New Martyrs of the Serbian Golgotha

New Martyrs of the Serbian Golgotha Orthodox life Jasenovac (Croatian. Jasenovac) - a system of death camps, created by the Ustashes (Croatian fascists) in August 1941. It was located on the territory of the Independent Croatian State, which cooperated with Nazi Germany, 60 km from Zagreb. Вукашин из старинного рода Мандрап Vukashin from the old Mandrap family Even the Nazis were terrified of the brutal treatment of prisoners. The new martyrs Yasenovatsky are Orthodox prisoners in Croatia, who were martyred in 1941-1944. According to various testimonies, during the Second World War, thousands of Orthodox Serbs were killed in the dungeons of Jasenovac, many of whom died for loyalty to Orthodoxy. The Bishops' Council of the Serbian Orthodox Church glorified the Cathedral of the New Martyrs of Jasenovac. Their names are included in the calendar of the Russian Orthodox Church with the establishment of the celebration of their memory on August 31 (September 13). Vuksan-Vukan-Vuk is an Orthodox Serb from the Serbian Herzegovina, the village of Klepatz, located on the eastern bank of the Neretva River. In Kleptsa, there was an old church, the beginning of the 16th century, the church of the Holy Apostle Luke - the well-known Serbian church builder Miloradovic, and the Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord (to the ground, just like the village itself, destroyed by the Croats in 1992). Elder Vukashin came from the Mandrap clan, was probably born at the end of the 19th century, grew up in his native village, matured, and went to work in the capital of Bosnia - Sarajevo. With the advent of the new government - the Independent State of Croatia, Vuk was forced to return to his native village, but Croatian ustashi, Roman Catholics got to those parts, the whole Vukashin family suffered from their terrible violence over Serbian lands, as well as many other Orthodox Serbian families , and he himself, along with the other surviving Serbs, was hijacked into the famous concentration camp for the Serbs - Jasenovac. In January 1943, Vukashin was brutally murdered by Ustashsky executioner Zhila Fryganovich. The murderer, noticing an old peasant who with some incomprehensible, wise calmness watched the atrocities of the executioners, decided to crush this inexplicable peace, he took him aside, put him on the edge of a freshly dug pit into which disfigured half-dead people were dumped, and demanded to shout: “Long live Pavelic!” (Head of NDH - approx. Lane.). The old man was quietly silent, then the brutal murderer grabbed a knife, cut off both ears and nose to him, then again demanded to give praise to Pavelic, threatening to pull Vukashin’s heart alive if he were silent. Казнь в лагере Ясеновац Execution in the Jasenovac camp The blessed martyr, calmly glancing at his tormentor, quietly but distinctly said: “Do your child, child”. Such an answer and heavenly peace, reflected on the face of the holy martyr, brought the killer into a frenzy: beside himself with anger, he cut out his heart, put out his eyes, cut his throat ... Until his last breath, Vukashin kept the world in Christ’s soul, his last movement was the sign of the cross, for which the executioner cut off his arm, and himself, in a frenzy by throwing a knife, fell already into the pit while he was alive. The frescoes depicting the new martyr are located in the monastery of St. Archangel Gabriel in Zemun, in the center of Belgrade, in the St. John the Baptist monastery of Ostrog monastery (Jovan Dol), his face is depicted among the most honored saints of the Zakhum-Herzegovina diocese on the icon, written for the 780th anniversary of the diocese. The testimony of the executioner (recorded by Dr. Nedo Zetsem) ... Ustash, telling me this story, again fell silent; then, having finished a glass of raki, he continued: - Remember, then, in August, there was a large influx of prisoners in the camp? Then Jere Maricic sent about three thousand prisoners to the extermination, and we - Pero Brzitsa, Zrinushich, Shipka and I - argued who would interrupt more in the night. The slaughter began, after an hour by the number of those killed, I noticeably detached from the others. That night I was on the rise, it seemed to me that I seemed to be taken off the ground, that I was in heaven: I had never felt such bliss before. Within a few hours, I killed more than a thousand people, while my rivals stabbed no more than 300-400. And then, at the moment of supreme ecstasy, my gaze fell on an elderly peasant, he stood with some inexplicable calm and silently watched me kill the victim for the victim and how they die in terrible agony. His gaze seemed to paralyze me, I seemed to have turned to stone, for a few seconds I could not move. Then, I pulled myself