No. 103

STATEMENT OF THE REFUGEES BUDIMIR POPOVIĆ FROM TREMUŠNJAK AND BRANKO TADIĆ FROM MAČKOVO SELO ABOUT THE MASS KILLING OF SERB MEN FROM THE VILLAGES AROUND BANSKI GRABOVAC, AFTER AN ATTACK BY UNKNOWN PERSONS ON JULY 24, 1942.^[1]

15/4 42^[2]

POPOVIĆ BUDIMIR, refugee, son of the late Miloš and Kata, merchant from Tremušnjak, Municipality of Jabukovac, Petrinja District, 31 years old, married, father of 2 children and TADIĆ BRANKO, graduate, son of Nikola and Kata, from the village of Mačkovo Selo, Municipality of Jabukovac, District of Petrinja, 20 years old, unmarried, stated together:

On the night between July 23 and 24 of this year, unknown persons abducted: Šiprak Dragutin, a municipal clerk in Banski Grabovac, Cimbaro Jakov, a brick manufacturer in Banski Grabovac and the head of the railway station in Banski Grabovac, whose name is unknown to me. Cimbaro Domenik, Jakov’s father, was killed that night in his house in Banski Grabovac. Who killed him could not be determined.

The next morning, the gendarmes from the gendarmerie school in Zagreb, Ustashas from Glina and Petrinja, and the gendarmes from the nearby gendarmerie stations came to the village. There were 500 of them. Immediately, they all spread across the Serbian villages in the vicinity, namely: Vlaović,^[3] Lušćani,^[4] Drenovac and Bačuga. All Serbs were taken to Grabovac under the pretext that they would be interrogated in that village.

On the same day, 3 trucks full of Ustashas and gendarmes arrived from the village of Dodoše,^[5] Municipality of Kraljevčani. Behind them were 2 passenger cars, in which there were Ustasha officers. Cerovski, the head of the Ustasha police in Zagreb, also came by one. Immediately after arriving in Dodoši, the Ustashas opened fire from a truck at the peasants working in the field. The villagers fled to the nearby forests. Tomić Antonije and his two sons, Dmitar and Jovan, Glamočlija Mojana^[6] and his son Nikola, Tomić Stojan and his brother-in-law Tišma Miloš were arrested. The Ustashas asked them if they were Chetniks and if they knew about the events in Grabovac of the previous night. Then they were released with the remark that no harm would be done to them if they did their job in the house and in the field peacefully, but anyone who tried to escape would be shot. Despite all that, they were later arrested again and killed in Grabovac.

In several trucks, the Ustashas continued their way through the village of Dodoši to the village of Miočinovići, Jabukovac Municipality, which is located on the edge of the forest and where the villagers hid. The Ustashas spent the night in the village of Miočinovići. The village almost seemed to be dead, because everyone had fled into the forest. Only Novaković Mojan remained in the village, and he was ordered by the Ustashas to roast piglets and lambs. During the night, the Ustashas fired only a few shots.

The next day, July 25, of this year, the peasants returned to their homes, because they assumed that no harm would happen to them, and 7 peasants from Trepušnjak^[7] had previously been released. At 10 o’clock in the morning, a private car headed to the village of Banski Grabovac, however, after one and a half hours, it returned to Dodoši. Arriving in Dodoši, an Ustasha officer stopped the municipal guard Ivanić Gnjatije, who was going from the field to the municipal office, and called him to approach him. After a short conversation, when the guard tried to escape again, the Ustasha officer shot after him and the guard fell dead. The car continued its ride further, the Ustasha officer took out his revolver and shot the 70-year-old Dodoš Miloš, who happened to be coming that way. After these two atrocities, the people fled into the woods again.

