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Pogroms Against Jews Reported from Croatia; Priests Don Yellow Badge in Protest

February 6, 1942
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Massacres of Jews in provincial towns of the Nazi puppet state of Croatia and mass-arrests of Jews in Zagreb, the Croatian capital, have taken place during the last few days, it is reported here today by the Yugoslavian government-in-exile.

Declaring that 150 Jews were killed in the Brake district by a single unit of the government of Ante Pavelitch, the report says that the pogroms against Jews are being carried out under orders of Axis military authorities. All the 150 Jews were Croatian-born. Their bodies were thrown into the river.

In another section of Croatia 130 Jewish refugees from Germany were massacred as a result of German instigation, the report continues. It estimates that not less than 2,000 Jews and Serbs were imprisoned within three days in renewed raids in Zagreb.

The Catholic clergy in Croatia, according to a British radio report today, has protested against the anti-Jewish terror there by “wearing the same badge which the puppet government of Ante Pavelitch has forced the Jews to wear.” Open protests against the anti-Jewish measures were made from the pulpits of the Catholic churches in Zagreb where all the priests donned yellow badges to show solidarity with the Jews. As a result, one of the Zagreb priests, Canon Lanker, was charged with conducting anti-Government propaganda, and was sentenced to twenty years at hard labor.

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