Petar Brzica (born 1917)[1] was a fascist and World War II war criminal. Before the war he was a scholarship student at the Franciscan college of Široki Brijeg in Herzegovina and a member of the "Great Brotherhood of Crusaders". Some time he spent studying the law in Zagreb where he became the Ustashe Youth member and later a member of the Croatian fascist Ustaša organization and one of the guards in the Jasenovac concentration camp.[2] As an Ustashe he held the rank of a lieutenant.[3][4] While he is known for having beaten an inmate to death in March 1943,[5] he is more notorious for having won a a contest in which he used a curve-bladed knife, also called a srbosjek, to kill newly-arrived concentration camp prisoners.[6][7][8][9] He boasted of winning the contest by killing the largest number of prisoners - 1360 people[10] [11]. Some other sources set the Brzica's 'record' to lower numbers - 670 [12] and 1100. [13]Brzica received a gold watch, a silver service, a roasted suckling pig, and wine among other items as a reward for winning the contest, and was dubbed 'King of the Cutthroats'.[14]
After the war, he allegedly fled to the United States. His name was on the list of 59 facists who were given by Jewish organizations to US immigration authorities. To this day, Brzica has been neither found nor apprehended.
See also
- World War II
- Ustaše
- Vjekoslav Luburić
- Ivica Matkovic
- Aloysius Stepinac
- Jure Francetić
- Ljubo Miloš
- Ante Pavelić
- Miroslav Filipović
- Mile Budak
- Srbosjek
- Independent State of Croatia
- Magnum Crimen
- Yugoslav Front of World War II
- Involvement of Croatian Catholic clergy with the Ustaša regime
Notes
- ^ Jasenovac: The Jewish Serbian Holocaust (the Role of the Vatican) in Nazi-Ustasha Croatia (1941-1945) by Milan Bulajić, Svetlana Šarčević, Jelena Popović, Published by Fund for Genocide Research, 2002, (page 215)
Petar Brzica, 25 years old, a Franciscan of the "Order of Friars Minor", a scholar from Široki Brijeg monastery, the Ustasha captain, the "king of butchers" in the Jasenovac camps (according to the testimony of Ustasha criminal Mile Friganović), in only one night, on 29 August 1942, in the competition in slaughtering he killed 1 360 internees,... - ^ Špijun u mantiji by Siniša Ivanović, Nova knjiga Belgrade, 1987 page 78
- ^ Sećanja Jevreja na logor Jasenovac by Dušan Sindik, Savez jevrejskih opština Jugoslavije 1972 - page 154
Then the Ustashe butchers came: Ljubo Miloš along with a wolfhound and Ustashe lieutant Pero Brzica who started /from the left flank of the human formation/ interrogating what were the occupations of these people. - ^ State-commission of Croatia for the investigation of the crimes of the occupation forces and their collaborators (Lo http://www.jasenovac-info.com/cd/biblioteka/jasenovac1946/jasenovac-1946_en.html ), p. 73. The names of his leauge-fellow, Ante Zrinusic, also there. Of Ljubo Milos and the wolfhound lo Djuro Schwartz, "in the Jasenovac camp of death"(ג'ורו שווארץ, "במחנות המוות של יאסנובאץ"), p. 300
- ^ State-commission, p. 50
- ^ Jasenovac and the Holocaust in Yugoslavia by Barry M. Lituchy Jasenovac Research Institute; First edition, New York 2006
Another historian, Teophilo Gardini, reports a very strange contest of "Serbian throat-cutting" - won on August 29, 1942 by a certain Petar Brzica, a former Franciscan of the Široki Brijeg Monastery - ^ Dr. Nikola Nikolic testimony, see in: Avro Manhattan, "Vatican's holocaust", p. 48 and Taborišče smrti--Jasenovac by Nikola Nikolić (author), Jože Zupančić (translator) Published 1969 Založba "Borec" - page 293
- ^ Nedjo Zec quotes Ustasa Mile Friganovic, here: The Role of the Vatican in the Breakup of the Yugoslav State, by Dr. Milan Bulajić, Belgrade, 1994: 156-157; from a Jan., 1943, interview with Mile Friganović by psychiatrist Dr. Nedjo Zec, who was also an inmate at Jasenovac. http://www.jasenovac-info.com/cd/biblioteka/wschindley-jasenovac_en.html
- ^ Witness Ljubomir Saric quotes Ustasa Ante Zrinusic Dinko Sakic trial, Ljubomir Saric testimony,15.4.1999, at: http://public.carnet.hr/sakic/hinanews/arhiva/9904/hina-15-g.html
- ^ The Glass Half Full by Alan Greenhalgh ISBN 0977584410 page 68
Wherever they went they experienced similar cruelty from the Ustashe guards. They heard stories about the fierce butcher, Petar Brzica, who boasted that during one night alone he killed 1,360 prisoners - ^ Jasenovac: The Jewish Serbian Holocaust (the Role of the Vatican) in Nazi-Ustasha Croatia (1941-1945) by Milan Bulajić, Svetlana Šarčević, Jelena Popović ...(page 215)
- ^ Taborišče smrti--Jasenovac by Nikola Nikolić (author), Jože Zupančić (translator) Published 1969 Založba "Borec" - page 293
Tisto noč je ustaš Pero Brzica v hitrosti in spretnosti svojega krvniškega posla prekosil vse ustaške klavce. Sam je namreč zaklal 670 internircev jasenovškega taborišča. Med seboj so tekmovali v klavskem poslu Brzica, Bonzo, Šipka, Zrinušić in še nekaj drugi klavci, ki pa so za Brzico znatno zaostajali - ^ "Nedjelja", Zagreb, October 19, 1942 referenced in Sângeroasa destrămare: Iugoslavia by C. I. Christian, published by Editura Sylvi, 1994 ISBN 9739175015, 9789739175012 (page 170)
- ^ xtimeline.com - King of the Cutthroats [1]
Literature
- Assassins au nom de Dieu by Hervé Laurière, Éditions La Vigie, 1951 page 145
- Für die Richtigkeit: Kurt Waldheim by Hanspeter Born, Schneekluth, 1987 page 65
- L'arcivescovo del genocidio: monsignor Stepinac, il Vaticano e la dittatura ustascia in Croazia, 1941-1945 by Marco Aurelio Rivelli, Kaos, 1999 page 101
- A History of the Holocaust by Saul S. Friedman, Vallentine Mitchell, 2004 page 241
- Smokescreens: Who is the Whore of Revelation? - A Biblical and Historical Answer by Jack T. Chick, Chick Publications, 1983 page 28