Igor Peternel

Presenting the position of a parliamentary group in the Croatian Parliament:

We will not surrender Friar Sokol to the reanimated "antifas"

664 priests, nuns, and seminarians perished as a result of communist terror!

I am addressing you today regarding events on the island of Korčula—events that have transcended their local context to become a matter of national significance.

This concerns a public assault on the right of the Croatian people to remember their victims and pay tribute to those who suffered under the communist regime; it also concerns the way in which, among certain segments of the public, the crimes committed by one side continue to be defended. Friar Bernardin Sokol—a Franciscan, a doctor of musicology, and a composer—was killed in 1944. Partisans took him from the monastery on the island of Badija without any charges, trial, or evidence. They killed him in a boat and cast his body into the sea. The body later washed ashore on a beach in Orebić, where local residents buried it temporarily. All that was later found at that site were the soles of his Franciscan sandals.

For decades, it was forbidden to speak publicly about this crime. His farewell letter—in which he wrote that while he did not support the Partisans, he had taken no action against them—remained hidden in an archive for a long time. Eventually, it came to light.

Today, with the Republic of Croatia established as a modern state, voices are once again being heard demanding that Friar Bernardin continue to be branded a Nazi collaborator and a murderer of Partisan fighters. These voices emanate, among others, from organizations that style themselves as "antifascist." Their reaction to the screening of the documentary film about Sokol was not an invitation to discussion, but rather an attempt to preemptively condemn any act of honoring a victim and to prevent public discourse regarding that crime.

This raises a fundamental question concerning the nature of democracy. In this instance, the associations invoking anti-fascism are not seeking a judicial process; they are not pursuing the truth as documented in archives, nor do they acknowledge the right to hold a dissenting opinion. Instead, they demand that a specific interpretation be accepted as the only permissible one.

This is an attempt to impose a single historical narrative through the force of public pressure.

In a democratic state, no one has the authority to dictate who may or may not be considered a victim, nor to prohibit the honoring of individuals who were killed without trial. Even more concerning is the fact that these attacks simultaneously serve to shield the crimes committed by one’s own side. While accusations are leveled against Bernardin based on oral accounts and the memoirs of Partisans, the atrocities committed by Partisans and communist authorities—against priests, Franciscans, and civilians at Daksa, Široki Brijeg, Macelj, and throughout Croatia—continue to be either downplayed or met with silence.

If so-called anti-fascism is a struggle against all crimes, then it must apply equally to everyone, under the same rules.

In this Parliament, we must not allow history to continue being interpreted exclusively through the prism of the Yugoslav totalitarian system. The Constitution of the Republic of Croatia is clear on this. Therefore, it is unacceptable that extrajudicial killings continue to be justified in the public sphere simply because they were committed by the Partisans, while at the same time, any form of tribute to their victims is obstructed. I call upon this Parliament to take a clear stance in the near future.

First, to condemn any attempt to rehabilitate crimes committed without trial in the name of any ideology.

Second, to ensure that the right to pay tribute to the victims of the Communist regime is not challenged or obstructed—whether for local communities, cultural institutions, or associations.

Third, to put an end to the practice of putting Croatian priests and cultural figures on trial decades after their deaths, based on selective sources, while simultaneously relativizing the crimes committed against them.

Fourth, to ensure that so-called anti-fascism cannot be used as a weapon or as a pretext for the undemocratic imposition of a single "truth," nor as a shield for crimes committed by one's own side.

Friar Sokol was no one’s servant. He was a Croatian Franciscan and a musician. His death was a crime—a grave crime—and the right to state this is not the exclusive privilege of any one side. It is an obligation for everyone who respects the constitutional order and the fundamental principle that any killing without trial is a heinous crime. 

And finally, I have a message for his fellow residents of Kaštela: Do not hand over Friar Sokol to those modern-day "anti-fascist" vampires.