DARK TOURISM IN THE UK …ICONS OF EVIL & ONE OF THE WORLDS MOST EVIL SATANIC CULTS… CHARLES MANSON & HIS MURDEROUS DISCIPLES HE CALLED HIS FAMILY.

Above : Charles Manson seen here in open coffin after his death on November 19, 2017

Charles Milles Manson (né Maddox, November 12, 1934 – November 19, 2017) was an American criminal, cult leader, and songwriter. In the late 1960s, he formed what became known as the Manson Family, a quasi-commune in California. Manson’s followers committed a series of nine murders at four locations in July and August 1969. In 1971 he was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder for the deaths of seven people, all of which were carried out at his instruction by members of the group. Manson was also convicted of first-degree murder for two other deaths.
At the time the Manson Family began to form, Manson was an unemployed ex-convict who had spent half of his life in correctional institutions for a variety of offenses. Before the murders, he was a singer-songwriter on the fringe of the Los Angeles music industry, chiefly through a chance association with Dennis Wilson, drummer and founding member of the Beach Boys. Manson believed in what he called “Helter Skelter”, a term he took from the Beatles’ song of the same name to describe an impending apocalyptic race war. He believed the murders would help precipitate that war. One of his songs, “Cease to Exist”, was recorded by the Beach Boys and renamed “Never Learn Not to Love”. It was released as a B-sided single in 1968 without Manson’s credit.
From the beginning of Manson’s notoriety, a pop culture arose around him in which he ultimately became an emblem of insanity, violence and the macabre. After he was charged with the crimes of which he was later convicted, recordings of songs written and performed by Manson were released commercially, starting with Lie: The Love and Terror Cult (1970). Various musicians have covered some of his songs. Manson was originally sentenced to death, but his sentence was commuted to life with the possibility of parole after California invalidated the state’s death penalty statute in 1972. He served out his life sentence at California State Prison in Corcoran and died at age 83 in 2017.

Above: Charles Manson painting kindly donated by Gloucestershire Artist – Paul Bridgman on display at The Crime Through Time Collection at Littledean  Jail .

Charles Manson is a convicted serial killer who has become an icon of evil. In the late 1960s, Manson founded a hippie cult group known as “the Family” whom he manipulated into brutally killing others on his behalf.

Here’s some interactive information , a brief photo gallery  and video footage relating to the infamous cult leader Charles Manson and The Manson Family

FROM THE HANDS OF DEATH

Here on display at the Crime Through Time Collection at Littledean Jail , Forest of Dean,  Gloucestershire, UK ………..we have a number of handwritten and signed letters etc from Charles Manson and some of his disciples along with various other American and UK serial killers.

 

November 12, 1934 —

Also Known As:

Charles Milles Maddox, Charles Milles Manson

Overview of Charles Manson:

Charles Manson was born in Cincinnati, Ohio to 16-year-old Kathleen Maddox. Kathleen had run away from home at the age of 15 and spent the next few decades drinking too much, with periods of time spent in jail.

Since his mother couldn’t take care of him, Charles spent his youth at the homes of various relatives and often at special reform schools and boys homes. By age nine, Charles Manson had already started stealing and soon added burglary and stealing cars to his repertoire.

Manson Gets Married

In 1954, at age nineteen, he was released on parole after an unusual bout of good behavior. The next year, he married Rosalie Willis, a waitress, and they had a son together, Charles Manson Jr. (born March 1956). Even while married, Manson had continued making extra money by stealing cars. In April 1956, he was again sent to prison. After Manson had been in prison for a year, his wife found someone new and divorced Manson in June 1957.

Manson the Con Man

In 1958, Manson was released from prison. While out, Manson began pimping, stealing checks from mailboxes, and conned a young woman out of money. He also married again, to a woman named Leona, and fathered a second son, Charles Luther Manson. Manson was again arrested on June 1, 1960 and sent to the McNeil Island Penitentiary off the coast of Washington. His wife soon divorced him.

Music in Prison

Manson spent the next six years in prison. It was during this time that he befriended the infamous Alvin “Creepy” Karpis, former member of Ma Barker’s gang. After Karpis taught Charles Manson to play the steel guitar, Manson became obsessed with making music. He practiced all the time, wrote dozens of original songs, and started singing. He believed that when he got out of prison, he could be a famous musician.

Manson Gets a Following

On March 21, 1967, Manson was once again released from prison. This time he headed to San Francisco where, with a guitar and drugs, he began to get a following. In 1968, he and several followers drove to Southern California.

Manson was still hoping for a music career. Through an acquaintance, Manson met and hung out with Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys. The Beach Boys did record one of Manson’s songs, which appeared as “Never Learn Not to Love” on the B-side of their 20/20 album.

Through Wilson, Manson met Terry Melcher, Doris Day’s son. Manson believed Melcher was going to advance his music career but when nothing happened, Manson was very upset.

During this time, Charles Manson and some of his followers moved into the Spahn Ranch. Located northwest of San Fernando Valley the Spahn Ranch had been a popular location to film westerns in the 1940s and 1950s. Once Manson and his followers moved in, it became a cult compound for “the Family.”

Helter Skelter

Charles Manson was good at manipulating people. He took pieces from various religions to form his own philosophy. When the Beatles released their White Album in 1968, Manson believed their song “Helter Skelter” predicted an upcoming race war. “Helter skelter,” Manson believed, was going to occur in the summer of 1969 when blacks were going to rise up and slaughter all the white people. He told his followers that they would be saved because they would go underground, literally, by traveling to an underground city of gold located in Death Valley.

