STATEMENT OF MIRKO PAJKIĆ FROM VISOKO ON HIS DETENTION IN THE GOSPIĆ AND JASENOVAC CAMPS GIVEN ON APRIL 14, 1942 AT THE COMMISSARIAT FOR REFUGEES.[1]
MINUTES
of April 14, 1942
TAKEN AT THE COMMISSARIAT FOR REFUGEES
AND MIGRANTS IN BELGRADE.
PAJKIĆ MIRKO, born on June 16, 1914 in Visoko, son of the deceased Maksim and Mara, nee Čađa, married and has two daughters, one of whom is now one and the other is two years old. By occupation a machinist. He was called for an interrogation[2] at the Commissariat for Refugees, and on that occasion he was warned to tell only the pure truth about everything he remembers from the time of his slavery in the Ustasha camps, he stated:
On July 28, 1941 two bombs exploded in the Sarajevo locomotive depot. I was working in that depot at the time, but I was not at the scene of the explosion then. I came to work the next day, on July 29, around 6 p.m. At ten o’clock in the evening, a police agent came to me and arrested me and Ljubo Mirić, also a machinist in the same locomotive depot, from Visoko. We spent 10 days in prison without a hearing. Then they interrogated us and told us that we would be released. However, the next day we were tied by chains and wire and taken to the station, loaded into freight cars and taken to Gospić in a transport. On that trip, we were accompanied, among others, by the Sarajevo police guard Šikara, a Muslim, native of Visoko, whose first name I do not remember. Besides him, there was also a police agent from Sarajevo, born in Tuzla, barber by occupation. They treated us cruelly, and the Tuzla man beat us. An Ustasha sergeant got on the train in Derventa, and at the time of his arrival, Šikara was telling him something confidential looking at me several times. It was clear to me that he was telling him something about me. I was convinced of that later, because that Ustasha came to our car immediately after that conversation, approached me, and started questioning me about how I planted those bombs in the Sarajevo locomotive depot. I assured him that I didn’t know anything about it, because at that time I wasn’t even at work in the depot, but at home in Visoko. He ignored it, but took a red-painted bomb out of his pocket. He asked me if I knew what it was. I told him I didn’t know. Upon my answer, he hit me three times in the head with it, so I saw stars. After that, he put the bomb in his pocket, and took out another, a blue one. The same thing happened again, as with the red bomb a little while before, he only hit me three times in the left shoulder with the blue one. Finally, he pulled out a black painted bomb. Since I also said that I don’t know what it is, he hit me three times in the middle of my chest, so that he stopped my breath. From those and other numerous blows, which I received later, especially in Jasenovac, my chest is no longer straight and bulged outward as before, but deep-set and adhering somehow.
In Sl.[avonski] Brod, we were transferred to freight cars of normal track gauge, 80 people in one car. In the railcar we were tied in pairs together with chains or wire. All the way to Gospić, the cars were closed, so we even eased nature in the cars, and we didn’t get any food or water all the way from Sarajevo to Gospić. All in all, we traveled to Gospić for three days and two nights. Exhausted and hungry, we arrived in Gospić one Wednesday morning. I don’t remember the date. I was placed in a penitentiary cell for two days, and for the rest, until I arrived in Jasenovac, in the yard with about 1,000 other detainees. I saw many people in Gospić who were beaten, I saw transports of several hundred people, who were taken away every day, as they said, to Pag, Velebit and Jadovno. I saw when the Ustashas killed a railway worker with a revolver. He had a nervous breakdown and attacked an Ustasha, who killed him with a revolver from the back. One day we found out that the Italians were coming, so all of us who were still in Gospić were transferred by transport, some to Jastrebarsko and some straight to Jasenovac. We were transferred straight to Jasenovac. 12 detainees from our transport died on the way to Jasenovac. I don’t remember any names of those who died. Only one died in our car. I know that he was a native of Pale near Sarajevo, a peasant. When leaving Gospić and in Jastrebarsko, we were photographed by Italian soldiers. Our part of the transport spent the whole day from morning to night at the station in Jastrebarsko. We stayed in the cars, and we only got out of the cars during lunch. They cooked our lunch in cauldrons at the station from the money which the Ustashas had collected from us and bought beans with. One had to give for that lunch whatever amount one had. Some even gave a few thousand. I gave only 22 dinars, for that much I had with me. Whoever did not have money had to give a watch or a ring. Of course the beans were not bought for all that money. And we saw later that the Ustashas did well by the fact that they got very drunk, certainly with our money. During our stay at the station in Jastrebarsko, many people came, even women and children, to watch us. We noticed that many felt sorry for us. I guess they were Serbs, and maybe Croats, too. But among them there were those who cursed us and threatened to kill us. The railway workers there especially turned on us, they looked at us curiously. I also saw a woman shouting something against us.
