“Do your job, my child...”

Vukašin Mandrapa was brutally murdered in Jasenovac in 1943, and is celebrated today - May 29.

Vukašin Mandrapa, a Serbian peasant from the village of Klepci in Herzegovina, was canonized as a saint, receiving the name Holy New Martyr Vukašin of Jasenovac, which is celebrated on May 29.

After cruel torture in January 1943, Elder Vukašin was slaughtered by Ustasha Žile Friganović, who went crazy after the act.

What the Ustasha butcher could never forget was that heavenly peace on the old man's face and the calm look that prevented him from killing anyone else that night, even though he had slaughtered over a thousand people.

“I ordered him to shout - “Long live Poglavnik Pavelić”, or if he didn’t say it, I would cut off his ear.

Vukašin was silent.

I tore off his ear.

He didn’t say a word.

I told him again to shout - “Long live Pavelić”, or I will cut off his other ear as well.

He was still silent.

I tore off his other ear as well.

Shout - “Long live Pavelić”, or I will cut off your nose.

He was silent as if he had been drowned.

Then I cut off his nose.

And when I ordered him to shout “Long live Pavelić” for the fourth time and threatened him that I would take his heart out of his chest with a knife, he looked at me and, fixing his gaze, somehow through me and over me into infinity, slowly and clearly said:

“Do your job, my child.”

After all, this last word of his drove me completely crazy, 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 then something snapped inside me, and that night I could no longer slaughter. Pero Brzica won because he slaughtered 1350 camp inmates and I paid him the bet without a word.

I have had no peace since that night.

Whenever, in the midst of torture and slaughter, I try to experience that special rapture and bliss again, Vukašin’s gaze always suddenly shoots me, and then I weaken, throw down the knife and can no longer slaughter.

I start drinking more and more, but it only helps me for a moment. While drinking, especially in the evening, I am often suddenly startled by a voice:

“Do your job, my child...”