However, when the Armageddon that Manson had predicted did not occur, he said he and his followers must show the blacks how to do it.

Manson Orders the Murders

Manson told four of his followers to go to 10050 Cielo Drive in Los Angeles and kill the people inside. This house once belonged to Terry Melcher, the man who had not helped Manson with his music career. However, Melcher no longer lived there; actress Sharon Tate and her husband, director Roman Polanski, had rented the house. On August 9, 1969, four of Manson’s followers brutally murdered Tate, her unborn baby, and four others who were visiting her (Polanski was in Europe for work). The following night, Manson’s followers brutally killed Leno and Rosemary LaBianca in their home.

Manson’s Trial

It took the police several months to determine who was responsible. In December 1969, Manson and several of his followers were arrested. The trial began on July 24, 1970. On January 25, Manson was found guilty of first degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. On March 29, 1971, Manson was sentenced to death.

Life in Prison

Manson was reprieved from the death penalty in 1972 when the California Supreme Court outlawed the death penalty. Charles Manson now serves a lifetime sentence and periodically comes up for parole.

Though he’s been in prison for over three decades, Charles Manson has received more mail than any other prisoner in the U.S. Charles Manson is currently being held in California’s Corcoran Prison.

DARK TOURISM HERE IN THE UK THE EVIL HORRORS AND ATROCITIES OF THE WW2 NAZI HOLOCAUST YEARS AND BEYOND. IT’S ALL HERE & SO MUCH MORE AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION, LITTLEDEAN JAIL, UK. ” LEST WE FORGET “

Here below is a very brief look and insight into our Nazi Holocaust Years Exhibition here at The Crime Through Time  Collection , Littledean Jail, UK

Original painting by Gloucestershire artist Paul Bridgman of Adolf Hitler here on display at The Crime Through Time Collection , Littledean Jail , UK .

ABOVE : Original handwritten, inscribed and signed Adolf Hitler photo dated 9 November 1943 here on display at the Jail .

HERE IS A PICTURE OF SOME OF THE EMPTY  ZYKLON B CANISTERS USED AT VARIOUS NAZI DEATH CAMP GAS CHAMBERS , AS CAN BE SEEN HERE ON DISPLAY . ( LEST WE FORGET )

POLITE WARNING …  THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL (WHERE UPON THIS EXHIBITION IS HOUSED )  IS NOT SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN OR THOSE OF YOU WHO ARE EASILY OFFENDED , DISTURBED OR OF A SENSITIVE NATURE

Original painting by Gloucestershire artist Paul Bridgman on display at The Crime Through Time Collection, Littledean Jail ,UK.

THE CONTENT HERE ON DISPLAY BOTH ONLINE AND WITHIN THE JAIL IS IN THE MAIN HARD HITTING , GRAPHIC, EXPLICIT , IN YOUR FACE , TONGUE IN CHEEK , CONTROVERSIAL AND TO MANY … VERY DISTURBING .

WITH THIS IN MIND AND FOR YOUR BENEFIT AND COMFORT … PLEASE DO TAKE A LOOK AT SOME OF OUR FACEBOOK POSTS , READ OUR TOURISM LEAFLETS AND DO TAKE NOTICE OF ALL OUR WARNING SIGNAGE PRIOR TO ENTERING THE JAIL .

 

Above : Original painting by Gloucestershire Artist Paul Bridgman on display here at Littledean Jail, of the sadistic Irma Grese …. deemed to be “The Angel of Death ” , who was subsequently arrested and later hanged by British Hangman Albert Pierrepoint

Irma Ida Ilse Grese (7 October 1923 – 13 December 1945) was a female SS guard at the Nazi concentration camps of Ravensbrück and Auschwitz, and served as warden of the women’s section of Bergen-Belsen.

Grese was convicted for crimes against humanity committed at Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, and sentenced to death at the Belsen trial. Executed at 22 years of age, Grese was the youngest woman to die judicially under British law in the 20th century. She was nicknamed by the camps’ inmates “the Hyena of Auschwitz Above : Original painting by Gloucestershire Artist Paul Bridgman  on display here at Littledean Jail,  of the sadistic Irma Grese ….

Josef Kramer (10 November 1906 – 13 December 1945) was the Commandant of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Dubbed The Beast of Belsen by camp inmates, he was a notorious German Nazi war criminal, directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of people. He was detained by the British army after the Second World War, convicted of war crimes and hanged on the gallows in Hamelin prison by British executioner Albert Pierrepoint.

Above : Original oil painting by Gloucestershire Artist Paul Bridgman of Josef Kramer , The Beast of Belsen , on display here at Littledean Jail,

Below: Original painting by Gloucestershire Artist Paul Bridgman  on display here at Littledean Jail,  of the evil and sadistic Josef Kramer …. better known as “The Beast of Belsen “

Used original Zyklon B 100gram sized canisters from one of the first Nazi gas chambers situated at Grafeneck Euthanasia Center, housed in Grafeneck Castle, Germany . It had officially opened in January 1940 and was closed on the orders of Nazi warlord Himmler in December 1940 . This facility was mainly used to exterminate mentally Handicapped and retarded victims as part of the Nazi euthanasia program. These canisters are exceptionally rare find from what was one of the earliest gas chambers and crematorium facilities . There is evidence that exists to the effect that a minimum 10, 654 were gassed there, though inevitably many more victims were murdered there before its closure . these canisters are now on public display at the Crime Through Time Collection, Littledean Jail

Here is some more interactive, historical and hopefully educational background footage and insight into the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust years. The photo gallery below the first video also provides a brief pictorial glimpse into our own disturbing Nazi Holocaust exhibition here at the jail .

