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Blessed Martyrs of Drina

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20th-century Catholic nuns and martyrs

Blessed Martyrs of Drina
Painting of the Holy Martyrs of Drina, with theHoly Ghost above them.
Martyrs
Born	Austria-Hungary
Died	Goražde,Independent State of Croatia
Venerated in	Catholic Church
Beatified	24 September 2011,Sarajevo,Bosnia and Herzegovina byCardinal Angelo Amato (on behalf ofPope Benedict XVI)
Majorshrine	Drina River, by the town of Goražde
Feast	15 December
Attributes	Dove Martyr's palm Religious habit
Patronage	Nuns, thesick,Slovenia,Croatia,Bosnia and Herzegovina Hungary,Austria

TheBlessed Martyrs ofDrina (Croatian:Drinske mučenice) are the professedSisters of theCongregation of theDaughters of Divine Charity, who died duringWorld War II. Four were killed when they jumped out of a window inGoražde on 15 December 1941, reportedly to avoid being raped byChetniks, and the last was killed by the Chetniks inSjetlina the following week. The five nuns were later declaredmartyrs and beatified by Pope Benedict XVI (delegated toCardinal Angelo Amato) on 24 September 2011.

Background

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On 6 April 1941,Axis forcesinvaded theKingdom of Yugoslavia. Poorly equipped and poorly trained, theRoyal Yugoslav Army was quickly defeated. The country was then dismembered. The extremeCroatian nationalist andfascist Ante Pavelić, who had been in exile inBenito Mussolini'sItaly, was appointedPoglavnik (leader) of anUstasha-led Croatian state – theIndependent State of Croatia (Croatian:Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, NDH).^[1] The NDH combined almost all of modern-dayCroatia, all of modern-dayBosnia and Herzegovina and parts of modern-daySerbia into an "Italian-German quasi-protectorate."^[2] NDH authorities, led by theUstasha Militia,^[3] subsequently implemented genocidal policiesagainst the Serb,Jewish andRomani populations living within the borders of the new state.^[4] Ethnic Serbs, the largest minority, were massacred, killed inconcentration camps or forcibly converted to Catholicism.^[5]^[6] Two resistance movements emerged to combat the NDH and the Axis occupiers—the royalist SerbChetniks, led byColonel Draža Mihailović, and the multi-ethnic,communist Yugoslav Partisans, led byJosip Broz Tito.^[7]

Prelude

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Jezdimir Dangić, an officer who served in the gendarmerie of thefirst Serbian puppet government sought permission to travel toBosnia and escort his family and relatives to safety after news reached him of the Ustaše massacres of Serbs. In the summer his request was approved, and he travelled via Mihailović's headquarters atRavna Gora.^[8] In August 1941, Dangić was sent by Mihailović to eastern Bosnia to take command of the Chetnik detachments in the region and bring them under Mihailović's control.^[9] He collected a group of Bosnian Serbs and crossed theDrina River into the NDH, arriving in eastern Bosnia on 16 August.^[10] In the beginning, his operations were directed primarily against the Ustaše and the Bosnian Muslim population of the area.^[9] By early September, Dangić had established himself as the leader of all Chetnik groups in eastern Bosnia.^[8] In late November 1941, MajorBoško Todorović reached an agreement with Lieutenant-Colonel Castagnieri, commander of the Italian garrison inGoražde, regarding the Italian evacuation and hand-over of the town to the Chetniks.^[11] On 29 November 1941, the Italians placed Goražde under the control of Dangić's men.^[12]

The town was under complete Chetnik control by 1 December. Following the arrival of Dangić, Chetnik bands spread through the town and began killing, raping, pillaging and torching homes. A significant number of victims were killed on a bridge over the Drina, after which their bodies were dropped into the river.^[13]Croatian Home Guard prisoners and NDH officials were also immediately executed.^[12] Chetnik forces in Bosnia, including those of Dangić, then set about pursuing an anti-Muslim campaign through eastern Bosnia to recompense for the persecution experienced by ethnic Serbs in the NDH.^[14]

History

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Martyrdom

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Dangić's Chetniks entered the town ofPale on 11 December.^[15] They looted and burnt down the local Roman Catholicconvent, Marijin dom ("Mary's Home"), and captured its five nuns (twoSlovene, oneCroat, oneHungarian, and oneAustrian). The five were Jula Ivanišević (b. 1893), Berchmana Leidenix (b. 1865), Krizina Bojanc (b. 1885), Antonija Fabjan (b. 1907) and Bernadeta Banja (Bernadett Bánya) (b. 1912). That evening, the nuns and some other prisoners were forced to march across the Romanija mountain range infreezing temperatures and waist-deepsnow. The five were mocked, insulted and threatened by their captors as they marched. While passing through the village ofSjetlina, 76-year-old sister Leidenix became exhausted. She was separated from the group and forced to remain behind.^[16]

The four remaining nuns were taken toGoražde on 15 December and detained on the third floor of a former Royal Yugoslav Army barracks upon arrival.^[17] That evening, a group of Chetniks entered the room in which they were being held and attempted torape them. The four then committedsuicide, jumping from the second-floor window to avoid being raped.^[15] Some sources^[who?] hold that all four survived their suicide attempts and were bayoneted to death by several infuriated Chetnik officers.^{[citation needed]} In any case, the bodies were taken from the barracks and thrown into the Drina River. Sister Leidenix was taken to a forest near Sjetlina by several Chetniks on 23 December, having been told that she would soon be taken to Goražde to be reunited with the other nuns. She was never seen again. One of the Chetniks who emerged from the forest without her was later seen wearing herrosary around his neck.^[17]

