crimes committed by totalitarian regimes - Ministrstvo za pravosodje

Crimes committed by totalitarian regimes
give a more precise picture of the Bishop’s interventions, completing documentation in the state
archive (Arhiv Slovenije). The Bishop’s secretary, Dr Stanislavs Lenič, testified that sometimes up to
50 petitioners came to the Bishop on a single day and that he helped them regardless of their political
convictions. Among many documents, a letter written by Gastone Gambarra, the Commander of the
Italian XI. Army corps, on 26 April 1943 testifies that 122 internees were freed because of the Bishop’s
intervention. But the Italians noticed soon that the Bishop did not discriminate in his interventions, so
Grazioli ordered his subordinates to treat the Bishop’s interventions as anyone else’s, because Bishop
Rožman intervened for those who were unworthy. 10
The position of the two Bishops towards the occupation forces did not differ considerably. It was
strictly a legalistic posture regarding the obligation of obedience to authorities, which originates from
the word of God (Romans 13,1-2). Church authorities took the same position towards the Communist
authorities after the war.
Bishop Rožman visited the Italian High Commissioner, Emilio Grazioli, on 22 April 1941. He
addressed a declaration of loyalty to the High Commissioner after the publication of the Statute of
Autonomy on 3 May 1941. The High Commissioner forged it and directed it to Mussolini. Grazioli’s
text was published in the press and was written in terms that the Bishop himself would never have
used. Rožman actually only emphasized free development in the cultural and religious spheres, and
promised loyalty and sent his blessing for the efforts of the authorities for the good of the people. The
falsification was so effective that, even today, many publications continue to use it as proof of Rožman’s
collaboration.
Rožman condemned the occupiers twice. On 24 October 1941, he addressed a letter to the clergy
in which he complained about the devastation of that part of his diocese occupied by the Germans, that
all Church property was confiscated, religious people of both genders ejected from their institutions,
193 members of secular clergy expelled from 148 parishes, and that about 200,000 of his people were
without spiritual care. In September 1942 he handed over to Grazioli a memorandum of twenty points,
in which he criticized Italian means of repression. Grazioli was furious, telling the Bishop that he would
have arrested anyone else but him for such a memo. The Ljubljana Bishop wanted to condemn the
Italian authorities even from the pulpit, but the Pope advised him, during his visit in Rome in May 1942,
not to do so because in such case the Italians would likely isolate him somewhere inside Italy, leaving
the people of Ljubljana with no one to help them.
The Bishop and Church dignitaries wanted people to survive the war with as few victims, and
with as little damage, as possible. Rožman was convinced that for such a small nation, armed struggle
against occupation forces was of no use and doomed to fail: because great sacrifices could bear no real
relationship to any possible partial successes. And as it would be revealed later, various drastic (violent)
acts of resistance in Slovenia changed nothing as far as the power and strength of occupying forces
was concerned the subsequent withdrawal and total defeat of the enemies had nothing to do with those
acts within the occupied area. Not much could be done to weaken the military and political position
of power of the occupiers. Certainly the value of armed resistance, as a sign and symbol of national
self-assertion and rejection of injustice, should not be overlooked, but the question must be put: in
what proportion that positive signal effect could stand to release the pain of the civil population. And
if, under such hopeless circumstances, the immense number of human victims that had been provoked,
was acceptable. Was it acceptable to put up with catastrophes of such a dimension for the Slovene
people only to attain a certain moral appearance or perhaps even to give the (Communists dominated)
“Liberation front” a good starting position for taking power later on? This was the question that the
Bishop of Ljubljana believed must be asked, and he answered: “No.”
2.3. Territory occupied by Hungarians
Hungary denied the existence of the Slovene nation too. The Slovenes in Prekmurje were, according
to Hungarian interpretation, “Vendi” and for that reason the first announcements published were in
“Wendish”, a Slovene dialect. Topographical names and official notices in Slovene were removed and
replaced by Hungarian, and family names magyarized. Offices, educational institutions and schools had
10
See more: Tamara Griesser Pečar, France Martin Dolinar, Rožmanov proces, Družina, Ljubljana 1996, pp. 151–173, 253–270; Tamara
Griesser Pečar, “Rožmanova posredovanja pri okupatorju”, in: Edo Škulj (ed.), Rožmanov simpozij v Rimu, Mohorjeva, Celje 2003, pp.
301–314; NŠAL, Zapuščina škofa dr. Gregorija Rožmana, Prezidialni arhiv.
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