...The Ustashi was less than a year old when Andrija Artukovic, then a twenty-nine-year-old lawyer, swore his oath of allegiance before the crucifix, the revolver, and the dagger. He seemed a natural Ustashi recruit. The eldest son of a family of Croat farmers living in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Artukovic was raised to be a devout Catholic and a fierce supporter of an independent Croatia. And as Eichmann, supervised the conversion of the brick kilns into ovens where thousands of Serbs and Jews were burned alive. Death at these camps, though, was not just by anonymous fire. The Ustashi, more so than even the Gestapo, demanded a more personal involvement in their evil.

The Ustashi murderers killed their victims with an atavistic passion: throat slashings, eye gougings, tongue extractions, axe decapitations, and disembowelments - all were common ways of death for "enemies of the state."

The Ustashi seemed to lust after barbarism, personally challenging each other to respond more wildly to Pavelic's "call to blood."

At Jasenovac, contests were conducted to see which Ustashi could execute the fastest with his graviso, a long, curve-bladed knife. Petar Brzica was the champion - his graviso cut through 1,300 throats in a single night. For nearly four years the killings continued. Artukovic's executioners hunted in the towns and cities of Croatia for those he had labeled "the poisonous destroyers and insatiable parasites."

His men were very effective: Over 300,000 Yugoslavs were victims of the Ustashi. And, despite all the killings, Artukovic personally demanded more excess.

It was Artukovic, according to Yugoslav documents, who ordered Chief of Police Franjo Truhar: "Kill all the Serbs and Jews without exception."

It was Artukovic who warned the mayor of Cerin: "if you can't kill Serbs or Jews you are an enemy of the state."

It was Artukovic who scolded Simun Buntic for killing only two Serbs: "You should not have come to me at all if you have not killed two hundred Serbs."

But as the Reich crumbled, so did the independent state of Croatia. On May 4, 1945, the German troops pulled out of Croatia and the Ustashi followed. For Pavelic and Artukovic, the years on the run began once more. They changed into civilian clothes and, under the protection of the retreating Nazis, managed to reach Austria.

The [Roman Catholic] Church, which had supported them in power, now supported them in defeat. Pavelic and Artukovic moved through a network of Austrian monasteries, disguised as Father Benarez and Father Gomez. Pavelic, always cautious, clipped his distinguishing bushy eyebrows, grew a beard, and wore false glasses. Using a passport in the name of Dal Aranyos, a priest, he sailed from Rome in 1948 to Buenos Aires.