In the evening we left Jastrebarsko and only the next day we arrived in Jasenovac. In Jasenovac, we were greeted by Ustashas with curses and butts at the very station. We immediately saw our “good morning”. They took us from the station to the Jasenovac camp through the forest, so that the villagers and citizens did not see us, at least as far as I know. Along the way, they drove us to walk as fast as we could. Almost run. They constantly beat us with rifle butts and shouted at us, as if we were cattle. If someone’s shoe fell off along the way, he could not even consider bending down and taking it out of the mud, through which we trod. In the camp, they lined us up next to the barracks and took everything from us, whatever we had with us. We were housed in Camp No. 3, in the area of Bačić’s factory.
From that day, a torturous life began in the Jasenovac camp, full of unspeakable suffering, mental and physical, in an atmosphere of constant killing and slaughter, constant shedding of innocent Serbian blood, suffering and dying day by day.
I remember that we arrived in Jasenovac on the 18th of August. There were 940 of us in the transport. At this time, I can remember some who came with me, Ljubo Mirić, he was a machinist from the Sarajevo rail.[way] locomotive depot, a native of Visoko, who was later killed in Jasenovac, by butts, during work on the embankment, Đoko Vukićević, a locksmith from Visoko, who died in a barrack in Jasenovac, after being beaten by Ustasha rifle butts five days before, Dadić Branko, a railway worker from Visoko, who died in Jasenovac, exhausted and beaten with rifle butts, Bukarac Obren, a railway worker from Visoko, exhausted from hunger and work, beaten to death, died in Jasenovac, Šotra Milan, innkeeper from Visoko, a wonderful man, killed in Jasenovac, Beatović Ranko from Visoko, killed, Bilbija Miloš from Breza near Visoko, killed, Popara Boško from Sarajevo, killed, Čabak Stojan, locksmith from Fačić near Sarajevo, killed, Tuševljak Slavko, fireman from Sarajevo, killed, Vasiljević Jovo, baker from Visoko, killed, Branko Đujić, barber from Zagreb, killed, and because of him 25 more detainees were killed, mostly peasants, whose names I do not remember. This reprisal occurred because Đujić was killed in a conflict with an Ustasha, whom he attacked. When selecting these 25, who were to be killed, I was selected, too. But fortunately, the Ustasha who chose and took me, accidentally asked me what my occupation was. When I told him that I was a machinist (they saved craftsmen because they needed us) he let me go and took a peasant, who was standing right behind me. That’s how I survived on that occasion. These 25 people were killed with machine guns by the bloodthirsty Ustasha Ljubo Miloš.
Now I can’t remember the names of those thousands of people who were killed in Jasenovac. But very often, sometimes day after day, I watched groups of 100 or a few hundred people being escorted to the killing. I also watched two “liquidations” of patients from the hospital. Once, in the month of March, I was assigned to transfer seriously ill people from a barrack, when water suddenly came and flooded the barracks. We wondered why the Ustashas suddenly wanted to save the detainees, and at the same time the sick. But later we saw that it was because the Ustashas did not want to allow the detainees to drown in the water, so that eventually the water would not take them away and reveal their destiny to the world. They preferred to kill them themselves. It was about 2 o’clock after midnight, when I was called from the barracks, to transfer those patients from the flooded barracks, together with more friends. There were about 120 of these patients and maybe more. We carried them from the flooded barracks over the embankment, some 150 meters away. There they were taken over by others and taken to the brickyard. The next day in the evening, all those patients were killed in the brickyard and burned.