We also feature a great many interactive pieces in relation to UK World War 2 Special Forces, including the SOE (Special Operations Executive) and the SAS (Special Air Service) …. whom were both actively involved in a great many operations against the Nazi’s during this period .

Original painting by Gloucestershire artist Paul Bridgman on display at The Crime Through Time Collection, Littledean Jail , UK

BELOW IS A BRIEF PICTORIAL GLIMPSE INTO SOME OF THE EXHIBIT ITEMS HERE ON DISPLAY AT LITTLEDEAN JAILS  NAZI HOLOCAUST EXHIBITION .

 

Srbosjek (literally “Serb cutter” in Croatian and Serbian, often referred to as “cutthroat”) is the colloquial serbo-Croatian term for a type of knife used for killing …

Witness drawing of the sboskek wrist knife used to quickly dispatch prisoners at Jasenovac

Srbosjek (literally “Serb cutter” in Croatian and Serbian, often referred to as “cutthroat”) is the colloquial serbo-Croatian term for a type of knife used for killing …

The Holocaust was the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of approximately six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. “Holocaust” is a word of Greek origin meaning “sacrifice by fire.” The Nazis, who came to power in Germany in January 1933, believed that Germans were “racially superior” and that the Jews, deemed “inferior,” were an alien threat to the so-called German racial community.

During the era of the Holocaust, German authorities also targeted other groups because of their perceived “racial inferiority”: Roma (Gypsies), the disabled, and some of the Slavic peoples (Poles, Russians, and others). Other groups were persecuted on political, ideological, and behavioral grounds, among them Communists, Socialists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and homosexuals.

WHAT WAS THE HOLOCAUST?

In 1933, the Jewish population of Europestood at over nine million. Most European Jews lived in countries that Nazi Germany would occupy or influence during World War II. By 1945, the Germans and theircollaborators killed nearly two out of every three European Jews as part of the “Final Solution,” the Nazi policy to murder the Jews of Europe. Although Jews, whom the Nazis deemed a priority danger to Germany, were the primary victims of Nazi racism, other victims included some 200,000 Roma (Gypsies). At least 200,000 mentally or physically disabled patients, mainly Germans, living in institutional settings, were murdered in the so-called Euthanasia Program.

As Nazi tyranny spread across Europe, the Germans and their collaborators persecuted and murdered millions of other people. Between two and three million Soviet prisoners of warwere murdered or died of starvation, disease, neglect, or maltreatment. The Germans targeted the non-Jewish Polish intelligentsia for killing, and deported millions of Polish and Soviet civilians for forced labor in Germany or in occupiedPoland, where these individuals worked and often died under deplorable conditions. From the earliest years of the Nazi regime, German authorities persecuted homosexuals and others whose behavior did not match prescribed social norms. German police officials targeted thousands of political opponents (including Communists, Socialists, and trade unionists) and religious dissidents (such as Jehovah’s Witnesses). Many of these individuals died as a result of incarceration and maltreatment.

ADMINISTRATION OF THE “FINAL SOLUTION” 

In the early years of the Nazi regime, the National Socialist government established concentration camps to detain real and imagined political and ideological opponents. Increasingly in the years before the outbreak of war, SS and police officials incarcerated Jews, Roma, and other victims of ethnic and racial hatred in these camps. To concentrate and monitor the Jewish population as well as to facilitate later deportation of the Jews, the Germans and their collaborators created ghettos, transit camps, and forced-labor camps for Jews during the war years. The German authorities also established numerous forced-labor camps, both in the so-called Greater German Reich and in German-occupied territory, for non-Jews whose labor the Germans sought to exploit.

Following the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941,Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing units) and, later, militarized battalions of Order Police officials, moved behind German lines to carry out mass-murder operations against Jews, Roma, and Soviet state and Communist Party officials. German SS and police units, supported by units of the Wehrmacht and the Waffen SS, murdered more than a million Jewish men, women, and children, and hundreds of thousands of others. Between 1941 and 1944, Nazi German authorities deported millions of Jews from Germany, from occupied territories, and from the countries of many of its Axis allies to ghettos and to killing centers, often called extermination camps, where they were murdered in specially developed gassing facilities.

THE END OF THE HOLOCAUST

In the final months of the war, SS guards moved camp inmates by train or on forced marches, often called “death marches,” in an attempt to prevent the Allied liberation of large numbers of prisoners. As Allied forces moved across Europe in a series of offensives against Germany, they began to encounter andliberate concentration camp prisoners, as well as prisoners en route by forced march from one camp to another. The marches continued until May 7, 1945, the day the German armed forces surrendered unconditionally to the Allies. For the western Allies, World War II officially ended in Europe on the next day, May 8 (V-E Day), while Soviet forces announced their “Victory Day” on May 9, 1945.

In the aftermath of the Holocaust, many of the survivors found shelter in displaced persons (DP) camps administered by the Allied powers. Between 1948 and 1951, almost 700,000 Jews emigrated to Israel, including 136,000 Jewish displaced persons from Europe. Other Jewish DPs emigrated to the United States and other nations. The last DP camp closed in 1957. The crimes committed during the Holocaust devastated most European Jewish communities and eliminated hundreds of Jewish communities in occupied eastern Europe entirely

NOTORIOUS AMERICAN KILLER CLOWN AND RAPIST JOHN WAYNE GACY. ALSO KNOWN AS POGO THE CLOWN. HE MURDERED AT LEAST 33 TEENAGE BOYS AND YOUNG MEN AND WAS EXECUTED BY LETHAL INJECTION IN 1994 .

