No. 111

REPORT OF A COMMISSIONER TO SS MAJOR REXEISEN, ON THE CLASHES BETWEEN PARTISANS AND CHETNIKS IN MT. MAJEVICA IN FEBRUARY 1942, THE COOPERATION BETWEEN THE COMMUNISTS AND HADŽIEFENDIĆ’S LEGION WHICH CARRIED OUT MASSACRES OF SERBS.^[1]

1). In February, there was a fight in Mt. Majevica between the Chetniks and the Communists, and the Chetniks completely destroyed the Communists and cleared them in the area of Majevica mountain. – The entire Communist headquarters perished there, which consisted mainly of the Muslims and Catholics from the cities of the Tuzla County.^[2]

The leader was killed there, Fadil,^[3] known as the Španjolac, who was married to the sister of Alijagić,^[4] the murderer of the Yu.[goslav] Minister of Interior, Drašković,^[5] who abolished the Communist Party. Then 2 Herljević brothers,^[6] Catholics, both from Tuzla, then – Dr. of Med.[icine] Mustafa Mujbegović,^[7] physician from Tuzla and some others. –

The rest of the fleeing Communists broke into the Chetnik hospital in the village of Tobut in Mt. Majevica and killed all wounded Chetniks. – Then they broke into a church in a village in Mt. Majev.[ica] – Then they crossed the Tuzla-Zvornik road towards the village of Šekovići. –

In time, the Chetniks informed the Cr.[oatian] Army in writing via the headman (Dorfälteste) from the village of Dubnica, which is located near the road (that is, the Croatian volunteer anti-Communist troops (100 Dinar per diem as pocket money, and robbery, killing, rape as a reward), i.e. the Mus.[lim] legionnaires, whose commander is the famous Muhamed Hadžiefendić from Tuzla – the Chetniks informed them in time at what time the communists would pass, so that they could ambush them. – However, the legionaries calmly let the communists pass without a single bullet.

After these 200 armed Communists invaded the same Serbian-Orth.[odox] village of Dubnica and forced them to feed them (most of the men from that village had been driven to conc.[entration] camps as early as in the summer of 1941), the next day the legionaries invaded the same village, when the Communists had left, and whoever they found and not escaped in time – they slaughtered and killed all, even small children of 2 years of age. Then the village was completely looted, and then set on fire. –

It was apparently a punishment because they had allegedly welcomed the Communists.

2). According to the accurate data of 1 gend.[armerie] non-commissioned officer:

The hoca (Turkish priest) Jusić Bajro from the village of Mus.[lim] Tupković, commander of that Mus.[lim] legion of the Peop.[le’s] Uprising in that area, carried out slaughters, lootings and various violence in the surrounding peaceful Serb.[ian] Orth.[odox] villages in the rear. At the same time, the same hoca sent ammunition, tools, food and salt to the Communists in Šekovići. –

The original letter of the Communist outlaw (a native of Tuzla) Ibro Kunosić was seized, in which he confirms the receipt of weapons and ammunition, but still asks for it. – This letter is in the Division.^[8] –

3). The County Exec.[utive] of Tuzla – had a daughter captured by the Communists in Šekovići. This daughter of the County Executive was captured first by the Chetniks in Rogatica, and later by the communists. – (It is rumored in Tuzla among the leftists that she is a Communist, too!) The Communists in the negotiations asked the County Exec. for additional 15 meters^[9] of salt and 15 chests of ammunition. – She was released and brought to Tuzla by a st.[ate] car, in exchange for 15 m.[eters] of salt. –

It is said that ammunition was also handed over, and that it was done secretly by the Mus.[lim] legionaries. –

M.[ister] Rexeisen, does it make any sense at all to write down all this; if I could write everything I hear and what these poor and miserable Ser.[bian]-Orth.[odox] peasants of ours tell me, I could write a novel. But I have been writing and writing since July, so I guess o.[thers] have been writing, too, yet this evil is still going on. Lately, the Legionnaires and the Ustasha authorities, for example, have been, so to speak, mobilizing the male population in Orth.[odox] Ser.[bian] villages and driving all men ages of 12 and 13 to extremely old age – I guess to the camps. – In Tuzla, all confiscated Serb.[ian] buildings are crowded with the peasants driven thereto.

The government pretends to be deaf and blind to all the lawlessness in the villages, which is carried out by the milica^[10] [sic!] of Hadžiefendić. – I took people to the gendarm.[erie] station in Tuzla to complain. Lieutenant Col.[onel] Mašek, commander of the gendarm.[erie] in Tuzla is correct and honest. – In private, he openly admits to me that he is completely powerless against those gangs. One peasant told me that they had recently killed 1 gendarme.

And all this stains the German honor and virtue. Everything is being done in front of the German army and officers. The Communists point the finger at today’s conditions of hunger, misery, anarchy, terror of bandit hordes and claim that this is your Europe, which was created after the arrival of the German army here, reminding us of the well-being and peace of democr.[atic] Yugoslavia.

Because misery, famine, anarchy and the creation of the so-called Independent State came, after prosperity and peace in democr.[atic] Yugoslavia, with the arrival of the Ger.[man] army here.

That fact is a terrible weapon in the hands of the Communists, and it is difficult to fight against it. The poor Serb peasant asks me if the Germans will do something for our salvation – of us and of our families, then I can only comfort them, and say nothing definite for now.

If this stuation drags on until next winter, that is, until a decision is made in the East, the nat.[ional] Ser.[bian] element will be eradicated by religiously fanatical gangs. –

Who is Hadžiefendić !!

Muhamed Hadžiefendić, a merchant in Tuzla, a Hochstapler^[11] type, an Austro-Hungarian feurich^[12] from the World War in Yugoslavia who rose to a major in reserve.- The corrupt government of Cvetković gave him ore fields-concession near Tuzla. He was a b.[ig] Soko^[13] and participated in all Sok.[ol] ev.[ent]s.

^[1] АВ, Ф. 562, 3.1.1.2, 360-361, original in Serbian, handwritten in Latin alphabet. Considering the handwriting, the author of the letter is probably Obrad Mićić from Tuzla.

^[2] The County (Velika župa) of Usora and Soli with the center in Tuzla. At that time, the County Executive (veliki župan) was Ragib Čapljić; Tko je tko u NDH, 78 (D. Stuparić). See: R. Hurem, Kriza narodnooslobodilačkog pokreta u Bosni i Hercegovini krajem 1941. i početkom 1942. godine, Sarajevo: Svjetlost, 1972, passim.

^[3] Fadil Jahić Španac (the sobriquet Španjolac in Croat or Španac in Serbian, i.e. ‘Spaniard’, comes from the man’s participation in the Spanish Civil War).

^[4] Alija Alijagić.

^[5] Milorad Drašković.

^[6] Franjo and Albin Herljević.

^[7] See: V. Mujbegović, Tuzla moje mladosti, 20-35.

^[8] It probably refers to the German 718^th Infantry Division.

^[9] One meter is equal to 100 kilograms.

^[10] Wrong spelling of milicija, ‘militia’.

^[11] Hochstapler is German word for a nice-mannered fraud, role player.

^[12] Probably: feurig, ‘fervent’ in German.

^[13] Member of the pan-Slavic Soko(l) Movement (founded in Prague, in 1862) as an all-age gymnastics organization, following the principle of “a strong mind in a sound body”. – Subeditor’s note.

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.