Jerolim Malinar
Jerolim Malinar was a Croatian Catholic activist, intellectual and entrepreneur, engaged in numerous humanitarian activities, co-founder and active member of several Catholic lay movements and organizations, editor in several newspapers, philanthropist, patriot, life saver and martyr.
Born on September 30, 1897 in Vrata (Gorski Kotar), Kingdom of Croatia (then part of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy), tortured and killed on July 15, 1945, buried at a place unknown to this day.
He was born as the eighteenth and last child of Martin Malinar (train stationmaster) and Margarete (born Beljan). He was baptized in the parish church of St. Anthony of Padua in Fužine.
He did his apprenticeship at the mill in Fužine. In 1913 he moved to Zagreb and went to the railroad school, he worked after at the railway as an electrical engineering technician. On his arrival in Zagreb, he visited with his mother the Heart of Jesus Basilica, where he attended holly mass daily until his assassination. With the Jesuit order, who supervised the basilica, he always remained spiritually very connected, his confessor was father Josip Müller. When he was 23, his parents were already passed away.
Because he had felt the hardship of life in deprivation, he made it his life's goal to always help the people who are in need. In 1919, in order to be charitable, he joined the Croatian Catholic Youth Association "Kačić", where he met the catholic grandees. Ivan Merz (beatified 2003), dr. Ivan Protulipac (killed by the Yugoslav secret service UDBA in Trieste, 1946), i.a.
In 1920 he founded the charitable Catholic Association "Eckert" (in honour of Rudolf Eckert, the journalist and founder of the first Croatian Catholic daily newspaper). He organized there a housing for poor apprentice boys in families and founded an apprentice home, the furniture for it he has build by his own hand.
In 1921 he was responsible editor of the Catholic newspaper "Youth", later he became editor-in-chief of "Peoples politics", as well as editor of "Chatolic Paper", "Sunday", and "Farmers Paper".
In 1922 he became secretary of the newly founded "Croatian Catholic Youth Association". In 1923 he was one of the co-founders of the "Croatian Catholic Eagle Association", operated as an organizer (eg pilgrimages to Rome, etc.). When his friend Ivan Merz died in 1928 in the call of holiness, he gave his parents, at their request, his union uniform, in which Merz was then buried. His uniform become to be a relic, as pope John Paul II. beatified Merz in 2003.
In the course of his association activities, he became friends with many outstanding lay Catholics and clergymen: Fr. Ante Alfirević, Ivan Bortas, Prof. Mirko and Ivan Cerovac, dr. Avelin Ćepulić, dr. Franjo Dujmović, Prof. Zvonimir Fržop, dr. Ivo, Karlo i Viktor Glowatzky, dr. Đuro Gračanin, Josip Horvat, Stjepan Kemfelja, dr. Marko Klarić, dr. Mijo Lehpamer, dr. Milivoj Mostovac, dr. Feliks Niedzielski, Prof. Ivan Oršanić, Ing. Dragutin Stiperski, dr. Slavko Šarić, dr. Lav Znidarčić, Prof. Dušan Žanko, and others.
In 1927 he married Vera Jesensky, daughter of Ignacije Jesensky, a goldsmith and watchmaker from Karlovac. They had five children: Mladen, Boris, Blanka, Jerko and Hrvoje. Mladen died shortly after birth, his mother Vera later said that he died actually from malnutrition and hypothermia, because her husband insisted, that their workers receive a decent wage in his newly established bookbinding, which often left very little to his family. With tremendous effort and with the help of his wife, he expanded his small bookbindery into cecond largest in Zagreb, using the most modern machines; the first Croatian encyclopedia was bound there. Because of his enterprise and diligence, his piety and steadfast firm principles, and because of his decency and selflessness, he was very respected and beloved by his whole family.
He was a phalerist and owned the largest collection of medals in Croatia; he wrote the book "Croatian Decorations" (published in 1943 by the "Society of St. Jerome"). The collection was confiscated by the Yugoslav regime and is now in the Zagreb City Museum. He himself become a high decoration in 1934. Pope Pius XI. awarded him for his services to the Roman Catholic Church an Order of Honour in silver.
When NDH (Independent State of Croatia) was founded in 1941, after two decades of the worst suppression in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Jerolim was -like all patriotic Croats- inspired about the Croatian state foundation and he joined the Ustaša movement, but he declined all vacancies and privileges that was offered to him by governors. Instaed, he continued to volunteer as head of social care for the Zagreb-West, where he helped all those in need, regardless of their nationality, politcal opinion or religion; many letter of thanks are saved from this time.
The initial enthusiasm about the Ustaša faded among Catholics rapidly, as soon as it became knowen how they violate human rights and supress minorities and dissidents. The court-martial sentenced the defendants very ofen to death. Fr. Josip Miller, who was spiritual of prisoners, suggested him and some other Catholic activists to join the court as jurymen, in order to counter the unfair trials and especially death sentences. After consulting his wife, he declined this. But when archbishop Alojzije Stepinac told him that these trials would go down as "an eternal stain in the Croatian history," he admitted.