DARK TOURISM HERE IN THE UK – WHERE GOOD AND EVIL COLLIDE & WHERE FANTASY MEETS REALITY .

TRUE CRIME , MURDERABILIA, WITCHCRAFT, SATANISM AND THE OCCULT …. IT’S ALL HERE AND MUCH MORE ON DISPLAY AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION , LITTLEDEAN JAIL, FOREST OF DEAN , GLOUCESTERSHIRE , UK .

John Wayne Gacy, Jr. (March 17, 1942 – May 10, 1994), also known as the Killer Clown, was an American serial killer and rapist. He sexually assaulted and murdered at least 33 teenage boys and young men between 1972 and 1978 in Cook County, Illinois.

ABOVE: Original painting by Gloucestershire artist Paul Bridgman of John Wayne Gacy on display at Littledean Jail .

All of Gacy’s known murders were committed inside his Norwood Park, Illinois home. His victims would typically be lured to this address by force or deception, and all but one victim were murdered by either asphyxiation or strangulation with a tourniquet (his first victim was stabbed to death). Gacy buried 26 of his victims in the crawl space of his home. Three further victims were buried elsewhere on his property, while the bodies of his last four known victims were discarded in the Des Plaines River.

Convicted of 33 murders, Gacy was sentenced to death for 12 of these killings on March 13, 1980. He spent 14 years on death row before he was executed by lethal injection at Stateville Correctional Center on May 10, 1994.

Above: Police mugshots of John Wayne Gacy .

Gacy became known as the “Killer Clown” due to his charitable services at fundraising events, parades, and children’s parties where he would dress as “Pogo the Clown”, a character he devised himself.

BELOW : Various exhibit items to include one of Gacy’s “Pogo The Clown ” suits , handwritten and signed correspondence , a hand painting and various other memorabilia, all of which is on display here at The Crime Through Time Collection , Littledean Jail , Forest of Dean , Gloucestershire, UK .

ABOVE AND BELOW : One of  John Wayne Gacy’s  original worn clown suits. There are two other known Gacy clown suits on display  at The National Museum of Crime , Washington DC , USA .

BELOW: picture of 2 other Gacy clown suits, on display at The National Museum of Crime, Washington DC ….. Previously owned ( not sure if he still owns them )  by Jonathan Davis, lead singer of American Heavy Metal Band “Korn .”

ABOVE: John Wayne Gacy pictured in jail, so say,  shortly before his execution by lethal injection

 

 

THE HORRORS AND EVIL ATROCITIES OF RELIGIOUS WARFARE DURING THE WW2 NAZI HOLOCAUST YEARS WITH THE BLOODTHIRSTY CROATIAN PRO-NAZI, “USTASHA BLACK LEGION MILITIA” ,

JASENOVAC CONCENTRATION CAMP …. ONE OF THE CRUELEST AND MOST EVIL OF THEM ALL … AS FEATURED HERE AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION , LITTLEDEAN JAIL , UK … “LEST WE FORGET”

BELOW ARE TWO INTERACTIVE DOCUMENTARY INSIGHT FOOTAGE VIDEOS OF THE HORRORS WITHIN THE CAMP . NO WORDS THOUGH WE ARE SURE YOU WILL AGREE, THESE IMAGES TELL A THOUSAND OR MORE UNTOLD STORIES .

The Ustaše (pronounced [ûstaʃe]), also known as “Ustashe”, “Ustashas”, and “Ustashi”, were members of the Ustaša – Croatian Revolutionary Movement (Croatian: Ustaša – Hrvatski revolucionarni pokret), a Croatian fascist and terrorist organization active, in its original form, between 1929 until 1945. Its members murdered hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews, and Roma during World War II in Yugoslavia

 

ORIGINAL “SRBOSJEK” SERB THROAT CUTTER AS WAS USED BY THE USTASHA BLACK LEGION AT JASENOVAC CONCENTRATION CAMP DURING THE WW2 NAZI HOLOCAUST YEARS NOW ON DISPLAY AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION, LITTLEDEAN JAIL

ORIGINAL “SRBOSJEK” SERB THROAT CUTTER AS WAS USED BY THE USTASHA BLACK LEGION AT JASENOVAC CONCENTRATION CAMP DURING THE WW2 NAZI HOLOCAUST YEARS NOW ON DISPLAY AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION, LITTLEDEAN JAIL

Srbosjek (literally “Serb cutter” in Croatian and Serbian, often referred to as “cutthroat”) is the colloquial serbo-Croatian term for a type of knife used for killing …

Witness drawing of the sboskek wrist knife used to quickly dispatch prisoners at Jasenovac

ORIGINAL “SRBOSJEK” SERB THROAT CUTTER AS WAS USED BY THE USTASHA BLACK LEGION AT JASENOVAC CONCENTRATION CAMP DURING THE WW2 NAZI HOLOCAUST YEARS NOW ON DISPLAY AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION, LITTLEDEAN JAIL

ORIGINAL “SRBOSJEK” SERB THROAT CUTTER AS WAS USED BY THE USTASHA BLACK LEGION AT JASENOVAC CONCENTRATION CAMP DURING THE WW2 NAZI HOLOCAUST YEARS NOW ON DISPLAY AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION, LITTLEDEAN JAIL

