Dear Ms Gora,

If there was any historical event in the 20th century deserving of one getting ones “knickers in a knot” it would be this one. The horrors that befell so many Serbs, Jews and Gypsys during the Pavelic regime really take some beating.

It is obvious we are going to differ on this issue and we have both stated our cases but I will take you up on your assertion;

“You should also be a little less selective in your quotes. Re. Pavelic being sheltered in Rome, you omitted to mention that he was “disguised as a Catholic priest and using the name Don Pedro Gonner” - the sentence previous to your quote.”

I think this is quite revealing of your mindset. You are essentially saying the Vatican did not know who he was and are thus absolved of the charge of sheltering him.

Please read this section again. Pavelic used the disguise to get to the Vatican but once there was given protection and then a new passport plus use of Vatican 'ratlines' to get to Argentina.

A US Counter Intelligence Corps agent William Gowen (son of the US diplomat to the Vatican) who was tasked with finding Pavelic wrote; “.... during the early months of the Pavelic regime about 150,000 persons of the Serb Orthodox faith were slaughtered - in many cases, it is a matter of record, they were offered salvation if they renounced their faith and became Catholics. Thus, today, in the eyes of the Vatican, Pavelic is a militant Catholic, a man who erred, but who erred fighting for Catholicism. It is for this reason that [Pavelic] now enjoys Vatican protection. Pavelic is known to be in contact with the Vatican which sees in him the militant Catholic who yesterday fought the Orthodox Church and today is fighting Communist atheism .......”
From 'UNHOLY TRINITY: The Vatican,The Nazis, and Soviet Intelligence'

We should all be for uncovering historical truths but we need to be very careful that revisionism does not sully the effort.

csteele, you clearly have greater confidence in the inner workings and internal communication of the Vatican than I do. The Vatican is an independent state with a ridiculously complicated bureaucracy and it is not clear exactly who Gowen meant when he said "the Vatican". I have no doubt that some (if not many) people in the Vatican knew of Pavelic's presence and identity, but exactly who knew what is another matter. Even if you assume omniscience and that every relevant person in the Vatican knew (which I doubt), the argument that Pavelic would not have received a fair trial under the Communists is a valid one. Even war criminals are entitled to a fair trial - indeed, what differentiates us from the Nazis and Communists is that we accord all humans this right and don't allow the ends to justify the means or two wrongs to make a right.

And while I agree that the horrors of WWII are worth getting your knickers in a knot about, I think you have jumped to conclusions about myself and Dr Gitman. I also object to your attempts to collectivise responsibility. To quote Hannah Arendt, "Where all are guilty, no one is; confessions of collective guilt are the best possible safeguard against the discovery of culprits, and the very magnitude of the crime the best excuse for doing nothing." And I think reading conspiracy theories like 'Unholy Trinity' is a certain way to entrench prejudice. The desire to avoid revisionism of the Holocaust-denial kind is laudable, but it should not stop us from discovering the nuances of historical truth or acknowledging that the victors (in this case the Communists of the SFRY) wrote most of the history we have been exposed to until recently.

Dear Ms Gora,

I'm afraid the historical record reveals the attempts you are making to mitigate the responsibility of the Vatican in this affair are ill-informed and would even, I'm sure, offend some.

Let us deal with the question of the Vatican and where its sympathies lay.

From Guy Walter's book Hunting Evil;

“In August 1945, the Holy See requested the British not to hand over the six hundred Ustashi to Yugoslavia. The British did not reply, and the Vatican repeated its request, this time in the name of the Pope himself. Once again the British refused. Saying that they would not protect war criminals.”

According to the book in April 1947 “the Vatican asked the Allies to release fifteen Nazi collaborators from prison saying they were 'humanitarians'. The foreign Office was disgusted by the Vatican's position” and the Holy See that “these 'humanitarians' had given 'their support and approval to [the Ustasha] regime which flouted humanitarian principles and condoned atrocities unsurpassed in any period in human history'.”

The Yanks and the British wanted to arrest Pavelic but were stymied by the Vatican. That is not to say they did not know exactly where he was.

From an intelligence briefing;

“[Pavelic] is living on Church property under the protection of the Vatican, at Via Giacoma Venezian [sic] No. 17-C, second floor. On entering the building you go along a long and dark corridor. At the end of the corridor there are two stairs, one to the left and one to the right. You must take the right. On the right the rooms are numbered 1,2,3 etc. If you knock once or twice on door No.3 an unimportant person will come out. But if you knock three times at door No.3, door No.2 will open. It leads to the room where Pavelic lives, together with the famous Bulgarian terrorist Vanica Mikoiloff [sic] and two other persons. About twelve other men live in the building. They are all Ustasha and make up Pavelic's body guard. When Pavelic goes out he uses a car with Vatican (SVC) plate.”

cont..

cont..

This is not 'Communist written history' but British and American.

I agree the notion that Pavelic would not have received a fair trial is probably valid but to adopt the 'holier-than-thou' stance that “what differentiates us from the Nazis and Communists is that we accord all humans this right and don't allow the ends to justify the means or two wrongs to make a right” is either naive our extremely one eyed.

You might claim you object to the Americans gunning down an unarmed Bin Laden, or to Mossad sending letter bombs to Alois Brunner, the commander of the Drancy Concentration camp and resposible of sending 140,000 Jews to their deaths, or of assassinating the Latvian Herberts Cukurs in Uruguay, but don't ever try to claim they were given fair trials.

After Cukur's death media outlets were sent the following note;

“Taking into consideration the gravity of the charge leveled against the accused, namely that he personally supervised the killing of more than 30,000 men, women and children, and considering the extreme display of cruelty which the subject showed when carrying out his tasks, the accused Herberts Cukurs is hereby sentenced to death. Accused was executed by those who can never forget on the 23rd of February, 1965. His body can be found at Casa Cubertini Calle Colombia, Séptima Sección del Departamento de Canelones, Montevideo, Uruguay.”

However efforts are being made in Latvia to 'revise' history;

“Since the fall of Communism, there have been efforts in Latvia to rehabilitate Cukurs. For example, an exhibition was held in Riga in honour of the 'national hero' Herberts Cukurs, in which his work in the Arajs Kommando was portrayed as having been harmless.” Wikipedia

It is difficult to completely escape the feeling something similar is also occurring here.