The Ustashas and gendarmes withdrew from the village of Miočinovići to neighboring villages and gathered all men aged 16-60. Anyone who tried to escape was shot immediately. From the village of Dodoš^[8] to the village of Grabovac, the Ustashas took the following persons: Kekuš Adam, Milan, S.[enior], Kekuš Đuro, Kekuš Milan, J.[unior] and Kekuš Stojan, Mrkalj Adam, Velimir, Stojan, Dodoš Stanko, Lukač Janko, Medaković Nikola, Oljača Petar and his 3 sons: Stevan, Branko and Milan, Dodoš Jovan, Dodoš Luka, Ivanić Jovan. A total of 18 persons were taken away. From the village of Miočinovići, Municipality of Jabukovac, these were taken: Novaković Mojan, from the village of Mačkovo Selo, Municipality of Jabukovac, 27 people, namely: Trkulja Petar, whom they killed with a rifle butt on the way to Banski Grabovac, Mačak Jovan, Mačak Vasilije, Mačak Vasilije (aka Amerikanac), Mačak Adam, Trkulja Mile, Trkulja Simo, Tadić Jovan, Grujić Stojan (son of Ilija), Grujić Stojan (son of Kata), Grujić Milan, Trkulja Stanko, Šoljić Ilija, Šoljić Petar and Grujić Mile. We can’t remember the names of the others. From the village of Tremušnjak, Jabukovac Municipality: Glamočlija Mojan and his son Jovan, Marovac Stevan, Kajgana Nikola, Strižak Marko, Stjepančević Stojan, Tomić Stojan, Tišma Miloš, Tomić Petar and his brother Simo, Tomić Antonije, Tomić Nikola, Radasović Milo and his both sons Jovan and Pavao, Janjić Vasilj, Tišma Branko, Jovo and Stevo, Šljivić Mojan, Marjanović Đuro and Simo (the last three were killed on the way to Banski Grabovac), Kljajić Ilija, Janko and Dušan, Matijašević Mile, teacher and I, Popović Budimir, a total of 27 people. From the village of Jabukovac, Municipality of Jabukovac: Bogičević Petar, Strižak Milan, Ljubičić Dušan and Mandić Đuro. We do not know the names of the others, we know, however that 15 people were taken from this village. From the village of Begovići, Municipality of Jabukovac: Vujaklija Simo, Begović Tešo and his son, a certain Pilipović, Begović Milan. 8 people were taken from this village. From the village of Kraljevčani, Municipality of Kraljevčani: Bunčić Janko and his son Milan, Novaković Milan, Bunac Milan, Popović Miloš and his son Bogdan, all together 6 persons. From the village of Mlino, Jabukovac Municipality: Dragaš Stevo and some other people whose names we do not know. At least 30 people were taken from the village of Dejanovići, Jabukovac Municipality. From the village of Lelići, Municipality of Kraljevčani: Lelić Stanko and his 3 sons, Kekuš Todor and Branko and many others, whose names are not known to us. All the men were taken from this village, except for Kekuš Stojan, who was not in the village that day. There were a lot of them from the villages of Grabovac, Vlaović,^[9] Drenovac, Lušćani,^[10] Bačuga, Gradac and Veliki Šušnjar.

On the way to the village of Grabovac, these unfortunates were beaten by the Ustashas and gendarmes with rifle butts. Those from the village of Banski Grabovac, were beaten dead 120 steps far from the train station. 2 large pits were dug – each of them 5 meters long and wide and 3 meters deep. All of them had to line up at the edge of the pit, where the Ustashas shot them. Some of them were even shot with a machine gun. These atrocities lasted for whole 3 days, the 24, 25 and 26 of July of this year. 2000 Serbs were killed here.

I, Popović Budimir, was taken away on July 25 of this year with 30 other villagers from the Municipality of Jabukovac. All the peasants were first abused by drunken Ustashas, and then shot. They stole all the money, watches and whatever they carried. They took 120 dinars from me, which I had with me. When I was about to be shot, at one point I pushed the two Ustashas escorting me to the pit into it, and I took to flight. Behind me, the Ustashas shot at me and wounded me in the foot. I went home to the village of Kraljevčani, where I hid for 12 days in a corn field. On September 11, of this year I managed to travel to Belgrade, where I arrived on September 12 of this year.

I, Tadić Branko, immediately ran away from home, as soon as the Ustashas came to my village. I first fled to the village of Knezovljani, and from there to the Šamarica forest, where I stayed for 14 days. On September 3 of this year I arrived in Belgrade.

The Serbs who were traveling through Banski Grabovac were taken out of the railway car, brought to the mentioned pit and killed there. In this way, 4,000 Serbs were killed in Banski Grabovac. In these atrocities, the following Ustashas stood out in particular: Šarić Tomo from Petrinja, who lost his life in the village of Dodoši 2 months later, Krpan Dujo, a driver from Petrinja and his brother Toma, a certain Kovačević from Petrinja, Pješak, butcher from Petrinja, Mrmić brothers, farmers from the village of Čuntić, Municipality of Jabukovac. They committed these atrocities under the leadership of their commander Cerovski, the head of the Ustasha police from Zagreb.

