‘Do your job, child...’

‘Do your job, child...’ Vukašin Mandrapa was brutally killed in Jasenovac in 1943, and is commemorated today, May 29th. Vukašin Mandrapa, a Serbian peasant from the village of Klepci in Herzegovina, was canonized as a saint, receiving the name Saint New Martyr Vukašin of Jasenovac, who is celebrated on May 29th. The elder Vukašin was slaughtered after brutal torture in January 1943 by the Ustasha Žile Friganović, who went insane after the act. What the Ustasha butcher could never forget was the heavenly peace on the elder’s face and the serene look that prevented him from killing anyone else that night, even though he had already slaughtered over a thousand people. “I ordered him to shout, ‘Long live Pavelić,’ or if he didn’t, I would cut off his ear. Vukašin remained silent. I tore off his ear. He didn’t say a word. Again, I told him to shout, ‘Long live Pavelić,’ or I would cut off his other ear. He still remained silent. I tore off his other ear. Shout, ‘Long live Pavelić,’ or I’ll cut off your nose. He was silent as a stone. Then I cut off his nose. When I commanded him for the fourth time to shout, ‘Long live Pavelić,’ and threatened to cut out his heart with a knife, he looked at me, gazing somehow through me and beyond me into infinity, and slowly and clearly said: ‘Do your job, child.’ After all this, his last words completely unnerved me. I jumped on him, gouged out his eyes, cut out his heart, slit his throat from ear to ear, and kicked him into the pit. But something broke inside me, and that night I could no longer kill. Pero Brzica won because he slaughtered 1,350 prisoners, and I paid him the bet without a word. Since that night, I have had no peace. Whenever in torture and slaughter I try to relive that special ecstasy and bliss, Vukašin’s gaze always suddenly pierces me, and then I weaken, drop the knife, and can no longer kill. I start drinking more and more, but it only helps for a moment. In the drink, especially towards evening, I am often suddenly startled by a voice: ‘Do your job, child...’”

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