The New Republic, 1220 19th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20036E-mail - tnr@aol.comI came across a passage in this week's The New Republic. The article, acover story, is by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen (a professor at Harvard) whohad generated alot of press about 2 years ago in the US and Germany overhis book concerning the holocaust in Germany. The article is entitled"What Jesus Would Have Done? Pope Pius XII, the Catholic Church and theHolocaust." It is a review article of a number of books and isincredibly long (about 12 pages).There is a very short paragraph about Croatia where we read, among otherthings, the following:"This unbelievable state of affairs was etched even more starkly inCroatia, where many priests themselves committed mass murder, includingas commanders of approximately half of the twenty death camps set up bythe Ustashi regime. Menachem Shelah has observed that 'dozens, perhapseven hundreds of priests and monks shed their priestly apparel anddonned Ustashe uniforms, in order to share in the 'sacred work' ofmurder, rape and robbery.' The most notorious camp was Jasenovac, wherethe Croats killed two hundred thousand Jews, Serbs and Gypsies. Fortythousand of them perished under the unusually cruel reign of 'BrotherSatan,' the Franciscan friar Miroslav Filipovic-Majstrovic . . . ."Goldhagen goes on to claim that the Church never condemnded any of thesepriests.He goes on to make this most absurd statement: "In the most deeplyantisemitic societies, such as Croatia, Germany, Lithuania, Poland,Slovakia and Ukraine, churchmen tened to reflect the intensity and theparticular character of their antisemitism."Some comments: Goldhagen first off obviously is completely cluelesswhen it comes to Croatia. He lumps us together with countries that hadlarge Jewish populations and had historical problems with pograms,anti-semitism, etc. This was never the case in Croatia.Menachem Shelah, who Goldhagen quotes, is an Israeli survivor of theHolocaust who escaped from Croatia in WWII. He was written alot oftendentious "scholarly" material which is one-sided in its presentationof the holocaust in Croatia.As I understand it, in point of fact Filipovic Majstrovic was kicked outof the brotherhood when he became a commandant.There are other exaggerations here which one can dissect apart - thatthere were "dozens, perhaps hundreds of priests" who donned Ustasheapparel. Who were these people? There's a big difference between 3dozen (eg, 36 people) and "hundreds").These are libellous attacks against Croatia and the Catholic Church inCroatia. I beleive it would be especially effective if a scholar inCroatia could respond to this article (some one like Ivo Goldstein forinstance).Letters to the editor need to be SHORT!!! Please don't write abook or an article and don't address every point. Pick one point, stickwith one point and no more than 3-5 sentences. I especially suggestthat people write concerning the supposed "anti-semitic" nature ofCroatian society as this is a statement which relates not only to thehistory but is an attack on Croatian society today as well.Address: The New Republic, 1220 19th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20036.E-mail - tnr@aol.com.John KraljicOp-edPlease, be civilized in your letters, no matter how much it hurts to read this and how much can one take it. Be above. People who go such distance to lie will not change their opinion. We are writing for the future.NBDistributed by CROWN - www.croatianworld.net - CroWorldNet@aol.comNotice: This e-mail and the attachments are confidential information.If you are not the intended recipient of this e-mail, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this e-mail and the attachments is strictly prohibited and violators will be held to the fullest possible extent of any applicable laws governing electronic Privacy. If you have received this e-mail in error please immediately notify the sender by telephone or e-mail, and permanently delete this e-mail and any attachments.