This prayer-cultural, but also social event of wider importance, which "merged" with Široki Brijeg and the whole of western Herzegovina, is organized by the Vice-Postulator of the Martyrdom Procedure Fra Leo Petrović and 65 brothers, led by the Vice-Postulator OFM Miljenko Stojić.

Radio station Široki Brijeg broadcasts the complete program live, and during those days, in addition to Holy Masses, praying the rosary, laying wreaths and lighting candles, awards will be given to schoolchildren, as well as to the elderly, who participated in the 13^th art competition with the central on the subject of the murdered Franciscans from Herzegovina.

The present in the context of the memory of the victims is calm, solemn and dignified. During several days, there is a lot of praying, listening, honouring God and remembering all the Catholics killed, not only priests and monks. Most importantly, there is no call for hatred and revenge.

This multi-day event was the reason for contacting the Vicepostulature, that is, OFM Miljenko. We know from earlier that the task of the institution headed by this friar, a native of Dragićin near Međugorje, is to collect testimonies and documents that prove that the Franciscans from Herzegovina were killed out of hatred for religion and that they behaved in a Christian manner in that difficult hour.

OFM Miljenko, with his team of collaborators and ordinary people, "is looking for the truth and only the truth, no matter what it turns out to be". It is clear that it will be difficult for all 66 Franciscans who were killed to collect the necessary materials. It is even clearer that they will not be able to find graves for everyone, especially those who were thrown into Neretva or disappeared on the Way of the Cross from Austria to North Macedonia.

In this context, the future is perhaps uncertain, but no one can deny the historical facts of 1945.

Why the massacre at Široki Brijeg?

That year, Herzegovina experienced a massacre like never before in its history. Current knowledge indicates that every tenth Herzegovinian-Croat was killed. According to statistics in Široki Brijeg in the early 1950’s, there were 25 men for every 100 women, and normal statistics in places where there was no war say that the natural ratio is 105 to 100.

As the people suffered, so did the Franciscans. The reason is clear, and we can use, among other things, the notes of Brigadier Fitzroy Maclean, the English representative at the Supreme Headquarters of the Yugo-Communists, in a secret dispatch to the Foreign Office in London. From February 8^th, 1945, Fitzroy testified that Tito told him that he would drastically punish the Franciscans in BiH for their "collusion with the Ustasha". The promise came true, but not only for the Franciscans, but also for the diocesan priests and all other people dedicated to God throughout BiH and Croatia, as well as for captured soldiers, civilians, women and children... The high school in Široki Brijeg with its Franciscan teaching staff was a special target, among other things, for raising the people to believe in God.

Apart from "collusion" with the Croatian authorities of the time, another "sin" of the Franciscans from Herzegovina was that, as an excellent and well-educated staff, they raised future Croatian intellectuals.

The communists realized that they would not have ideological success in Herzegovina as long as there were Franciscan institutions in Široki Brijeg. They disguised their hatred for them by saying that the friars are raising "Ustasha villains", forgetting that some of their fighters, who later went astray in communist ideology, also graduated from that school.

Blood feast in three acts

It is clear that the massacre of Franciscans on Široki Brijeg is not the only one, it is, we would say, the tip of the iceberg. According to research by the Vicepostulate, the death of the Franciscans from Herzegovina could be divided into three ways.

The first are individual raids on parishes, the second is the attack on the Franciscan monastery on Široki Brijeg and the third is the martyrdom of the friars together with the Croatian people on the Way of the Cross.

The killing of the friars began with the break-in of the partisans into the parish apartment in Kongora on the night of May 19^th to 20^th, 1942. They took away, tortured and killed the parish priest OFM Stjepan Naletilić.

The next victim was retired Friar Križan Galić, who was killed on October 30^th, 1944 by a bomb in the parish office in Međugorje.

OFM Maksimilijan Jurčić, parish vicar, was arrested in Humac and taken to Vrgorac, where he was shot on January 28^th, 1945. His grave is unknown.

In the same year in Čapljina, parish priest OFM Petar Sesar was arrested and shot on the night of February 2^nd. The monastic community on Široki Brijeg began to suffer losses on February 6^th. Due to the bombing of Široki Brijeg, six friars took refuge in Mostarski Gradac. The partisans captured them and shot them above the parish church without any questioning. Their bodies were exhumed in 1971 and transferred to the church on Široki Brijeg: OFM Augustin Leopold Zubac, OFM Krešimir Pandžić, OFM Roland Zlopaša, OFM Zvonko Grubišić, OFM Rudo Jurić and OFM Kornelije Sušac.

At this time, three friars were killed in Čitluk. OFM Ćiril Ivanković, retired in Gradnići, and OFM Filip Gašpar, parish priest in Gradnići, were shot on February 6^th, and OFM Jakov Križić, parish priest in Čitluk, on February 9^th, 1945.

The fighting for Široki Brijeg began on the 6^th and ended on the 7^th of February. The friars were shot, thrown into an anti-aircraft shelter in the garden of the monastery, set on fire and buried. Even that was not enough, while they lived in the monastery, they defecated on them. Those who were killed were exhumed in 1971 and buried in the church of Široki Brijeg. Then 12 of them were killed: retired OFM Marko Barbarić-Lesko, OFM Stanko Kraljević, OFM Ivo Slišković, OFM Krsto Kraljević; professors OFM Arkanđeo Nuić, OFM Dobroslav Šimović, OFM Tadija Kožul, OFM Borislav Pandžić; parish vicar OFM Žarko Leventić and OFM Viktor Kosir, OFM Stjepan Majić and OFM Ludovik Radoš.

