Servant of God Geralda Jakob

Geralda Jakob (Donjara near Carevdar, July 17, 1906 – Jazovka pit, May 15, 1945) was a Croatian Catholic nun, a Sister of Charity, and a victim of the Yugoslav communist regime. A beatification process has been initiated for Sister Geralda, along with six other fellow sisters who were victims of martyrdom. She was born Ana Jakob on July 17, 1906, in Donjara near Carevdar, in present-day Koprivnica-Križevci County. She entered the Congregation of the Sisters of Charity on August 31, 1925. She took her temporary religious vows on December 21, 1927, and her perpetual vows on December 21, 1931, in Zagreb. Geralda was her religious name. After taking her vows, she was sent to the City Poorhouse as a nurse. She also worked at the Vrapče Psychiatric Hospital, where she held the difficult duty of caring for mentally ill patients. Partisans brought wounded Croatian soldiers to the Vrapče Psychiatric Hospital. After killing them, they would throw them into trucks and transport them to the Jazovka pit and other mass graves. Three sisters, including Sister Geralda, unfortunately witnessed these events. To silence them, the communists decided to kill the witnesses: Sister Geralda Jakob, Sister Konstantina Mesar, and Sister Lipharda Horvat. In the monograph *Sestre milosrdnice, I.* (1996), there is only one sentence about the three martyrs who ended up in Jazovka: "On the night of May 15, 1945, three sisters: Sr. Geralda Jakob, Sr. Konstantina Mesar, and Sr. Lipharda Horvat were taken in an unknown direction, and nothing more could ever be learned about them..." In Gospić, on the 72nd anniversary of the martyrdom of Sister Žarka Ivasić, Bishop Zdenko Križić of Gospić-Senj solemnly opened the process of beatification or declaration of martyrdom for the Servants of God: Sister Žarka Ivasić and six fellow martyr sisters (Sr. M. Kornelija Horvat, Sr. Lipharda Horvat, Sr. Geralda Jakob, Sr. Konstantina Mesar, Sr. Trofima Miloslavić, and Sr.