Ivo Rojnica (20 August 1915 – 1 December 2007) was a Croatian Ustaše official and intelligence agent who was active in the World War II Axis puppet state known as the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) from 1941 to 1945. After the war, he escaped to Argentina, where he reinvented himself as a businessman and diplomat.
Having joined the fascist, Croatian nationalist Ustaše movement in 1939, Rojnica was appointed as the commissioner () of Dubrovnik shortly after the establishment of the NDH in April 1941. In this capacity, he oversaw the implementation of the Ustaše movement's repressive anti-Serb and anti-Semitic measures there. In June 1941, he issued a decree limiting the freedom of movement of Dubrovnik's Jewish and Serb inhabitants. At least 58 individuals were executed on Rojnica's orders between May and December 1941. Upon completing his tenure, he engaged in intelligence work for the rest of the war, and received a decoration from Ustaše leader Ante Pavelić. In May 1945, Rojnica fled to Italy, and was arrested by the British Army the following year. Fearing extradition to Yugoslavia, he feigned a mental breakdown and was transferred to a poorly guarded psychiatric hospital from which he escaped.
Rojnica emigrated to Argentina under a pseudonym in 1947 and was granted Argentine citizenship in 1951. Three years later, he petitioned to be recognized under a Hispanicized variant of his real name. Opening a textile factory, he distinguished himself as a successful businessman and an active member of the country's Croatian émigré community, co-founding several cultural societies and publications. In recognition of his charitable activities, he was awarded the Order of St. Gregory the Great by the Holy See. However, he was also suspected of financing several Croatian nationalist aircraft hijackings in the early to mid-1970s. A close associate and supporter of the President of Argentina, Carlos Menem, Rojnica was appointed as the Authorized Representative of the President of Croatia to Argentina and Latin America in 1991. During the Yugoslav Wars, he financed the smuggling of Argentine weaponry to Croatia in violation of a United Nations arms embargo. In February 1993, the Government of Croatia announced its intention to appoint him as the country's ambassador to Argentina. The move caused a public outcry and the Croatian government ultimately reversed its decision. Rojnica died in Buenos Aires in 2007, at the age of 92, having never been indicted or stood trial.
Early life Ivo Rojnica was born on 20 August 1915 in the village of Cista, near Imotski, in what was then Austria-Hungary and is now Croatia. He was the fourth of eleven children born to Stipan and Anđa Rojnica (). In his youth, he relocated to the coastal town of Dubrovnik, where he completed his secondary education and subsequently opened a textile business. In 1939, he joined Ante Pavelić's fascist, Croatian nationalist Ustaše movement.
World War II
In the years leading up to the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia, Rojnica served as an agent of the Abwehr, Germany's military intelligence service, where he received the code name "Ante". Following the invasion and occupation of Yugoslavia, the Axis created a puppet state known as the Independent State of Croatia (NDH), which was placed under Ustaše rule, and which consisted of most of modern-day Croatia, all of modern-day Bosnia and Herzegovina, and parts of modern-day Serbia. On 18 May 1941, Italy and the NDH signed the Treaty of Rome, whereby the latter was given control of Dubrovnik in exchange for the cession of the rest of Dalmatia, which was integrated into the Italian state as the Governorate of Dalmatia. On 23 May 1941, Rojnica was appointed as the commissioner () of Dubrovnik. The same day, local Ustaše launched a campaign of arrests, killings and expulsions targeting the movement's ideological opponents, such as members of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. Serbs and Jews were also singled out for persecution, with the latter being forced to wear a yellow star around their arm, and to mark their properties with the Star of David.
Between 4 and 5 June 1941, the Dubrovnik Ustaše arrested the bank clerk Nikola Mašanović, the municipal treasurer Branko Hope, the merchant Branko Radonić and the journalist Jaša Miloslavić. The four men were then killed and their bodies were thrown into a river. The historian Nikola Anić argues that Rojnica was among those most responsible for these murders, given that he was Dubrovnik's most senior Ustaše official. Afterwards, Rojnica received the expropriated property of Blagoje Čorolija, the owner of a Dubrovnik delicatessen.Anić 2013, pp. 71–72 On 25 June, Rojnica issued a decree ordering the confiscation of all radios in Dubrovnik and restricting the movement of the city's Jews and Serbs. It read as follows:
Over the course of several months, many of the Serbs and Jews who were not able to escape Dubrovnik were killed or deported to concentration camps such as Jasenovac. One notable such massacre took place on 1 July 1941, when Rojnica's subordinates executed 13 captives—mostly Serbs—near the hamlet of Lisačke Rudine, in the village of Lisac. Rojnica's tenure as the Ustaše Commissioner of Dubrovnik lasted until 12 December 1941. He was succeeded by Vlado Herceg, who had previously served as a warrant officer in the Poglavnik'''s Bodyguard Brigade (), which was tasked with guarding Pavelić. For the rest of the war, Rojnica took part in intelligence gathering activities. In 1943, he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant () in the Ustaše Militia. Pavelić also bestowed him with the Order of Merit, 2nd Class.Anić 2013, p. 81 In the war's final months, Rojnica extorted refugees passing through Dubrovnik, forcing them to pay him exorbitant sums in return for safe passage.