Another group of friars, who took refuge with students, theologians and people in the friar's mill on the Lištica river due to the shelling of the monastery, did not know what had happened on Široki Brijeg. So the next day, February 8^th, they came to the monastery where the partisans immediately arrested them, took them in the direction of Split and killed them, most likely in Zagvozd. So far, the body of OFM Melhior Prlić has been identified in the mass grave in Zagvozd, and the names of the nine killed are: OFM Bonifacije Majić, OFM Fabijan Kordić, OFM Radoslav Vukšić, OFM Fabijan Paponja, OFM Andrija Jelčić, OFM Leonardo Rupčić, OFM Melhior Prlić, OFM Mariofil Sivrić and OFM Miljenko Ivanković.

In the vicinity of Ljubuški, the partisans also continued with their tried and tested method. In the period from February 10^th to 13^th, they captured and killed five of them: OFM Paško Martinac, OFM Julijan Kožul, OFM Martin Sopta, OFM Zdenko Zubac and OFM Slobodan Lončar.

Furthermore, three friars were executed in Izbično: OFM Marko Dragićević, OFM Bono Andačić and OFM Nevinko Mandić. They were taken away during the Holy Mass and have not been seen since.

Entering the monastery in Mostar on February 14^th, partisans separated seven from a group of friars in the choir and took them in an unknown direction. According to various testimonies, the friars were tied up and thrown alive or dead into the Neretva near Čekrk in Mostar. The following were killed: OFM Jozo Bencun, Provincial, OFM Leo Petrović, OFM Rafo Prusina, OFM Bernardin Smoljan, OFM Grgo Vasilj, OFM Kažimir Bebek and OFM Nenad Venancije Pehar.

After that, there was a calm until May 21^st, when parish priest OFM Valentin Zovko and young monk OFM Andrija Topić were killed in the parish house in Kočerin.

Herzegovinian friars were killed in Croatia in May and June. However, much less is known about their fate.

Silence is not gold

It is relatively well known that none of this was allowed to be discussed during the entire unhappy Yugoslavia. Unfortunately, this is not recommended even today because neither Croatia nor Bosnia and Herzegovina, despite some official statements under pressure, have not yet renounced Yugoslavia and its legacy, especially when it was destroying the Croatian national being. This is felt every day at all levels of life, from politics to art, sports, and everything culminated during the Holy Mass for the Blieburg victims in Sarajevo in May 2020.

Among other things, the neo-communists and their supporters persistently try to cover up the European Parliament's Resolution on the European Conscience and Totalitarianism, which was adopted by the European Parliament on April 2^nd, 2009. Communism is clearly placed alongside National Socialism and Fascism, and it is stated what needs to be done to at least soften the wounds. which they inflicted on others. And the European Day of Remembrance, August 23^rd, was established for the victims of totalitarian regimes. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, these are almost unknown things and dates, and the one who celebrates them with a sneer is called Ustasha.

Beginnings of the Vicepostulature

It goes without saying that the friars were searching for the truth and for the remains of their brothers from the very beginning. The Yugoslavia regime did not allow this. As early as November 1945, the OZNA collected all the testimonies collected up to that point from the secretary of the province, OFM Bonicije Rupčić

Due to the spread of the truth about the murdered friars outside Yugoslavia, on January 13^th, 1947, the communists returned to the scene of the crime, drove the friars out of the monastery and burned everything that was not burned during the fall of Široki Brijeg in 1945. Along with many books, the registers that had been kept since the middle of the 18^th century were also burned. The friars could only return after two months.

The third attempt to systematically collect testimony and data was in the years of the Croatian Spring, when OFM Andrija Nikić managed to collect about 400 pages of first-hand testimony.

After that, we had to wait until 2004, when the Commission for the preparation of the cause of martyrs was founded at the initiative of the then provincial OFM Slavko Solda, headed by OFM Anto Marić. In 2005, it continued with the excavations so that everything would be taken over by the Vicepostulature in 2007. OFM Miljenko became the Vicepostulator in September 2007, who emphasized that the first premises of the new institution were in Mostar, then in Humac, and finally, as befits, from 2010 on Široki Brijeg.

From this it is clear that the Franciscan province of Herzegovina, over time, managed to keep in memory the crimes against its members and the regiment entrusted to them, which it considered killed "in odium fidei", i.e. martyrs for the faith, in various ways.

It is always ungrateful to talk about time frames in the process of declaring a certain person as a servant of God. It is important that everything goes according to its official course, and the competent authorities of the Catholic Church will give their verdict on everything.

On the other hand, the judgment of the people was pronounced a long time ago because the veneration of the "martyrs of Široki Brijeg" appeared. Thus, since 1946, the people secretly or publicly "pilgrimaged" to the places of death and prayed, which is one of the prerequisites for starting the procedure for someone's beatification.

They were not a legitimate target

In the conversation with OFM Miljenko, we concluded that according to the sketches kept in the archives of the Military History Institute in Belgrade, none of the buildings of the Franciscan property - and all of them were indicated and drawn - represented the headquarters of the enemy. The counter-intelligence service, which was well aware of every step, did not find a single enemy position in the monastery, but only nearby in the west-north direction. In the monastery and in the church, as many testify, there was no one with a weapon in hand. However, this did not prevent the partisans from firing about 300 cannon projectiles at the church.

It's not even worth wasting time on the stupidity of propaganda and the medieval method of throwing oil on opponents who are holding guns at the same time. Nor was there so much oil in wartime conditions, nor was it possible to shoot armed men on the move with oil.