The persistent beating of rain on a particularly gloomy winter evening in Zagreb did not stop a crowd of devout churchgoers from gathering in front of the Basilica of the Heart of Jesus in the center of the Croatian capital. For twenty years, this towering Jesuit church has been the setting for an annual mass held on the anniversary of the death of Ante Pavelic, the head of one of the most murderous regimes in Europe during the Second World War. [...]
Openly “worshipping” Pavelic is not commonplace in modern Croatian society, and the use of paraphernalia and symbols associating to the Independent State of Croatia (cro. NDH), the official name of the WWII Nazi puppet state that he headed, is also punishable by law. This did not stop some of the men seen later sitting in the front pews of the church from sporting t-shirts bearing the recognizable letter “U”, the emblem of the fiercely nationalist Ustasa organization formed by Pavelic, and others gathered in front of the church from exchanging calendars depicting the image of Pavelic and a map of Greater Croatia. [...]
“The people who organize these masses do not do so without the knowledge, and possibly even the blessing, of the greater part of the Catholic church and the Church has never distanced itself from these groups,” says Markovina. “The more mainstream centre-right movements in the country, on the other hand, see these groups and their positive opinions of the NDH and Pavelic as a vehicle for their own survival on the scene, helping them legitimize their right-leaning political visions for the future.” [...]
As recently as this summer, a dispute over a plaque bearing this chant in the vicinity of the memorial site dedicated to the Jasenovac concentration camp threatened to bring down the ruling government coalition, with HDZ and other right-leaning parties refusing to openly condemn the existence of the plaque and its placement on a building close to the former concentration camp. Representatives of the Jewish and Serbian minority communities have refused to participate in the official commemoration for the victims of the camp, citing the government’s tolerance of fascist ideologies as an affront to the victims of the camp.
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