Aftermath

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News of the deaths quickly spread throughout the NDH.^[16] In April 1942, Dangić was arrested by the Germans and taken to aprisoner-of-war camp inGerman-occupied Poland.^[18] He escaped from prison in 1943^[10] and participated in theWarsaw Uprising against the Germans the following year.^[19]

Dangić was captured by theRed Army in 1945 and extradited toYugoslavia's new communist authorities,^[20] who charged him withwar crimes. He was tried, found guilty by a court inSarajevo and sentenced to death.^[18] He wasexecuted by firing squad on 22 August 1947.^[20]

Beatification

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The five nuns were declaredmartyrs, On 14 January 2011,Pope Benedict XVI announced the promulgation of decrees of theCongregation for the Causes of Saints. The nuns werebeatified at a ceremony presided over byCardinal Angelo Amato in Sarajevo on 24 September 2011.^[21]

A non-fiction book about the nuns was written by Croatian author Anto Baković, titledDrinske mučenice (Drina Martyrs; Sarajevo, 1990). Sister Slavica Buljan, a Bosnian-Croatian nun, writer and poet, wroteZavjet krvlju potpisan (Vow Signed With Blood;Zagreb, 2010).^[17]

Notes

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^Goldstein 1999, p. 133.
^Tomasevich 2001, p. 272.
^Tomasevich 2001, pp. 397–409.
^Hoare 2007, pp. 20–24.
^Biondich, Mark (2011).The Balkans: Revolution, War, and Political Violence Since 1878. Oxford University Press. p. 140-142.ISBN 9780199299058.
^Tomasevich 2001, pp. 398–399.
^Ramet 2006, p. 4.
^^a ^bMilazzo 1975, p. 62.
^^a ^bTomasevich 1975, p. 157.
^^a ^bDedijer & Miletić 1990, p. 86.
^Redžić 2005, p. 139.
^^a ^bHoare 2006, p. 145.
^Dulić 2010, pp. 86–87.
^Banac 1996, p. 143.
^^a ^bŽanić 2007, p. 274.
^^a ^b"Drinske mučenice". Glas koncila. 13 January 2011. Retrieved29 August 2014.
^^a ^b ^cStipan Bunjevac (9 April 2011)."Godina 1941. u Goraždu, na rijeci Drini..." Glas koncila. Retrieved29 August 2014.
^^a ^bTomasevich 1975, p. 208.
^Colić 1973, p. 335.
^^a ^bMiletić 1976, p. 121.
^"Drinske mučenice proglašene blaženim". Večernji list. 24 September 2011. Retrieved29 August 2014.

References

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Banac, Ivo (1996). "The Muslims of Bosnia-Herzegovina: From Religious Community to Statehood, 1919–1992". In Pinson, Mark (ed.).The Muslims of Bosnia-Herzegovina: Their Historic Development from the Middle Ages to the Dissolution of Yugoslavia. Harvard University Press.ISBN 978-0-932885-12-8.
Colić, Mladen (1973).Takozvana Nezavisna Država Hrvatska (in Serbian).Belgrade: Delta-press.
Dedijer, Vladimir;Miletić, Antun (1990).Genocid nad Muslimanima, 1941–1945 (in Croatian). Sarajevo: Svjetlost.
Dulić, Tomislav (2010). "Ethnic Violence in Occupied Yugoslavia: Mass Killing from Above and Below". In Djokić, Dejan; Ker-Lindsay, James (eds.).New Perspectives on Yugoslavia: Key Issues and Controversies. Routledge.ISBN 978-0-203-84601-8.
Hoare, Marko Attila (2006).Genocide and Resistance in Hitler's Bosnia: The Partisans and the Chetniks, 1941–1943. New York: Oxford University Press.ISBN 978-0-19-726380-8.
Hoare, Marko Attila (2007).The History of Bosnia: From the Middle Ages to the Present Day.London: Saqi.ISBN 978-0-86356-953-1.
Goldstein, Ivo (1999).Croatia: A History. McGill-Queen's Press.ISBN 978-0-7735-2017-2.
Milazzo, Matteo J. (1975).The Chetnik Movement & the Yugoslav Resistance. Johns Hopkins University Press.ISBN 978-0-8018-1589-8.
Miletić, Antun (1976).Dokumenti Nemačkog Rajha 1941–1945. Zbornik dokumenata i podataka o narodnooslobodilačkom ratu naroda Jugoslavije (in Serbian). Vol. XII, 2.Belgrade: Vojnoistorijski institut.
Ramet, Sabrina P. (2006).The Three Yugoslavias: State-Building and Legitimation, 1918–2005.Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press.ISBN 978-0-253-34656-8.
Redžić, Enver (2005).Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Second World War.Abingdon-on-Thames: Frank Cass.ISBN 978-0-7146-5625-0.
Tomasevich, Jozo (1975).War and Revolution in Yugoslavia, 1941–1945: The Chetniks.Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.ISBN 978-0-8047-0857-9.
Tomasevich, Jozo (2001).War and Revolution in Yugoslavia, 1941–1945: Occupation and Collaboration. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.ISBN 978-0-8047-3615-2.
Žanić, Ivo (2007).Flag on the Mountain: A Political Anthropology of War in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, 1990–1995.London: Saqi.ISBN 978-0-86356-815-2.