The Ustasha Underground in Rome and Ustasha Gold
Simon Srbadic
According to information gathered at various times by U.S. intelligence,
the College of San Girolamo degli Illirici in Rome, which provided living
quarters for Croatian priests studying at the Vatican during and after
World War II, was a center of Ustasha covert activity and a Croatian
"underground" that helped Ustasha refugees and war criminals to escape
Europe after the War.24 British intelligence information of March 1946 also
identified San Girolamo as the church for the Ustashi managed by a
brotherhood of Croatian priests, the "confraternita di San Girolama." This
brotherhood issued identity cards with false names to the fugitive Ustashi,
allowing them to evade arrest or detention by the Allies.25
Monsignor Juraj Madjerec, identified in intelligence reports as an Ustasha
supporter, was head of the College, but the prime mover behind this Ustasha
activity in Rome was the secretary of the College, Father Dr. Krunoslav
Stefano Dragonovic, who was also an Ustasha colonel and former official of
the Croat "Ministry for Internal Colonization," the agency responsible for
the confiscation of Serb property in Bosnia and Hercegovina.26
Regarded by U.S. intelligence officers as Ante Pavelic’s "alter ego," the
Croatian-born Father Dragonovic had been a Professor of Theology at Zagreb
University. In 1943 he went to Rome allegedly as the representative of the
Croatian Red Cross, but probably to coordinate Ustasha affairs in Italy.
Taking advantage of contacts inside the International Red Cross and other
refugee and relief organizations, Dragonovic helped Ustasha fugitives
emigrate illegally to South America by providing temporary shelter and
false identity documents, and by arranging onward transport, primarily to
Argentina.27 U.S. intelligence reports make much of Father Dragonovic’s
role in helping the Ustashi who sought protection in Rome after the War. He
was also reportedly entrusted with the safeguarding of the archives of the
Ustasha Legation in Rome, which he hid somewhere in the Vatican, as well as
with all the valuables brought out of Croatia by the fleeing Ustashi.28
Under Dragonovic’s leadership, the Croat underground in San Girolamo built
up an effective covert organization which operated an escape service for
Croatian nationalists fleeing from the Yugoslav regime. Dragonovic’s
organization also worked with the "rat line" set up and operated by the
U.S. Army’s Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) to help Soviet and East
European defectors, informants, and activists escape from
Communist-controlled territory.29 In 1951 Dragonovic worked with the CIC to
organize the escape of anti-Communist informant and Nazi war criminal Klaus
Barbie to South America.30 In mid-October 1958, a few days after the death
of Pope Pius XII on October 9, Dragonovic was ordered to leave the College
of San Girolamo by the Vatican Secretary of State.31 In 1962 the CIC
dropped him as an agent "with prejudice, for security reasons and lack of
control."32
Over the next few years, relations between the Vatican and Communist
Yugoslavia improved and were finally normalized in June 1966. Dragonovic,
who had broken with Ante Pavelic in 1955, benefited from an amnesty granted
by the Tito regime in the early 1960s. In 1967 he traveled to Trieste
[Italy] and walked across the border to Yugoslavia. A few days later he
made a speech over Yugoslav radio denouncing the Ustashi and praising the
progress made since the end of the War by the Tito regime. The indications
are that Dragonovic lived quietly in Yugoslavia where he died in July
1983.33
From early 1946 to late 1947, the Ustashi in Rome harbored Ante Pavelic, as
well as other Ustasha leaders. Pavelic arrived in Rome in 1946 disguised as
a priest with a Spanish passport. For the next two years he reportedly
lived at San Girolamo and other quarters in Rome. The support of the Croat
underground in Rome was critical for Pavelic’s escape from Europe to
Argentina. In November 1948 he emigrated to Argentina on the Italian
motorship Sestrire. In 1957, after an assassination attempt, he moved to
Spain, where he died in 1959.34
The CIC, which had responsibility for tracking down war criminals, knew of
Pavelic’s presence in Italy and monitored his activities for nearly two
years, attempting to learn his exact whereabouts. In late July 1947, after
CIC reported that Pavelic was living in a particular Vatican-owned building
in Rome, and after consultations in Washington, the State Department
instructed the Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Italy that "the United
States should cooperate with the Italian authorities to the extent
necessary in this particular case." The British Government concurred in
this action four days later. The CIC agents assigned to monitor Pavelic’s
activities in preparation for his arrest reported that he was enjoying the
protection of the British as well as of the Vatican and advised against
unilateral U.S. action to extradite Pavelic to Yugoslavia in order not to
lose support among Catholic and anti-Communist émigrés. U.S. military
intelligence concurred on the grounds that Pavelic’s arrest would alienate
the Croatians loyal to the Ustasha cause who were being increasingly
employed as informants by U.S. intelligence agencies. In the end, U.S.
forces withdrew from Italy without acting decisively to apprehend
Pavelic.35 However, CIC’s interest apparently was sufficient to compel
Pavelic to leave Rome for a monastery near the Pope’s summer residence at
Castel Gandolfo, where he remained for several months prior to his
departure from Europe.36
The figure of 350 million Swiss francs (over $80 million) of Ustasha gold
that U.S. intelligence reported in 1946 remains the only attempt to
estimate the total financial resources available to the Ustashi at the end
of World War II. This figure refers to sums in Italy and Austria and
probably does not include those funds sequestered by the Ustasha regime in
Switzerland. Moreover, it remains unsubstantiated and may not include some
or all of the sums reported elsewhere. Although the amount of the total
financial resources available to the Ustasha leadership at the end of World
War II cannot be determined, it seems clear from the available information
that there was some quantity of gold at their disposal in Rome, Austria,
and Switzerland. From the character of the Ustasha regime and the nature of
its wartime activities, this sum almost certainly included some quantity of
victim gold.
U.S. intelligence reports—many of them uncorroborated and
speculative—portray the Croat underground in Rome as making use of a
considerable quantity of gold, probably including victim gold, that the
Ustashi sent or brought out of Croatia between 1943 and 1945. Sources
available to U.S. intelligence authorities varied widely, even wildly, in
their estimates of the total value of the gold available to the Croat
underground in Rome. The largest estimate of Ustashi treasury reaching Rome
was made in the October 1946 U.S. intelligence (SSU) report to the Treasury
Department, which estimated that 200 million Swiss francs (about $47
million) "was originally held in the Vatican" before being moved to Spain
and Argentina.37 Another October 1946 intelligence report summarizing
information on the whereabouts of former Ustasha officials identified an
"Ustashi Financial Committee" living in Rome with a large amount of gold at
its disposal.38 On the other hand, a report derived from an alleged January
1947 interview with Ante Pavelic at his quarters in the monastery in Rome,
claimed the Ustashi had only 3,900 gold Napoleons (some $25,000) in all of
Italy.39
Ante Pavelic, Father Dragonovic, and other Ustasha leaders in Rome also
derived moral and financial aid from many other countries, including from
Ustasha sympathizers in the United States.40 U.S. intelligence was also
informed that the Ustashi in Italy were active on the black market.41
Dragonovic may also have personally profited from his illegal activities,
charging refugees as much as $1,500 for false documents and realizing $625
from each refugee he helped transport to Argentina.42
peterpan
to the West, together with their Ustasha Allies. They went by ship to
Bari and stayed together with Ustashas, at Kaserta, Bagnoli and several
other camps. Yes even your favourite Momcilo Djujic the chetnik vojvoda
responsible for the slaughter of the American airmen also came to US
that way!