together and approached him to find out who he was. He said that his name was Vukashin, a native of the village of Klepatz, that all his relatives died from the Ustasha, and he himself was sent to Yasenovac. He spoke about this with the same calm that shocked me much more than the terrible screams and groans of people dying around us. When I listened to the old man, looking into his sky-clean eyes, an indomitable desire suddenly flashed in me with the most cruel, hellish torture to destroy this inner peace beyond my comprehension, so that his suffering, moans and agony would return his former rapture with blood and pain. I put him out of action, first put him on a stump and ordered him to shout: “Long live Pavelic!”, Threatening to cut off his ear in case of disobedience. Vukashin was silent. Мучение святого Вукашина Ясеновацкого I cut off his ear. He did not utter a word. I again ordered him to shout: “Long live Pavelic!”, Threatening to cut off the second ear. He was silent. I cut off his other ear. “Shout:“ Long live Pavelic! ”Or lose your nose!”. The old man was silent. For the fourth time, I ordered him to shout the same words under the threat of cutting out a living heart from his chest. He looked, as if looking through me, into some kind of infinity, and quietly but distinctly said: “Child, do your work!”. From these words, I was completely distraught, rushed at him, gouged out my eyes, cut out my heart, cut my throat, and shoved my legs into a hole. And then something seemed to break in me. I could no longer kill. Perot Brzitsa won the argument by killing 1,350 prisoners, I silently paid him a loss. Since then, there is no rest for me. I began to drink, more and more, but alcohol gives oblivion for a while, and even intoxicated, I hear this voice: “Child, do your work!”. And then I, bumping into the walls of houses, running through the streets, shouting and crushing and beating everything that comes my way, throwing myself at anyone. There is no sleep at night, only oblivion will come, I again see the old man’s clear gaze and hear this unbearable: “Child, do your work!”. I turned into a bundle of horror and pain, I am powerless before this nightmare. Day and night I am haunted by the bright, serene face of Vukashin from Klepts. Drzava Hrvatska is independent - fascism on the Serbian land The future martyr happened to live in the Independent State of Croatia (NDH - Nezavisna Drzhava Hrvatska). It was a Nazi formation, formed with the help of Hitler's Germany and Italy Mussolini, with the blessing of Pope Pius XII, on the territory of Yugoslavia - Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina - immediately after the capture of Yugoslavia by the Nazi troops. NDH entered the history of unprecedented atrocities committed by Croats against the Serbs, Jews and Gypsies. During the Second World War, about 2 million Serbs were killed in NDH. In NDH, the Serbs were outlawed - with the help of the Catholic Church, under the leadership of Archbishop Aloysius Stepinets, whom Pope John Paul II later counted as saints, the planned policy of extermination of Serbs was monstrous in scale: they could be killed, tortured, expelled from houses, take away property ... Of the numerous concentration camps, the most famous was Jasenovac, in which 700,000 people died. Vukashin from the old Mandrap family Vukashin was descended from the Herzegovian clan Mandrap, which had its branch in Sarajevo (the capital of Bosnia), the ancient beautiful Mandrap mansion on Milos Obilic street is well known. Mandrapa - an ancient wealthy merchant Sarajevo genus. They became famous as benefactors and defenders of church estates and the church of the holy Archangels Michael and Gabriel, the so-called 15th century Serbian Orthodox Church, and was the oldest building in Sarajevo. The sons of the old Chicha Mandrapa - Chedo and Dobrilo, twenty and twenty-five years old, from April - May 1941, were associated with "forests", that is, with armed folk detachments defending Serbian villages and those places in which Serbs were hiding from Ustashsky terror and genocide, which began in May 1941 in the vicinity of Sarajevo. Both of them suffered in Yasenovtsa, in the same place where their uncle is Saint Vukashin. Until the 70s, only Mandrapa’s son Bogdan survived, a severely disabled person and Slavka’s daughter, a teacher. Her son, grandson of Chicha Mandrapa in the eighties, worked as a librarian in the People’s (University) Library - “Venitsa”, which would later be filmed and shown in world media reports as “an object turned into ruins by Serbian grenades from Trebevich”, but in fact burned down in a fire, it was burned to destroy a huge accusatory archive about the past of Sarajevo and about the coexistence of three religious communities (that