ORIGINAL “SRBOSJEK” SERB THROAT CUTTER AS WAS USED BY THE USTASHA BLACK LEGION AT JASENOVAC CONCENTRATION CAMP DURING THE WW2 NAZI HOLOCAUST YEARS NOW ON DISPLAY AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION, LITTLEDEAN JAIL

Srbosjek (literally “Serb cutter” in Croatian and Serbian, often referred to as “cutthroat”) is the colloquial serbo-Croatian term for a type of knife used for killing …

ORIGINAL “SRBOSJEK” SERB THROAT CUTTER AS WAS USED BY THE USTASHA BLACK LEGION AT JASENOVAC CONCENTRATION CAMP DURING THE WW2 NAZI HOLOCAUST YEARS NOW ON DISPLAY AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION, LITTLEDEAN JAIL

ORIGINAL “SRBOSJEK” SERB THROAT CUTTER AS WAS USED BY THE USTASHA BLACK LEGION AT JASENOVAC CONCENTRATION CAMP DURING THE WW2 NAZI HOLOCAUST YEARS NOW ON DISPLAY AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION, LITTLEDEAN JAIL

ORIGINAL “SRBOSJEK” SERB THROAT CUTTER AS WAS USED BY THE USTASHA BLACK LEGION AT JASENOVAC CONCENTRATION CAMP DURING THE WW2 NAZI HOLOCAUST YEARS NOW ON DISPLAY AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION, LITTLEDEAN JAIL

ORIGINAL “SRBOSJEK” SERB THROAT CUTTER AS WAS USED BY THE USTASHA BLACK LEGION AT JASENOVAC CONCENTRATION CAMP DURING THE WW2 NAZI HOLOCAUST YEARS NOW ON DISPLAY AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION, LITTLEDEAN JAIL

HEAVY DUTY LONG HANDLED MALLET/HAMMER OF THE KIND THAT WAS USED BY THE USTASHA BLACK LEGION AS A PREFFERED FORM OF KILLING INMATES AT THE WW2 CROATIAN CONCENTRATION CAMPS …RATHER THAN GASSING THEIR VICTIMS

HEAVY DUTY LONG HANDLED MALLET/HAMMER OF THE KIND THAT WAS USED BY THE USTASHA BLACK LEGION AS A PREFFERED FORM OF KILLING INMATES AT THE WW2 CROATIAN CONCENTRATION CAMPS …RATHER THAN GASSING THEIR VICTIMS

HEAVY DUTY LONG HANDLED MALLET/HAMMER OF THE KIND THAT WAS USED BY THE USTASHA BLACK LEGION AS A PREFFERED FORM OF KILLING INMATES AT THE WW2 CROATIAN CONCENTRATION CAMPS …RATHER THAN GASSING THEIR VICTIMS

Heavy long handled wooden-mallet/club-used-to-crush-the-skulls-of-prisoners-at-jasenovac

HEAVY DUTY LONG HANDLED MALLET/HAMMER OF THE KIND THAT WAS USED BY THE USTASHA BLACK LEGION AS A PREFFERED FORM OF KILLING INMATES AT THE WW2 CROATIAN CONCENTRATION CAMPS …RATHER THAN GASSING THEIR VICTIMS

HEAVY DUTY LONG HANDLED MALLET/HAMMER OF THE KIND THAT WAS USED BY THE USTASHA BLACK LEGION AS A PREFFERED FORM OF KILLING INMATES AT THE WW2 CROATIAN CONCENTRATION CAMPS …RATHER THAN GASSING THEIR VICTIMS

HEAVY DUTY LONG HANDLED MALLET/HAMMER OF THE KIND THAT WAS USED BY THE USTASHA BLACK LEGION AS A PREFFERED FORM OF KILLING INMATES AT THE WW2 CROATIAN CONCENTRATION CAMPS …RATHER THAN GASSING THEIR VICTIMS

GROUND DUG ORIGINAL USTASHA BLACK LEGION UNIFORM INSIGNIA

GROUND DUG ORIGINAL USTASHA BLACK LEGION BELT BUCKLE REMNANT AND UNIFORM CAP BADGE

GROUND DUG ORIGINAL USTASHA BLACK LEGION UNIFORM CAP BADGE

GROUND DUG ORIGINAL USTASHA BLACK LEGION UNIFORM CAP BADGE

GROUND DUG ORIGINAL USTASHA BLACK LEGION BELT BUCKLE REMNANT

GROUND DUG ORIGINAL USTASHA BLACK LEGION BELT BUCKLE REMNANT

GROUND DUG ORIGINAL USTASHA BLACK LEGION UNIFORM INSIGNIA

GROUND DUG ORIGINAL USTASHA BLACK LEGION UNIFORM INSIGNIA

ORIGINAL “GROUND DUG ” FROM A USTASHA EXECUTION SITE … LEATHER BELT COMPLETE WITH IT’S ORIGINAL BUCKLE , ALONG THE TOP RIM ARE HAND SCRATCHED NOTCH MARKS PURPORTING TO BE NUMBERS OF KILLS BY THE OWNER OF THE BELT

ORIGINAL “GROUND DUG ” FROM A USTASHA EXECUTION SITE … LEATHER BELT COMPLETE WITH IT’S ORIGINAL BUCKLE , ALONG THE TOP RIM ARE HAND SCRATCHED NOTCH MARKS PURPORTING TO BE NUMBERS OF KILLS BY THE OWNER OF THE BELT

