 1942, an Ustaše unit led by Franciscan monk Miroslav Filipović of the Petrićevac monastery in Banja Luka, gathered into the villages of Drakulić, Šargovac and Motike and slaughtered some 2,300 Serbs,[3] using knives and hatchets.[4] The victims included some 500 children.[4] Surviving witnesses described how Filipović entered one school with a group of Ustaše and selected a Serbian girl, slaughtering her before leaving the rest of the Ustaše to kill the remaining children.[5]

A Wehrmacht commander stationed in the NDH reported to Edmund Glaise-Horstenau on the actions:[6]

About 8 days ago, in the villages of Drakulić and Šargovac, near Banja Luka, some 2,300 people, including many women and children, belonging to the Orthodox population remaining there, were exterminated. To motivate this action, the Ustashe invoked the fact that an act of sabotage directed against the "Laus" coal mine had been planned by the population of these villages. In reality, it was the monks of a neighboring Franciscan convent who were behind this new mass massacre.

Filipović was court-martialed by the Wehrmacht for his involvement, possibly at the request of the Italian Royal Army which was then occupying part of the territory.[7] In late April, his priestly faculties were reportedly suspended by order of the Papal Nuncio in Zagreb and he was jailed. In October, he was transferred to Stara Gradiška, a sub-camp of the Jasenovac concentration camp under the support of Vjekoslav Luburić, where he became notorious for his slaughter of the prisoners.[5]

References

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  1. ^ Molnar, Christopher A. (2019). Memory, Politics, and Yugoslav Migrations to Postwar Germany. Indiana University Press. p. 4. ISBN 978-0-25303-775-6.
  2. ^ Byford, Jovan (2020). Picturing Genocide in the Independent State of Croatia: Atrocity Images and the Contested Memory of the Second World War in the Balkans. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 9. ISBN 978-1-350-01598-2.
  3. ^ Lees 1992, p. 1943: "A monstrous Ustashi crime was committed on February 7, 1942 when 2,300 inhabitants of Drakulic, Motika and Sargovac villages near Banja Luka were killed. The peak of Ustashi barbarism occurred with the slaughter of 551 children. The Pavelic bodyguard unit in this crime was led by Miroslav Filipovic-Majstorovic, Franciscan chaplain of the Petricevac Monastery. He was also known by the name— Friar Satan. He was given this name in Jasenovac as one of its guards.."
  4. ^ a b Payerhin, Marek (2016). Nordic, Central, and Southeastern Europe 2016-2017. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 490. ISBN 9781475828979.
  5. ^ a b Benčić Kužnar, Andriana; Odak, Stipe; Lucić, Danijela, eds. (2023). Jasenovac Concentration Camp: An Unfinished Past. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9781000867114. Between 6 and 9 February 1942.. he took part in the unit's attacks on the Serb villages of Drakulić, Motike and Šargovac.. Witnesses claim that Filipović entered the school.. with several other Ustašas. He told a teacher who had known him from before to single out a Serbian child. Unsuspecting, the teacher chose the "beautiful and nicely dressed Radojka Glamočanin, the daughter of Đuro who was the richest host in the area, thinking that the child should recite something." Filipović "gently embraced and caressed her, then grabbed her and began tensely slaughtering her in front of the other children." The children began to scream and jump frantically on the benches," and exclaimed: "This is me, in the name of God, baptizing degenerates and taking all the sins on my soul," and ordered the teachers to single out the Serbian children. He then left it to the other Ustašas to kill them.
  6. ^ Rivelli, Marco Aurelio (1998). Le génocide occulté: état indépendant de Croatie, 1941-1945. L'âge d'homme. p. 60. ISBN 9782825111529.
  7. ^ Deák, István (2001). Essays on Hitler's Europe. University of Nebraska Press. p. 203. ISBN 9780803266308.

Sources

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Further reading

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