Petar Brzica
Croat friar and mass murderer (born c. 1917)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Petar "Pero" Brzica (born c. 1917)[1][2][3] was a Croatian Franciscan of the "Order of Friars Minor" who became a mass murderer during the Ustaše regime. He committed his atrocities at the Jasenovac concentration camp during World War II. He personally murdered up to 1,360 inmates at the camp.[4]
c. 1917
Independent State of Croatia
Petar "Pero" Brzica | |
|---|---|
| Born | Petar Brzica c. 1917 |
| Disappeared | 1945 (aged 28) Independent State of Croatia |
| Occupations | Ustaše Lieutenant, Nazi collaborator and war criminal |
| Known for | Mass murder during the Holocaust |
Background
Before the war, Brzica was a scholarship student at the Franciscan college of Široki Brijeg in Herzegovina and a member of The Great Brotherhood of Crusaders, an organization part of the Croatian Catholic movement. He spent some time studying law in Zagreb where he became a Ustaše Youth member, later becoming a member of the fascist Ustaša government (1941–45) and one of the guards in the Jasenovac concentration camp.[5]
As a member of Ustaša, he held the rank of lieutenant.[6][7] He won a contest in which he used a curve-bladed knife, also called a srbosjek ("Serb-cutter"), to kill newly arrived concentration camp prisoners.[8][9][10][11] Brzica boasted of winning the contest by killing the largest number of prisoners – 1,360 people one night alone.[12][13] Other sources set Brzica's "record" at a lower number, between 670[14] and 1,100.[15]