^[1] АВ, Ф. 562, 3.1.1.2, 334-336.

^[2] Handwritten date and initials.

^[3] Vlahović.

^[4] Luščani.

^[5] Dodoši.

^[6] Mojan.

^[7] Tremušnjak.

^[8] Dodoši.

^[9] Vlahović.

^[10] Luščani.

Subeditor’s Note

This – English – edition of the book is a translation of the one in the Serbian language, published in 2022 under the title Ustaška zverstva: Zbornik dokumenata (1941–1942). As far as the corpus of the Dossier from the personal fonds of Slavko Odić is concerned – and it makes the essential body of this book – the translation team worked from its Serbian version given in the said book and not from the German original.

The Serbian edition, with the documents translated from German, was printed in the Cyrillic alphabet, which necessitated some explanations provided by the Editor, Dr. Milan Koljanin, with regard to the linguistic traits, orthography and punctuation resorted to by the translators from German into Serbian (Tatjana Janićijević, Akademija Oxford) and the Editor. Naturally enough, numerous clarifications referring to the Serbian edition do not apply on the English one in most of the aspects of translation work. Hence the need to write this Note.

To begin with, the translators basically opted for the varieties of the American English rather than British English.

Personal names in the officially processed documents are most often written in what is today considered inverse order: family name/surname first, followed by one’s first/Christian name, without a comma in between.

Originally, the documents (letters, reports, statements etc.) were written (typed) in bureaucratic style and with a page layout practised by German offices, so these traits have been retained herein, and so have the obvious spelling and/or typing errors (personal names, toponyms); the latter have been corrected in the footnotes. The parts of text/sentences which are underlined or written with spaces between letters as means of emphasis correspond to the German original and its Serbian/Croat counterpart. The same applies to whole words or lines written in capital letters.

Punctuation has been kept almost completely, except when the meaning demanded comma (usually related to the rules of word order in an English sentence). Some marks, such as hyphens, dashes or slashes may impress the Reader as outdated or misplaced. Earlier typewriters did not have buttons with parentheses, and the slash was used instead of them.

Dates are written with differing uses or omissions of period (full stop), whereby month is written in three ways: fully in letters (20 January), in Arabic numerals (e.g. 20.1.) or Roman numerals (e.g. 20.I.). In rare cases, the slash can be found in dates (e.g. 12./X. 1941), but not as a regular separator between their constituents. Years are occasionaly written without the first digit, e.g. 942 instead of 1942, which is a frequent occurrence in oral communication.

Abbreviations, other than official identification means for offices, titles or codenames (VB, MA, RSHA etc.), have been translated (e.g. ’etc.’). The translators chose to retain the Croat/Serbian abbreviation for the name of the wartime ’state’, that is, ’NDH’ is standing for Nezavisna Država Hrvatska (Independent State of Croatia) instead of the less known English name (ISC). Some words were written in a shortened form for the reason of economy of expression, and the habit has been transferred to the translation, including the Editor’s intervention in the Serbian edition: Reg.[ister], Gend.[armerie], Gor[nja] Tuzla.

Footnotes in the English edition partially differ from those in the Serbian version. Some proved to be unnecessary (those that provided original names which were transliterated into the phonetical Cyrillic alphabet). New footnotes have been added by the Subeditor in order to explain/clarify the specific, locally used, words or phrases with which the Reader may not be familiar (such as slava, din, sokolski dom), or to indicate some nuances in the meaning (student, profesor). Here and there, the Reader will find notes in brackets inserted into the main body of the text by translators or the Editor where immediate understanding was needed.

Finally, it is noteworthy that the above-mentioned bureaucratic style of the presented documents mirrors the established conventions of communication in Central Europe and the Balkans of the first half of the 20th century, particularly in state and military affairs, yet also illustrates the specific ’hierarchy’ of various authorities on the occupied territories during World War Two, accentuating the relations between the German organs/institutions in power and the various offices subordinated to the administrative and military system of the Third Reich. As to the information, facts and accounts of events recorded in these documents, they are the subject of the history science and studies related thereto.

A. Č. P.