Query about victim groups

Hi Amy,

I know in the Yugoslav contexts, both in the Second World War and in the 1990s, other groups were targeted besides just religious or ethnic groups. In the Serbian example, in the Second World War, the Chetnik program was to target "non-national" groups (i.e. those who did not identify as a South Slav) which included Roma, Jews, Albanians, communists and others. The Chetnik program also targeted "national minorities" which included Croats and Bosnian Muslims, peoples who could be considered South Slavs but not Serbs. Yet, I also found in the archives the lists of victims targeted by the Chetniks in Croatia who were identified as Serbs and Orthodox by the perpetrators. I think this can be explained by seeing the victims through the perpetrators' eyes and understanding that the victims may have been interpreted to be traitors, either because they refused to assist the Chetniks and/or because they openly resisted them (by joining the Partisans, the Ustasha, or other groups).

The Ustasha, for their part, never really identified who or what constituted a "Serb" which gave both the regime (at the top level) and the actors on the ground (at the bottom level) to interpret "Serb" openly and freely. This led to the purging and even killing of ethnic Croats and avowed Ustasha functionaries within the regime, but also an open interpretation "on the ground." Much like in the Chetnik example, ethnic Croats and Bosnian Muslims were victims of Ustasha killings. This has parallels with the Partisans, too, and can be connected to the "purges" in the Soviet Union and the targeting of "kulaks" by Stalin: anyone who didn't fit the ideological outline or who didn't adhere to the expectations of the Partisans (or Soviets, for that matter) was killed as a class traitor. This resulted in the "leftist errors" perpetrated by the Partisans in parts of Yugoslavia where many of the victims were deemed "kulaks" and killed, regardless of their actual "guilt."

So, if we're comparing to the Nazi program of targeting Jews, Slavs, communists, and other groups the Nazis had a more laid out and articulated program, albeit on an ad hoc basis. The Yugoslav example provides case-by-case examples without having any real definitions of what "non-national" or "national minorities" meant, or who constituted a "Serb" or "kulak" and who did not. This sometimes led to the arbitrary killing of what one may on the surface assume to have been "in-group" peoples. At the very least, it complicates our understandings of both the Chetnik and Ustasha wartime programs to target out-group populations. Yet we also see that occurring with the Nazis, as well, although as far as I know most of the Nazi examples were explained using Nazi rhetoric on blood quantums, accusing people of being communists or homosexuals, etc. The Yugoslav examples, to my knowledge, don't articulate it quite so clearly.

I hope this helps. Of course, I'm happy to answer any questions or to point you to other scholars or readings. Please do keep us updated on your student and their progress; they certainly seem like they're headed in the right direction with probing questions such as this.

All the best,
Stevan