ORIGINAL “GROUND DUG ” FROM A USTASHA EXECUTION SITE … LEATHER BELT COMPLETE WITH IT’S ORIGINAL BUCKLE , ALONG THE TOP RIM ARE HAND SCRATCHED NOTCH MARKS PURPORTING TO BE NUMBERS OF KILLS BY THE OWNER OF THE BELT

ORIGINAL “GROUND DUG ” FROM A USTASHA EXECUTION SITE … LEATHER BELT COMPLETE WITH IT’S ORIGINAL BUCKLE , ALONG THE TOP RIM ARE HAND SCRATCHED NOTCH MARKS PURPORTING TO BE NUMBERS OF KILLS BY THE OWNER OF THE BELT

ORIGINAL “GROUND DUG ” FROM A USTASHA EXECUTION SITE … LEATHER BELT COMPLETE WITH IT’S ORIGINAL BUCKLE , ALONG THE TOP RIM ARE HAND SCRATCHED NOTCH MARKS PURPORTING TO BE NUMBERS OF KILLS BY THE OWNER OF THE BELT

ORIGINAL “GROUND DUG ” FROM A USTASHA EXECUTION SITE … HANDMADE LADY SIZED USTASHA DECORATIVE RING WITH THE LETTERS A.M. ETCHED TO THE SIDE

ORIGINAL “GROUND DUG ” FROM A USTASHA EXECUTION SITE … HANDMADE LADY SIZED USTASHA DECORATIVE RING WITH THE LETTERS A.M. ETCHED TO THE SIDE

ORIGINAL “GROUND DUG ” FROM A USTASHA EXECUTION SITE … HANDMADE LADY SIZED USTASHA DECORATIVE RING WITH THE LETTERS A.M. ETCHED TO THE SIDE

ORIGINAL “GROUND DUG ” FROM A USTASHA EXECUTION SITE … A USTASHA CAP BADGE

ORIGINAL “GROUND DUG ” FROM A USTASHA EXECUTION SITE … A USTASHA CAP BADGE

ORIGINAL “GROUND DUG ” FROM A USTASHA EXECUTION SITE … A USTASHA SOLDIER’S HANDMADE DECORATIVE RING MADE FROM THE REMNANTS OF A PIECE OF KRUPP BERNDORF CUTLERY WITH AN ADDED USTASHA EMBLEM .

ORIGINAL “GROUND DUG ” FROM A USTASHA EXECUTION SITE … A USTASHA SOLDIER’S HANDMADE DECORATIVE RING MADE FROM THE REMNANTS OF A PIECE OF KRUPP BERNDORF CUTLERY WITH AN ADDED USTASHA EMBLEM .

ORIGINAL “GROUND DUG ” FROM A USTASHA EXECUTION SITE … A USTASHA SOLDIER’S HANDMADE DECORATIVE RING MADE FROM THE REMNANTS OF A PIECE OF KRUPP BERNDORF CUTLERY WITH AN ADDED USTASHA EMBLEM .

ORIGINAL “GROUND DUG ” FROM A USTASHA EXECUTION SITE … A USTASHA SOLDIER’S HANDMADE DECORATIVE RING MADE FROM THE REMNANTS OF A PIECE OF KRUPP BERNDORF CUTLERY WITH AN ADDED USTASHA EMBLEM .