He joined the court in April 1944, he radicalised his already very spartan art of life and began praying and fasting even more, and he did all sorts of painful penance, for God may give him strength, to avoid some death sentence in court. He was successful in 15 cases, during his mandate there ware no two death sentences, except for two ustasha officers who was charged for curruption. His engagement became a thorn in the side of the regime, but despite of their threats he continued to advocate indicted, regardless of whether the accused were Croats, Serbs, or communists.
In 1944 some Croatian patriots (Lorković-Vokić plot) wanted to get in touch with the allies to start negotiations about post-war time (as well as the blessed Emperor Charles I. tried to do) to ensure the survival of the country. Jerolim also took part and got the job to talk with the vice head of the HSS (Croatian Peasant Party) Augustin Košutić about their government takeover. But Košutić fled to the "partisans" and betrayed them a conspiracy. Since the survival of a Croatia and Catholicism state was out of the question for the Serbian chauvinists and communists who were dominant there, they gave informations about conspiracy to SS, and they constrain ustacha regime to act. The main responsible persons were arrested, the others were spared because Wehrmacht wanted to avoid a large purge (they feared an massive escape to the partisans), some -like Jerolim- ware probably protected by the Church.
At the end of war, everyone warned him about cruelty of the partisans and recommended hem to flee abroad, but he refused because his conscience was pure, like by archbishop Stepinac. His friend Viktor Kmoniček offered him to hide by him for a while, but Jerolim refused. Kmoniček was a communist and thus Jerolim was for him a mortal enemy, but he valued him as a human so much that he would have risked his life for him.
On May 9, 1945, one day after their invasion of Zagreb, the partisans abducted him from his house in sleeping clothes and slippers. His wife Vera found him bound with a wire in the partisan's command staff. From then on, family visits were banned. His wife Vera delivered some pardon writings from important people, among other Vladimir Nazor, who knew that Jerolim is not guilty, and that he saved lives to some communists. It didn't help, he was executed on June 15, 1945, lately in September they received a telegram that Jerolim Malinar had been executed "in the name of the people" as an "enemy of the people" and all his possessions would be confiscated.
On the night of his execution his wife Vera experienced something miraculous. She woke up suddenly and saw her husband in front of her, bloodied and full of bruises, as he was shoveling (his own grave)almost naked. He told her that he become a great grace from God to say her goodbye, that she should take care of the children, that he love her, and that she should not hate his executioners. Her loud screams awoke the children, who thought their mother had nightmares. But soon they read about his execution on this day in the newspaper.
Because of the confiscation Vera lost all the belongings, her citizen rights ware taken away, so she was not allowed to work, without the help of her relatives she would starve to death homeless with their four children. Their son Boris Malinar managed to become state school inspector for technical education, even without the otherwise obligatory membership of communist party. Their son Jerko Malinar flee across the Alps after two attempts to Austria, he lives now with his family in the USA, where he founded the Museum of Croatian Cultural Heritage. Their son Hrvoje Malinar, Ing. geology, was a restaurator-conservator, he took care of the preservation of all important monuments in Croatia, from cathedral in Zagreb to cathedral in Dubrovnik, he wrote several books about conservation like "Moisture in historic buildings", he is still a council for conservation and restoration. In 60-ies has founded a speleology section, that still one of the most acitive in Croatia; he became famous speleologist and author of several books on Speleology / Mountaineering i.e. "Mountains at heart - Heart at Mountains". He was the first to sail around the Balkan Peninsula, with his family in a self-built boat. For over 10 years, he tries in lengthy trials, to cancel the monstrous verdict on his father, with final success in year 2019. (The revision of the verdict in the show trial on Cardinal Alojzije Stepinac also happened only after 70 years, in 2016). Their grandson Mladen Malinar, son of Boris, is doctor and lives with his family in Slovenia. Their granddaughter Mirna Malinar, daughter of Hrvoje, wrote as an archaeologist a historical novel, in which she also describes the adventurous life of her father Hrvoje, she lives with her family alternately in Spain and Croatia. His grandson Jerko Malinar, son of Hrvoje too, became his name in honour to his grandfather, he is a Catholic journalist and works and lives with his family in Austria and Croatia.
As a devout and dedicated Christian, Jerolim Malinar became one of hundred million martyrs of the atheist regimes, from Stalin and Hitler, through Pol Pot to Tito. Moreover, he was also killed because he was the life evidence, that Catholics opposed the dictatorship in "Croatian independent state" and acted against their crimes. These facts did not suit the anti-Croat and anti-Catholic forces, who branded the Croatian people as genuinely "fascist", and who still do so in left-wing media (i.e. ban of memorial mass for the victims of the massacre of Bleiburg).
Jerko Malinar, Austria, 2019