Exile In May 1945, with the Yugoslav Partisans approaching Zagreb, Rojnica retreated to Austria with elements of the Croatian Armed Forces. Shortly thereafter, he settled in the Italian city of Trieste under the pseudonym Ivan Rajčinović, together with his wife Ana and their young daughter. In May 1946, he was arrested by the British Army after a woman recognized him as the killer of one of her relatives. Whilst he was in custody, Yugoslav officials sent the British a comprehensive dossier detailing his wartime activities. It contained a list of 58 individuals who were executed on his orders between May and December 1941, as well as several eyewitness testimonies. Fearing that he would be extradited to Yugoslavia, Rojnica feigned a mental breakdown and was transferred to a laxly guarded psychiatric hospital, from which he was able to escape.
In late March or early April 1947, Rojnica landed in Argentina as a stowaway aboard the passenger ship Maria C. His escape had been facilitated by the Ustaše functionary and Roman Catholic priest Krunoslav Draganović, one of the main organizers of the network of ratlines smuggling fascist war crimes suspects out of Europe. Rojnica entered the country under the same pseudonym he had used in Trieste.Goñi 2002, p. 217 In August, his family was reunited with him, also disembarking from the Maria C.Goñi 2002, p. 372, note 322 The family settled in Vicente López, a suburb of Buenos Aires, where Rojnica opened a textile factory called Pulloverfin. On 31 August 1951, he was granted Argentine citizenship under the false name he had used to enter the country, and on 20 December 1954, he successfully petitioned the government to legally change his name to Juan Rojnica.
Rojnica became an active member of Argentina's Croatian émigré community, helping establish several cultural societies and publications. In 1951, he co-founded the Croatian Republican Union (), and was later a co-founder of the Croatian–Latin American Cultural Institute (), both of which were based in Buenos Aires. He also co-founded the Croatian–Argentine Cultural Institute () and the journal Studia Croatica. Additionally, he was the primary financial backer of the Croatian Review (), a quarterly published by the former Ustaše official Vinko Nikolić. He contributed his own writings to Nikolić's quarterly, as well as to another journal known as The Morning Star (). In recognition of his charitable work, Rojnica was awarded the Order of St. Gregory the Great by the Holy See.
Despite his own role in The Holocaust, Rojnica attempted to foster business ties with Jews both in Argentina and in Israel. In 1969, he published the first volume of his three-volume memoir Meetings and Experiences ().Brozović 1999, p. 401 In his memoirs, he attempted to minimize the actions of the NDH by asserting that the Ustaše had no intention of exterminating the puppet state's Serb population, that no more than 250,000 Serbs had been expelled and that no more than 450 Serbs had been forcibly converted to Roman Catholicism. Most historians agree that around 300,000 Serbs were killed by the Ustaše between 1941 and 1945, or about 17 percent of the NDH's Serb population. According to the scholar Sabrina P. Ramet, by 1943, 120,000 Serbs were deported to German-occupied Serbia and a further 300,000 were forced to flee the NDH. Additionally, from 1941 to 1942, between 97,000 and 300,000 Serbs were subjected to forced conversion. Referring to anti-Semitic atrocities, Rojnica stated that "Croats are not guilty for the fate of the Jews," and maintained that the Germans were solely responsible for The Holocaust in Croatia.
Rojnica was suspected of financing several Croatian nationalist aircraft hijackings that took place in the United States and Europe in the early to mid-1970s. His wife was kidnapped on 23 November 1973. She was released eight days later after Rojnica paid her captors 70 million Argentine pesos. Neither the perpetrators nor their motives were ever publicly identified. In 1974, Rojnica attended the inaugural meeting of the Croatian National Council (), a body representing various Croatian émigré organizations, in Toronto. In 1977, he and Vjekoslav Vrančić, another former high-ranking Ustaše official, were detained in New Zealand on a layover to Australia, where they were to attend a meeting of Croatian nationalists. Yugoslavia requested their extradition but the two were released at the intervention of the Argentine embassy and returned to Buenos Aires.
Breakup of Yugoslavia and ambassadorship controversy