The Ustashas killed the detainees in various ways, before the arrival of the commission, that is, from[3] the beginning of February, publicly, in front of all of us. They killed them with machine guns, rifles and revolvers, but they used this way the least. The people were usually slaughtered with a knife just as cattle are slaughtered. Often enough, only one Ustasha slaughtered entire groups. The infamous Ljubo Miloš stood out in that, then some Matijević, and then Mujo (that’s what everyone called him, and I don’t know his last name). He even had a heavy sabre and cut off heads with it. In general, he gladly pretended to be a great hero, an old fashioned one, as described in folk tales and songs. In the end, some Pavlićević also slaughtered a lot. In addition, the Ustashas killed with mallets, specially made for such killing. These mallets were large and heavy, and have a long handle. In addition to mallets, they killed with some special iron and wooden poles, and especially with axes. It was claimed that they also strangled men with wire, but I did not see that.
After the commission had left, they still burned people in the brickyard, in such a way that they pushed them into the space for baking bricks, walled up the door and lit fire. I saw it with my own eyes, when they walled up a group and started a fire, and burned them. We then slept in the “ring” of the brickyard and watched everything from above.
During the hard work on the embankments, I watched day by day, as people fell emaciated and exhausted, as well as beaten by rifle butts. During those works, which I endured for full 6 months, at least 10-20 people died and were killed during the work every day. And I miraculously survived one day after a heavy beating with a rifle butt, from which everyone else died. Here is what happened to me, and what we watched every day: on October 12, I was working with a group of friends on the road and digging ditches. Suddenly, three Ustashas came near me, talking quietly to each other. They called me, and when I approached them, they ordered me to turn my back on them. Immediately afterwards, I felt three terrible blows to the shoulder with a butt, and after that 6 blows to my back. As soon as after the fourth blow I fell to the ground and thought that my end had come. The blows were horrible, so I thought not a single bone would stay whole. But still, I did not moan, because I knew from experience that anyone who in such circumstances gives even a hint of sound from himself, would surely be finished. After 9 strokes I fainted. Afterwards, my comrades told me that the Ustashas, who, judging by their pronunciation, were from Lika, walked away when my comrades approached me, thinking that I was dead. However, they noticed that I was still alive, so they started pouring water on me, and I came to my senses. Luckily it was close to our barrack, so they took me into it. I lay for 10 days in constant fear that I would be “liquidated” like all the sick. After 10 days, I finally managed to somehow get on my feet and with the greatest effort, I went to work, in order to avoid the massacre. I was all distorted, and terrible pains tormented me, but I still endured those terrible works. Even today, I still feel severe pain in my chest and lower back from those blows.
The largest-scale mass killings took place from the Catholic Christmas Day until the end of January. And later, those killings continued, publicly, until mid-February, only to a lesser extent. Afterwards, as I have already said, they continued to kill in masses, but no longer in public. The killings were carried out in the brickyard itself, where, in addition to the corpses, they also burned people alive. Therefore, we could not find out from the gravediggers how many people had been killed, and in particular that number must have been unknown to us because groups of detainees who were just arriving at the camp were killed, too. We detainees were not allowed to come even near the brickyard, around which guards were placed. If a guard noticed that a detainee, even if by accident, saw the killing, the man would immediately be called and done away with. I personally saw cases, some peasants, whom I knew by their costumes were from Bijeljina. The killings in the brickyard were carried out in a covered shed, with no walls on the sides. Bricks were stacked around the shed. When passing the brickyard, the mentioned peasants would accidentally peek behind the bricks towards the shed, where the slaughter was taking place at that time. He was immediately called by a guard and pushed into the shed, where he was also slaughtered with the others. We had to pass by the brickyard when we went to work and back. Using experience, we turned our heads to the other side of the brickyard each time and walked past it as fast as we could, because we never knew if killing happened to be going on in that shed at the moment.
