Original scientific paper
THE CRIMES OF THE BLACK LEGION (CRNA LEGIJA) IN THE KUPRES AREA IN SUMMER 1942
Davor Marijan
; Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Croatia, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
As an elite unit of the Armed Forces of the NDH, the Black Legion had been treated in the former Yugoslav historiography and historical literature as a symbol of the worst evil. To the war crimes it had committed, there had been added those that it had not commit or did not happen at all. We have four examples in summer 1942 from the Kupres valley, of which three enter the domain of "cleansing". The alleged crimes in the villages Vukovska on 27th August and Blagaj on 29th/30th August 1942 are disputed by the reports of the 4th Montenegrin brigade, that had been in those villages. Damages in Donji Malovan on 28th July that are mentioned in several documents are based on hear-say transmission a few days after the event occurred. The State Commission for Investigation of the Crimes registered for that day only burning of several persons and arson of farming buildings. There are no documents for the fourth crime in Begovo Selo from the beginning of August; historians do not mention it, while the State Commission for Investigation of the Crimes does mention it. As the Commission locates the alleged crimes it in a time period that is questionable, the author sides with the survived members of the local Croatian militia that place this undoubted war crime one or two months earlier, and do not link it to the units of the Black Legion, but to an Ustasha company that was in charge of Kupres.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
207171
URI
Publication date:
1.12.2000.
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