In Croatia they hated churches more. They destroyed more than 400 church towers there. I didn't even know there were ever built as many. Because the target of hate is always a belief. Belief is passion.
Passion is love.
Hate cannot stand existence of love. So it has to hurt the object of passion first. Hate believes that when it destroys the objects of passion, people will become soulless and uninterested to resist further. Croats, fighting for independence, fought under nationalist agenda. That agenda often pronounced the distinctive cultural background of Croats, which is highly connected to their catholicism.