Petar Brzica

Petar Brzica was a fascist and World War II war criminal. Before the war he was a scholarship student at the Franciscan college of Široki Brijeg in Herzegovina and a member of the "Great Brotherhood of Crusaders". Some time he spent studying the law in Zagreb where he became the Ustashe Youth member [Špijun u mantiji by Siniša Ivanović, Nova knjiga Belgrade, 1987 page 78] and later a member of the Croatian fascist Ustaša organization and one of the guards in the Jasenovac concentration camp. As an Ustashe he held the rank of a lieutenant [ Sećanja Jevreja na logor Jasenovac by Dušan Sindik, Savez jevrejskih opština Jugoslavije 1972 - page 154
"Then the Ustashe butchers came: Ljubo Miloš along with a wolfhound and Ustashe lieutant Pero Brzica who started /from the left flank of the human formation/ interrogating what were the occupations of these people."] . He is known for winning a bet in which a curve-bladed knife, also called a srbosjek, was used to kill concentration camp prisoners [Jasenovac and the Holocaust in Yugoslavia by Barry M. Lituchy Jasenovac Research Institute; First edition, New York 2006
"Another historian, Teophilo Gardini, reports a very strange contest of "Serbian throat-cutting" - won on August 29, 1942 by a certain Petar Brzica, a former Franciscan of the Široki Brijeg Monastery"] Wanted! : The Search for Nazis in America, Howard Blum, Quadrangle/New York Times Book Co. 1977] [Smokescreens by Jack T. Chick, Chick Publications 1983, page 28] . He won the bet by killing the largest amount of prisoners, possibly between 670 [Taborišče smrti--Jasenovac by Nikola Nikolić (author), Jože Zupančić (translator) Published 1969 Založba "Borec" - page 293:
"Tisto noč je ustaš Pero Brzica v hitrosti in spretnosti svojega krvniškega posla prekosil vse ustaške klavce. Sam je namreč zaklal 670 internircev jasenovškega taborišča. Med seboj so tekmovali v klavskem poslu Brzica, Bonzo, Šipka, Zrinušić in še nekaj drugi klavci, ki pa so za Brzico znatno zaostajali"] and 1360 [The Glass Half Full by Alan Greenhalgh ISBN 0977584410 page 68
"Wherever they went they experienced similar cruelty from the Ustashe guards. They heard stories about the fierce butcher, Petar Brzica, who boasted that during one night alone he killed 1,360 prisoners by slitting their throats with a specially designed knife called 'the Serb Cutter'. Women prisoners found themselves used mercilessly as sex slaves and the guards were in the position of being able to satisfy the most perverted urges with impunity."] people.

After World War II he fled to the United States. Yugoslav authorities were never able to capture him and he most likely changed his identity and died hidden. His name was on a list of 59 Nazis living in the US given by a Jewish organization to the Immigration and Naturalization Service during the 1970s. As of 2008, it was still not known what had become of him.Fact|date=July 2008

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External links

# [http://www.mosquitonet.com/~prewett/blum.html http://www.mosquitonet.com/~prewett/blum.html]