During the Holocaust, one group of killers stood out as more vicious, murderous, and bloodthirsty than all others. The Ustasha of Yugoslavia was a Muslim-Catholic alliance of Nazi killers so beastly that even Nazi officials in Berlin were horrified. The Ustasha and three related crack divisions of Arab-Nazi Waffen SS comprised of tens of thousands of Muslim volunteers and terrorized people of all faiths in Yugoslavia. In large measure, these murder machines emerged through the efforts of the grand mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husseini. The grand mufti was on a mission to accelerate the extermination of all Jews everywhere. His partner was Adolf Hitler. The epic story of this alliance is one that began in Jerusalem, traveled to Baghdad, culminated in the Balkans, and ultimately spread across all Europe. In many ways, the scene was set centuries ago by the Medina Extermination of 627. Medina was a largely Jewish city. When its 600 or so Jews refused to convert to the new Muslim religion, the Prophet Muhammad murdered them in a protracted ceremony, beheading the Jewish faithful one by one. This massacre became a glorious iconic event in Islamic history. After Medina, the Islamic Conquest swept across the Middle East and North Africa. In about 700, the Pact of Umar declared that Jews and Christians under Muslim control could continue as non-Muslims, but only as dhimmis – that is, second-class citizens reviled for their existence and denied many ordinary rights. Throughout the ages while dwelling in the various realms of the Muslim world, Jews and Christians were either allowed to excel and thrive or were brutally repressed and persecuted, depending on the decade and territory. But the context of their existence – whether successful or subjugated – was always as second-class citizens. Islam’s many anti-Jewish mandates were not just ancient textual relics but were often quoted by Islamic leaders throughout the centuries. When the League of Nations, Britain, France, the United States, Germany, and finally Turkey endorsed a Jewish homeland, each with a formal resolution resembling that of the Balfour Declaration, it ignited a seismic outrage among Arabs. The very thought of Jews living as equals was anathema to Palestinian Arabs. From 1920, their regular rallying call was Itbach al Yahood! – Slaughter the Jews. With knives and rifles, in small spontaneous groups and organized mobs, Arabs murdered Palestinian Jews, burned their Torahs and laid waste to their synagogues as Jews tried to rebuild a homeland. Indeed, in 1929, when Jews sat down while they prayed at the Western Wall, violating Islamic prohibitions against Jews sitting there – a mob of Arabs swarmed over Hebron sadistically killing dozens. The Jewish baker was baked in his own oven. A Jewish scholar’s brain was extricated and used as a ball. In 1937, the Peel Report concluded that two states should be created, one Arab and one Jewish, living side by side. But the Muslim world would not tolerate the notion of coexistence with Jews as equals. “Our hatred for the Jews dates from God’s condemnation of them for their persecution and rejection of Isa [Jesus], and their subsequent rejection later of His chosen Prophet [Muhammad] . Verily the word of God teaches us, and we implicitly believe this for a Muslim to kill a Jew ensures him an immediate entry into Heaven and into the august presence of God Almighty. What more then can a Muslim want in this hard world?” These were the words of the king of Saudi Arabia during a lecture to the British Foreign Ministry in 1937. The grand mufti of Jerusalem was the leader of the Palestinians. The Nazi-Arab alliance had been aggressively sought by the Arabs of Palestine since the Third Reich’s first moments in 1933. After the Peel Report, the mufti and his loyal followers launched a murderous, non-stop insurrection known as the Arab Revolt. When the British tried to arrest him, the mufti fled to Iraq where he helped foment a coup. In Iraq, the mufti found a virulent and widely embraced Arab-Nazi movement. Mein Kampf had been serialized in Arabic. Hitler Youth-style Arab regiments were well organized. On June 1-2, 1941 – after a failed Nazi-Arab attempt to exterminate the Jews of Iraq – Baghdad Nazis, the police and national military units went on a two-day murder spree. Once the British finally restored order, the mufti fled again, this time to Iran where another failed Nazi takeover was thwarted. From Iran, the mufti and his cohorts escaped to Berlin to meet Hitler personally. In Berlin, a pact was sealed to provide Arab oil and battlefield military assistance sufficient to help the Nazi push into Russia in exchange for recognizing an Arab national state and exterminating the Jews. Arab military units formed from Paris to Palestine. Arabs and Muslims worldwide, on the radio and in newspapers, incessantly and openly called for the extermination of the Jews. The rallying cry was: “In Heaven, Allah is your master; on Earth, Adolf Hitler.” When Heinrich Himmler needed to fight the partisans of Yugoslavia to protect German supply lines, the mufti visited the region and helped organize tens of thousands of Muslims and Arabs into three Waffen SSdivisions. Those three divisions – the Handschar, the Skandebeg, and the Kama – formed artillery brigades, transport battalions, infantry companies, and fought a bloody trench and mountain warfare against the partisans in Albania, Bosnia, Croatia, and the other Balkan territories. * * * * * Concomitantly, a Nazi murder militia known as Ustasha was created from a legion of Catholic and Muslim killers. The history is complex. In the Croatian maelstrom of ethnic and religious hatred, steered by Nazi mentors and puppet masters, Catholic Croats ironically decreed that all Muslims were Croats. This enabled the Catholic Croats to establish a majority in their enlarged territorial domain. That enlarged Independent State of Croatia was known in the dialect as Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, or the NDH. The Independent State of Croatia was in fact a bi-ethnic murder regime sworn to exterminate the millions of Yugoslavians who were neither Catholic nor Muslim through the Ustasha. Although Muslims were a minority in the NDH, the Bosniak Muslim faction and the Croatian Catholics jointly ruled and jointly murdered. The NDH’s fascist extremist president was a staunch Hitler ally and former Jesuit seminarian, Ante Pavelić. His official title was poglavnik, a Croatian word that approximates der Führer.The vice president was Muslim Džafer-beg Kulenović, previously president of the Yugoslav Moslem Organization, a Bosniak nationalist organization. The Croatian minister of culture and education was Mile Budak, a rabid Catholic-Nazi who propagated the axiom of killing one-third, converting one-third and expelling one-third of all Serbs. Budak and other Catholic Croats believed Muslims were actually descendants of the ancient Bogomil people who had inhabited the Croatian lands centuries earlier. As a leader in forging the Muslim-Catholic alliance, Budak enthusiastically proclaimed in 1941, “We Croats are happy and proud of our [Christian] faith, but we must be conscious of the fact that our Muslim brothers are the purest ofCroats.” He elaborated in a speech that the NDH was “Christian. [But] it is also a Muslim state where our people are of the Muslim religion.” In July 1941, Budak openly declared that the new state must exterminate “foreign elements,” that is, Jews and Gypsies as well as the larger enemy, Orthodox