Terrible were the moments of “outburst”, when those who were to be killed were chosen, for any reason (for “cleaning” the camp, because of some reprisals, punishment). I was in an “outburst” for the first time during the case of Branko Đujić, which I have already mentioned; the second time I was called to an “outburst” with the others because of five detainees, who were killed in front of us by the rifle of the Ustasha Mujo. I know that one of them stole two potatoes while unloading and carrying those potatoes from the car to the storehouse, where he also worked; two were punished by such death because they urinated in the barracks at night for they could not endure until dawn, and all four buckets (for over 200 people) were full. For the other two, I don’t know what they were hiding. I was in an “outburst” for the third time because of the attempted escape of a detainee, whose name I do not remember, and on this occasion they killed only him in front of us, which was a rare case, because they regularly selected a large number of other detainees out of an “outburst” and killed them.
In addition to the Serbs, there were many Jews in the camp. They were also beaten and killed a lot, but far less than Serbs. The Jews did relatively well in general, compared to us Serbs, they even did great. They had in their hands the entire internal administration in the camp, they were “freemen”, that is, they could leave the camp on their own and do some work for the camp. Many of them even traveled to Zagreb and stayed there for 8 days. I even know that two Jews spent the nights in Jasenovac privately, where their wives and children also stayed. Many of them had their wives living in Jasenovac and visited them often. They were given food and cigarettes from outside. As camp officials, rarely did any of them behave properly. They all had close ties with the Ustashas, they often beat our people, and I personally remember the Jew Hermann Spieller from Osijek, because he beat me mercilessly several times, without a real reason. I have the impression that he and some other Jews wanted to fawn on the Ustashas in this way. German and Polish Jews were especially rude, while our Bosnian Jews were the most tolerant, but that is why they suffered the most, not only by the Ustashas, but also by the German and Polish Jews, with whom the Ustashas were generally on good terms.
During my entire stay in Jasenovac, I never thought I would come out alive. I was completely preoccupied with what I was going to eat and how to escape the killing. I searched and dug often around the dump and looked for potato peels and anything that could somehow be swallowed. Fortunately, I was healthy and strong, so I was able to endure all that, from which thousands of others died. I was especially obsessed with the thought, day and night, of what kind of death I would die: from a knife, a mallet, a club, a bullet, a rifle butt, an ax, exhaustion and fatigue, illness or hunger. It never occurred to me that I could avoid one of those deaths, so I never even remembered much of what I had really experienced. The “gravediggers” died the most from exhaustion. They had the worst job. Day and night, they had to dig graves and carry the dead, and they had to take off their clothes and shoes beforehand. They always had to do all that work very quickly, without a break. The Ustashas knew how hard work these people were doing, so they received double portions. Despite that, I do not know any detainees, out of hundreds and hundreds of them, who were gravediggers, and who survived that job after a month of their sad work. And that is one of the proofs of how many detainees the Ustashas have killed in Jasenovac. The only one of the gravediggers, who is still alive from the beginning until today, is the head of the graveyard group, Eng. Danon from Sarajevo, who personally did not have to work, but only supervised the work of the gravediggers. Even after our departure, he remained in Jasenovac as the head of the graveyard group.
I have nothing more to say expert that from February 27 to March 30, that is, the day when I left Jasenovac for Belgrade with 12 of my friends, I was spared from all work and received 5 times as much food, in fact, they gave us as much food as we wanted and in general the Ustashas treated us favorably. We just could not recognize them. Before our departure, Pavelić’s commissioner Luburić said to some of us, with a significant emphasis: “You know a lot, you have heard and seen a lot.”
When we left Jasenovac, all Serbs cried, which is understandable, when you think about what kind of hell they were left to live in. Today, I am grateful to the Serbian people, the Serbian Government and the Commissariat for Refugees, who enabled me to experience this extraordinary happiness of liberation from the Ustasha hell, and that I can now recover in peace, mentally and physically.
COMPLETED!
Pajkić Mirko
personal signature
INTERVIEWED AND CONFIRMED Minute taker:
Branko Stražičić Stana Tepavac,
personal signature personal signature
[1] АВ, Ф. 562, 3.1.1.2, 435-440, original in Serbian; АВ, Ф. 562, 3.1.1.2, 426-434, copy translated into German. The statement was published in: A. Miletić, Koncentracioni logor Jasenovac, Vol. I, 248-254.
[2] Misspelling, Serbian, in the document: presušanje written instead of preslušanje (interrogation).
[3] Until (do instead of od) should stand here.