first concentration camp (April 15), and initiated the persecution of Jews and Serbs. Aware the Ustaše were preparing Nazi-style Race Laws, on April 23 Stepinac wrote Ustaše interior minister Andrija Artkuković a letter, in which Stepinac calls the Race Laws "necessary", and only asks that Jewish converts to Catholicism be exempted. Five days later, on 28 April, Stepinac issued a "rapturous" encyclical to his diocese regarding the creation of the "young Croatian state", which included the words: Our people has come face to face with its age-old and ardently desired dream. The times are such that it is no longer the tongue which speaks but the blood with its mysterious links with the country, in which we have seen the light of God, and with its people from whom we spring. Do we need to say that the blood flows more quickly in our veins, that the hearts in our breasts beat faster? ... It is easy to see God's hand at work here. Stepinac urged the clergy of his archdiocese to fulfill their duty to the new Croatian state and pray that the head of state, i.e. the Ustashe leader Pavelić, may have the spirit and wisdom in order to fulfill noble and responsible office for the glory of God and the salvation of the people in truth and justice. Stepinac's letter captured what was a common sentiment among Croatian nationalists and much of the Catholic Church in the new state. Considering the marginal role of the Church in the political arena during the interwar period, the creation of the NDH appeared to offer the Church and the Croatian Catholic movement an opportunity. The leaders of the new state appeared willing to work with Church leaders, and thus reduce the marginalisation the Church had been subject to under the Yugoslav state. Stepinac's immediate visits to Kvaternik and Pavelić, and his diocesan letter all assisted the Ustaše in consolidating their control of the new state, and enhanced its credibility with the Croatian people. Cornwell notes that this letter was issued on the same day that nearly 200 Serbs were massacred by the Ustaše near Bjelovar. Even prior to Stepinac's letter, Ustaše and Volksdeutche had already destroyed the Osijek synagogue (14 April), and on 17 April Pavelić had issued the Decree on the Protection of the Nation and the State, the first of the acts that placed Serbs, Jews and Roma