Glina massacres The Glina massacres were genocidal killings of nearly 2 , 000 Serb peasants in the town of Glina in the Independent State of Croatia during World War II . The first massacre in the town occurred on 11 or 12 May 1941 , when a band of Ustaše led by Mirko Puk murdered 260 – 373 Serb men and boys in a Serbian Orthodox church before setting it on fire . The Archbishop of Zagreb , Aloysius Stepinac , sent a letter of protest to Ustaše leader Ante Pavelić after receiving news of the massacre . He did not condemn the atrocity publicly and was later tried by Yugoslavia ' s new Communist government for collaborating with the Ustaše . The second massacre in Glina occurred on 30 July of that same year , when 700 – 1 , 200 Serbs were massacred by a group of Ustaše led by Vjekoslav Luburić after being invited to celebrate a mass conversion to Roman Catholicism . Ljubo Jednak , the only survivor of this massacre , went on to testify at both Stepinac ' s 1946 trial and the 1986 trial of the Ustaše government ' s Minister of the Interior , Andrija Artuković . Puk was captured by British forces in 1945 while attempting to flee to Austria and was extradited to Yugoslavia the following year , where he committed suicide . Luburić escaped Yugoslavia after the war and moved to fascist Spain , where he was assassinated by Ilija Stanić , an agent of the Yugoslav State Security Service . Following the independence of Croatia from Yugoslavia , a marble plaque bearing the names of Serbs killed in the massacres was removed by Croatian authorities in the town , and the facility was demolished . After the war , the local authorities failed to restore the memorial pavilion and instead dismantled it , converting the venue into a generic cultural institution , to the dismay of the local Serbian population . Background . On 6 April 1941 , Axis forces invaded Yugoslavia . Poorly equipped and poorly trained , the Royal Yugoslav Army was quickly defeated . The country was then dismembered and the extreme Croat nationalist and fascist Ante Pavelić , who had been in exile in Benito Mussolini ' s Italy , was appointed " Poglavnik " ( leader ) of an Ustaše - led Croatian state – the Independent State of Croatia ( often called the NDH , from the ) . The NDH combined almost all of modern - day Croatia , all of modern - day Bosnia and Herzegovina and parts of modern - day Serbia into an " Italian - German quasi - protectorate " . NDH authorities , led by the Ustaše militia , subsequently implemented genocidal policies against the Serb , Jewish and Roma population living within the borders of the new state . Ethnic Serbs were persecuted the most because Pavelić and the Ustaše considered them " potential turncoats " in what they wanted to be an ethnically pure state composed solely of Croats . Racist and antisemitic laws were passed , and ethnic Serbs , representing about thirty percent of the NDH ' s population of 6 . 3 million , became targets of large - scale massacres perpetrated by the Ustaše . By the middle of 1941 , these killings reached degrees of brutality that shocked even some Germans . The Cyrillic script was subsequently banned by Croatian authorities , Orthodox Christian church schools were closed , and Serbs were ordered to wear identifying armbands . Mile Budak , the Croatian Minister of Education , is reported to have said that one - third of Serbs in the NDH were to be killed , one third were to be expelled , and one - third were to be converted to Roman Catholicism . The Ustaše then established numerous concentration camps where thousands of Serbs were mistreated , starved , and murdered . Glina is a small market town in the Banija region of Croatia located about 55 kilometers ( 34 miles ) south of Zagreb . In 1931 , the town itself had a population of 2 , 315 people and was inhabited mostly by Serbs , Croats , and Jews . Shortly after the Ustaše took power , the Croatian Minister of Justice , Mirko Puk , established a base in the town . Massacres . First massacre . On 11 or 12 May 1941 , a band of Ustaše led by Puk seized a group of Serb males from Glina and detained them regardless of occupation or class . The Ustaše then herded the group into an Orthodox Church and demanded that they be given documents proving the Serbs had all converted to Catholicism . Two Serbs produced the required documents and were released . The Ustaše then locked inside and massacred those who did not possess conversion certificates , including priest Bogdan Opačić . The bodies were then left to burn as the Ustaše set the church on fire and waited outside to shoot any survivors attempting to escape the flames . Estimates of the number of Serbs killed range from 260 to 417 . On 14 