Serbs. Budak hid nothing about his plans. “The basis for the Ustasha movement is religion,” announced Budak. “For minorities such as Serbs, Jews, and Gypsies, we have 3 million bullets.” To cement the Muslim and Catholic killing coalition, NDH president Pavelić converted a local Zagreb museum to a huge and impressive mosque, adding surrounding minarets to its modern architecture, and naming the mosque after himself. Numerous NDH ministries were controlled or headed by Muslims. Pavelić even donned a Muslim fez to show his solidarity. Muslims were invited to join the barbaric Croatian Peasant Party and did so in significant numbers. When Muslims served in the Ustasha First Regiment, known as Black Legion, their black uniforms were the same as their Catholic co-killers. Senior officers were dressed in identical garb. Ibrahim Pirić-Pjanić and Memesaga Dzubur led their own local Ustasha-affiliated contingents. Muslim Ustasha Muhamed Hadžiefendić led his own militia in Tuzla. Hadžiefendić’s militia became so strong that Bosniaks wanted it to operate autonomously in Muslim areas of Bosnia. The Diet legislature, which passed a sequence of genocidal decrees, included 11 Muslims specifically appointed for that purpose. These decrees included outlawing Serbian and Jewish existence in Croatia, the looting of Serbian and Jewish property, and the systematic transfer to Serbian and Jewish citizens into death camps and merciless killing fields. Catholic priests commonly operated the concentration camps, enforcing the most degrading of slaughter rituals. In Sarajevo, most of the looted and confiscated property of victims went to Muslims, who raced to grab Jewish and Serbian assets before their Catholic partners. Under Croatian decrees, Jews were compelled to wear yellow Star-of-David armbands and back patches marked with a “Z” for Zidov, the Croatian word for Jew. Muslims plundered and decimated the Great Sephardic Synagogue in Sarajevo and the centuries-old synagogue in Dubrovnik. When Muslim families were moved out of their villages near the battle lines, the Ustasha evicted Jews from their homes so the Croatian Muslims could take their place. When Jews fled the November 1941 mass roundups in Sarajevo, preparatory to planned extermination, a number of them escaped only by disguising themselves under Muslim veils. At the same time, many of the Jews who did survive the Jew-hunts did so by appealing to merciful neighbors in the Muslim quarter that took them in and hid them until they could escape safely. Many Muslims in Sarajevo rejected the Bosniak Ustasha horror and tried – in vain – to protest to their co-religionists. Serbs suffered enormously. As Serbs were being forcibly converted to Catholicism, some 450 Serbian Orthodox churches were demolished and their religious icons defiled. Orthodox priests were gruesomely tortured and their families shipped to concentration camps where they were subjected to every inhumanity. * * * * * Pavelić declared early on, “This is now the Ustasha and Independent State of Croatia. It must be cleansed of all Serbs and Jews. There is no room for any of them here. Not a stone upon a stone will remain of what once belonged to them.” He later said, “The Jews will be liquidated within a very short time.” To this end, more than 20 Ustasha concentration camps were established for the killing process, manned by combined Catholic and Muslim forces. The most notorious of these camps was the hellish complex known as Jasenovac, considered by many to be more sadistic than Auschwitz. The Ustasha’s barbaric methods for exterminating Jews and Serbs included sadistic group killing by cracking heads open with hammers until the cranial cavity was exposed. That was for adults. Children were commonly marched into the forest where their heads were crushed with long mallets. Sometimes children were thrown live into flaming furnaces. Decapitation or dismemberment with giant lumber saws was frequent. All too often, these Ustasha atrocities were not committed in fits of mad rage, but for sport, with the gleeful perpetrators smiling for the camera over the helpless victim waiting to be brutalized. Mass throat-slittings at great velocity were achieved with a small hand blade wrapped tight to the wrist and dubbed the Serbcutter. One night, guards at Jasenovac wagered among themselves to see who could cut the most throats with their Serbcutters. Guard Petar Brzica, a Franciscan priest, was determined to prove his skill, which he did by slicing the throats of an estimated 1,360 inmates. Guard Mile Friganović was close behind the winner, murdering about 1,100 Serbs that night. But Friganović was also known for an unspeakable incident in which an old man was asked to shout a salute to Croat president Ante Pavelić. When the old man hesitated, Friganović systematically and gleefully cut off his ears first, then his nose and tongue, after which he gouged out his eyes and then extracted the victim’s heart – and only after all that did Friganović end it all by slitting the prisoner’s throat. Friganović called the experience one of “ecstasy.” Groups of shivering Jewish children were brought into a camp one day. For sport, one guard began spinning a child above his head as the other guards slashed at him with their bayonets. Eventually, the guard was left with nothing but the child’s hand as a trophy. Other Ustasha trophies included eyeball collections, stored in wicker baskets for show and sometimes worn strung up in necklaces. NDH president Pavelić himself once showed a journalist a wicker basket filled with some 40 pounds of eyeballs. Pavelić joked that he could make an oyster stew with them. “A good Ustasha,” Pavelić told his troops, “is he who can use his knife to cut a child from the womb of its mother.” Cruel and inhumane as the Nazis were, they retreated in wide-eyed astonishment when they learned of the joint Catholic-Muslim Ustasha atrocities. German General Edmund Glaise von Horstenau, commanding officer of the region headquartered in Zagreb, reported back to Berlin, “According to reliable reports from countless German military and civil observers during the last few weeks, the Ustasha have gone raging mad.” He added: “The most wicked [concentration camp] of all must be Jasenovac, where no ordinary mortal is allowed to peer in.” Hermann Naubacher, Hitler’s personal assistant for the Balkans, called the Ustasha exterminations “a crusade that belongs among the most brutal mass-murder undertakings in the entire history of the world.” Naubacher somberly added, “According to the reports that have reached me, my estimate is that the number of those defenseless slaughtered is some three-quarters of a million.” Eventually, the Nazis fell. Their allies in the Ustasha and the three Waffen SS divisions faced postwar justice in many cases. But too many melted into the turbulent history of the Cold War. The mufti escaped and became a revered icon of the Palestinian people. The legacy of Islamic and Arab hate that spurred the Farhud burned broad enough to help Hitler get ever closer to his goal of exterminating all Jews. But the Third Reich fell. And those in the Arab-Nazi movement went on to form the post-war geopolitical Middle East that prevails in the current century. Edwin Black is the author of “IBM and the Holocaust.” This article is adapted from his just-released book “The Farhud: Roots of the Arab-Nazi Alliance During the Holocaust” (Dialog, 2010). He will lecture on the topic on January 31 for the American Sephardi Federation at the Center for Jewish History in New York City.