The Independent State of Croatia in 1941: On the Road to Catastrophe

Abstract

This article deals with the Independent State of Croatia (Nezavisna Država Hrvatska – NDH): that is, the territory which is now Croatia and Bosnia‐Herzegovina. However, I have primarily focused my interest here on Croatia between the foundation of the NDH on 10 April 1941 and the autumn of that year. I will describe and analyse only some of the most important processes that took place on NDH territory until September 1941. First and foremost, I will concentrate on the attitudes toward the crimes that were being committed and on the various ways in which people expressed their resistance to them.

Notes

1. In all, about 10,000 Roma were killed in the ISC but, contrary to the case of the Serbs and the Jews, this passed almost unnoticed; see N. Lengel‐Krizman, Genocid nad Romima – Jasenovac 1942 [Genocide against the Roma – Jasenovac 1942] (Jasenovac, Zagreb, 2003), pp.163–7.

2. See, HDA [Hrvatski Državni Arhiv – Croatian State Archives], fund MUP SRH, 013.0.56, V. Židovec, Moje sudjelovanje u političkom životu, p.38.

3. See, I. Goldstein, Holokaust u Zagrebu [Holocaust in Zagreb], Zagreb 2001,.

4. Hrvatska mladost 3/1941, p.55.

5. AHMBiH, VI/11, p.382.

6. Hrvatska gruda 65/1941.

7. Deutsche Zeitung in Kroatien, 17 April 1941; Hrvatski narod, p.67, 20 April 1941.

8. Hrvatski radnik, p.16, Zagreb 30 April 1941.

9. Hrvatski narod, 3 May 1941.

10. Antisemitism: A Historical Encyclopedia of Prejudice and Persecution, Santa Barbara – Denver – Oxford 2005, ed. R.S. Levy, t. II, p.551; H.H. Ben‐Sasson, A History of the Jewish People, Harvard, 1976, p.884.

11. Ustaška pobjeda

12. S.D. Milošević, Izbeglice i preseljenici na teritoriji okupirane Jugoslavije 1941–1945 [Refugees and the Displaced in the Territory of occupied Yugoslavia 1941–1945], Beograd 1981, p.113, quotes the manuscript of the doctoral thesis, inaccessible to me, of Đ. Stanisavljević, Ustanak u Hrvatskoj 1941–1942, Univerzitetska biblioteka, Belgrade 1965, p.79.

13. Hrvatska krajina, p.4, Banja Luka, 26 April 1941.

14. Hrvatski narod, 10 May 1941; Ustaše, Dokumenti, pp.172–3; HDA, fund ZKRZ GUZ, no. 306, box 10, p.322. The ‘mitnica [toll‐house] in Ilica’ or the ‘Ilica mitnica [toll‐house]’ was located where the last tram stop in Črnomerec is today, in the northeast part of the city.

15. HDA, fund ZKRZ GUZ, no 306, box 10, p.147.

16. Novi list, Zagreb, 15 June 1941.

17. HDA, fond Ponova, br. 1076, Srpski odsjek, Opći spisi, box 441, 324/1941.

18. Ibid.

19. HDA, fond Ponova, br. 1076, Srpski odsjek, Opći spisi, box 442, 677/1941.

20. Tko je tko u NDH [Who’s Who in the ISC], Zagreb 1995, 224–5; on the omnipotence of Dido Kvaternik and on Pavelić’s support, see the testimony of Stjepan Vukovac, Assistant Minister of the Interior, in April and May 1941; HDA, fond MUP RH, 013.2.4, pp.70 ff.

21. HDA, fund MUP NDH, No. 223, box 27, Predsjednički ured, br. 30135, 30738, 1941.

22. HDA, D‐2339–86.

23. AHM BiH [The Archives of the Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina], p.421.

24. HDA, fond 1.1196, oružničke pukovnije NDH, box 3, j. s. 289/ taj. 1941.

25. HDA, fond 1.1196, oružničke pukovnije NDH, box 3, j. s. 321/ taj. 1941, pp.1–3.

26. HDA, Fund MUP NDH, No. 223, box 27, Predsjednički ured, No. 29304, 1941.

27. HDA, fond 1.1196, oružničke pukovnije NDH, kut. 3, j. s. 289/ taj. 1941.

28. See Goldstein (note 3), pp.626–35.

29. Testimony of Professor Stjepan Steiner (1915–2006), a doctor in Zagreb before 1941 who joined the Partisans and became a major general and Tito’s personal doctor.

30. B. Prašek‐Całczyńska, B., Memoari jedne liječnice [The Memoirs of a Female Doctor], Zagreb, 1997, p.144.

31. HDA, Fund MUP NDH, No. 223, box. 26, Predsjednički ured, No. 25132, 1941; on Frangeš: HBL 4, p.365.

32. HDA, Kotarska oblast Zagreb, box 71, pov. no. 334/41.

33. Deutsche Zeitung in Kroatien, No.37, 27 May 1941.

34. Gert Fricke, Kroatien 1941–1944: Der ‘Unabhängige Staat’ in der Sicht des Deutschen Bevollmächtigten Generals in Agram Glaise von Horstenau, 1972, pp.26–45.

35. Ljetopis samostana sv. Ante u Kninu 1904–1963 [The Annals of the Monastery of St. Anton in Knin 1904–1963], ed. P. Bezina, Zagreb 1998, p.180.

36. HDA, Fund MUP SRH, 013.0.56, V. Židovec, Moje sudjelovanje u političkom životu, pp.31, 33; see also note 20, p.424; Hrvatski narod, 30 June 1941.

37. HDA, fund MUP SRH, 013.0.3, Dizdar, Ustaštvo i NDH, 55; see similarly, HDA, fund MUP SRH, 013.0.56, V. Židovec, Moje sudjelovanje u političkom životu, 138; Viktor Gutić was especially persistent in the persecution of Serbs, about which the Germans cautioned the authorities; see note 20, p.145.

38. Jevrejski pregled, Belgrade 1966, pp.7–8.

39. HDA, Fund 1.1196, oružničke pukovnije NDH, box 3, j. s. 289/ taj. 1941.

40. HDA, MHB, 12; the report is largely about the catastrophic conditions in the food supply, but it is clear that the apathy it also describes was caused not only by this but by the overall conditions in the country as well.