May , the Archbishop of Zagreb , Aloysius Stepinac , sent a letter of protest to Pavelić after receiving news of the massacre . However , he failed to condemn the atrocity publicly . The next day , Pavelić visited Rome and was granted a private audience with Pope Pius XII , who offered " de facto " recognition of the NDH on behalf of the Holy See . Although he was aware that Pavelić was a totalitarian dictator , there is no evidence that the Pope had any knowledge of the first Glina massacre at the time . Second massacre . On the night of 30 July 1941 , a massacre similar to the one in May again occurred in Glina . That summer , the Ustaše had offered amnesty for all Serbs in the NDH who would convert from Eastern Orthodoxy to Roman Catholicism . Many Serbs responded positively , and one group turned up at the Serbian Orthodox church in Glina where a conversion ceremony was to take place . The 700 to 1 , 200 Serbs who had gathered , thinking they were to undergo a conversion ceremony , were greeted by six members of the Ustaše under the direct command of Vjekoslav Luburić . When all were inside , the doors to the church were sealed . The Serbs were then forced to lie on the ground as the six Ustaše struck them one by one on the head with spiked clubs . More Ustaše then appeared and the killings continued . Victims were killed by having their throats cut or by having their heads smashed in with rifle butts . Only one of the victims , Ljubo Jednak , survived after playing dead and later described what had happened : The bodies were then put into trucks and were taken to a large burial pit , where they were left unattended long enough for Jednak to escape . Aftermath . Following the massacres , many Serbs from Glina and its surroundings fled to Serbia or were deported to Ustaše - controlled concentration camps . The NDH collapsed in May 1945 , and the following year the Nuremberg trials judged that the persecution experienced by Serbs in the country was a crime of genocide . Local Serbs returned to Glina after the war , partly out of a desire to remain near the graves of their deceased family members . Puk , the organizer of the first massacre , was captured by British forces while attempting to flee to Austria in May 1945 and was extradited to Yugoslavia several months later , where he committed suicide by slitting his wrists with a razor blade . Luburić , the organizer of the second massacre , escaped Yugoslavia after the war and moved to fascist Spain , where he was assassinated by Ilija Stanić , an agent of the Yugoslav State Security Service ( UDBA ) . Pavelić survived the war and died in Spain in 1959 . Stepinac , who failed to publicly condemn the atrocities in Glina , was accused of collaborating with the Ustaše by Yugoslavia ' s new Communist government and was tried in 1946 , where Jednak testified against him . He was subsequently sentenced to sixteen years imprisonment and died while under house arrest in 1960 . In 1986 , Jednak testified against the Ustaše government ' s Minister of the Interior , Andrija Artuković , at his trial in Croatia . Legacy . Out of an estimated 300 , 000 Croatian Serbs that were murdered by the Ustaše from 1941 to 1945 , more than 18 , 000 were ethnic Serbs from Glina at its surroundings . The two massacres that occurred in the town in 1941 , sometimes described as pogroms , took the lives of less than 2 , 000 Serbs . Journalist Tim Judah has described them as being one of the most infamous of the early atrocities perpetrated by the Ustaše . The poem " Requiem " ( ) by poet Ivan V . Lalić is dedicated to the victims of the two massacres in Glina . After the war , Yugoslav authorities removed the physical remnants where the church from the second Glina massacre had stood . In 1969 , a monument by Antun Augustinčić and a museum ( , lit . " Memorial home " ) were erected on the site and were dedicated to the victims of the massacres . Following the independence of Croatia from Yugoslavia , the monument , a marble tablet bearing the names of Serbs killed in the massacres , was removed by Croatian authorities in the town . The memorial museum was heavily damaged in 1991 , during the Croatian War of Independence . In August 1995 , the Augustinčić monument was damaged and removed , and the local authorities began working on the conversion of the memorial into a general - purpose cultural institution named the " Croatian Home " ( ) . The move was met with indignation by the Serbian community , who complained to the local authorities , to the Ministry of Culture , and to the Prime Minister of Croatia . They were publicly supported by Slavko Goldstein , but the local Croatian Peasant Party politicians rejected their pleas .