crimes committed by totalitarian regimes - Ministrstvo za pravosodje

Crimes committed by totalitarian regimes
dictatorship of all the occupying forces; on the other side, Marxism and Bolshevism were incompatible
with the doctrines of Christianity. In addition to that, the communists, like the occupiers, used aggressive,
power-oriented violence (not limited to what was dictated by self-defence and liberation), which Church
authorities could in no case accept.
3. The post-war period: communism
After the end of World War Two, the communist regime applied tremendous pressure on the Roman
Catholic Church. Until that “people’s regime” finally collapsed in 1990–91, the Catholic Church was
its internal enemy number one, because it remained the only organization that was not controlled by the
communist party, and had great influence on the population. First the regime tried to eliminate the Church
as it did the political opposition, but when it recognized how deeply Catholic Church was rooted in the
population, it changed tactics. It tried to discredit Church representatives in the eyes of the faithful using
all possible means, regardless of how morally dubious they were. The communist government regarded
religion as a symbol of a reactionary past. Already in November 1945, an internal report of the Ministry
of Interior characterized the Church as “the backbone of the opposition”, 12 and the last “Manual for police
work” in 1985 described the Church as the main inner enemy that needed special attention. Police manuals
of 1970 and 1985 explicitly listed the efficient local control of priests and significant laypersons as one
of the most important police tasks. 13 In the period from 1945 to 1990, the so-called People’s government
accompanied Church representatives and outstanding catholic laymen. The principle of separation of state
and church that became part of the new Yugoslav constitution in 1946 was used in a negative sense
as exclusion of the Church from public life. But of course the legal status of the Catholic Church in
particular was not only determined by generally known, published legal rules, but also – above all – by
other confidential regulations that were part of a parallel secret legal system. 14
Immediately after the end of World War Two, the communist regime started carrying out measures against
the Church as an establishment and against individual priests, monks, nuns and all openly religious people.
They used house searches, housing restrictions, and deletions form voting registers; they limited religious
education and closed down church schools; they implemented agricultural reforms and nationalization; they
limited religious press; they fired nuns from schools and hospitals, even though there were no replacements
for them, and used mass arrests and court trials. Army chaplains, monks and theologians, who were serving
with the Home-guards, and later turned over by the British in Austrian Carinthia to the Yugoslav military
authorities, were interned in camps Št. Vid and Teharje. Most ended up at the numerous killing grounds
across Slovenia. A total of 36 priests were killed after the war, between 1945–47: 33 diocesan priests and 3
priests of religious orders, 30 consecrated persons (27 laymen and 3 nuns) and 54 students of theology. 15
The period from May 1945 to 1961 was a period of total loss of rights for the Catholic Church
and the biggest physical and psychological attacks against its representatives in Slovenia. The most
notorious physical attack was the burning of the Ljubljana Auxiliary Bishop, Anton Vovk in Novo
Mesto in January 1952. During that time, 630 diocesan priests, members of religious orders and
students of theology were arrested, 429 priests had been put on trial (out of around 1,000), 339 of those
were sentenced to jail and 73 had to pay a fine. Their sentences were uncommonly high – some were
sentenced even several times – while murderers and robbers got much less. Nine Slovenian priests,
a Croatian priest (by Ljubljana court martial), one Salesian Assistant and one Sister of Mercy from
Slovenia (in Tuzla) were also sentenced to death. Four priests were executed: two sentenced in the socalled
Christmas trial in 1945 and two in 1949. Three priests and a member of the Salesian order, who
had been imprisoned in Dachau concentration camp, were immediately arrested after their return by
the communists. Henrik Goričan who was convicted in the Christmas trial in 1945 to 15 years of prison
with forced labour, was in 1948 condemned to death on the same charge as in 1945. 16
12
AS 1931, Letna poročila RSNZ, 067722, 1. 11. 1945.
13
Lovro Šturm, Ljuba Dornik Štrubelj, Pavle Čelik, Navodila za delo varnostnih organov v SR Sloveniji, Viri, vol. 21, Arhivsko društvo
Slovenije, Ljubljana 2003, p. 138, 167.
14
Lovro Šturm, Church-State Relations and the Legal Status of Religious Communities in Slovenia (STU-FIN 7/3/2004), pp. 609–610;
Lovro Šturm (ed.), Cerkev in država, Nova revija, Ljubljana 2000, p. 349.
15
France Martin Dolinar, “Duhovniki v primežu revolucije”, pp. 65–66.
16
Tamara Griesser Pečar, Cerkev na zatožni klopi, pp. 103–105, 132–138.
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