is, four, including the Jewish). особняк Мандрапа на улице Милоша Обилича Mandrap's mansion on Milos Obilic street is a vivid example of urban architecture of 18-19 centuries. (it resembles the Manaka house in Belgrade, and even more the house in which the “Sign of Question” cafe is now located, opposite the cathedral in Belgrade), was to become a monument of ethnic culture and be under state protection. In this house he lived and worked (doing business) and the future holy martyr. He was highly respected as a zealous defender of the possessions of the Serbian Orthodox Church on Bash-Charshiya (a large well-known district of Sarajevo), and therefore this temple and all Serbian Sarajevo have good reasons to glorify Saint Vukashin, the servant of God and servant of the Archangels as his heavenly protector and patron. Together with him, in the old church, Chedo, Dobro and other members of the Mandrap family served as singers and readers. And may the Lord grant that today the temple and the Serbian Sarajevo should be preserved by the icon and the faith of St. Vukashin of Yasesenovka, Klepatsky, Herzegovina, Sarajevo, Serbian and Pan-Orthodox! Until the last breath, he preserved the peace of Christ in his soul, and his last movement was “the sign of the cross of the cross” (criss one three prstas), for which the executioner and cut off his hand ... Let this sign of the cross of Saint Vukashin Yasenovatsky hover over this tormented people as a blessing and peace, peace of Christ, for only "this you shall conquer"! Conspiracy of silence The saint remained in Sarajevo until about June (possibly July) of 1941, when many other famous people had already begun to leave the city, who went to Serbia, where there was no genocide, who fled to the “forest”! Saint Vukashin took refuge in the "forests", in Herzegovina (but of course, not among the partisans, then they were simply not there yet). Since then, the relatives of the saint have lost contact with him and did not know anything about him. The first news of his martyrdom, the greatness of his testimony of Christ, came to Sarajevo only after the war from Dr. Nedelko Nedo Zec. Dr. Zec brought the message to the house of the surviving members of the Mandrap family (Bogdan and Slavka) when he came to them to the Cross Glory in 1946 . Thanks to this meeting, the news of the saint appears around 1946, and not only in Sarajevo, but also in Mostar and Chaplin. The whole family, the entire Mandrapov clan was considered martyr, and, knowing the atrocious crimes of the NDH over the Serbs and Jews, the Titovian police in Sarajevo did not dare touch the house of the Mandrapas, but the holy Vukashin was not spoken aloud, just like Yasenitsa himself - an unhealed wound of thousands Sarajevo families (and thousands of families throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina). Immediately after the war in Sarajevo met the surviving prisoners - "prisoners" Yasenovtsa. They were either Yasesenovka “artisans” who were in a separate part of the camp and were carrying out handicraft work for the nearest Ustash garrison, or prisoners who were “lucky” that the Germans took them from the Ustashi, and they were briefly delayed in Yasenovtsa on the way to Germany. The purpose of the surviving prisoners was to compile general memories of Jasenovc in order to confirm the facts of torture as far as possible. Camp look at the Serbian history We, the former prisoners of Yasenovts, understood in the fortieth war years that for our enemies we are all “campers”, a camp nation. Our military "allies" will show us in 1944 and 1989–1999 that for them we are a people whose history is characterized by a camp, and not by liberation uprisings and military victories. Лагерь Ясеновац Camp Jasenovac Therefore, for the Serbian history, along with the partisan, military and liberation experience, it is necessary to study and highlight the experience of the camp, so that it becomes part of our faith, our soul, a sign of the vitality of the people! Holy Elder Vukashin of Klepts is the camp consciousness of Serbian history, our living faith, our Witness and Protector before the Lord Christ. With him, we will always remember that “This world is a tyrant for a tyrant, and even more so for noble souls!” political decisions. The village of Klepatz was destroyed by the Croats in 1992, together with the Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord. Memorial Day of the martyr Wu Kasha of Klepts - May 29th . Troparion, voice 8: New Serbian Passion Tear, Vukashin Hercegovatsky, Christ's sake in Jasenovac camp. When the torturer with your knife tormented you, Humbly answer thou art to him: "Do, child, your work!". For the sake of life, eternal torment, Pray, martyr, Christ of God, our Savior Save us and our kind of Orthodox.