No. 4

REPORT OF THE COMMISSION FOR THE INSPECTION OF MASS GRAVES FROM PEĆIGRAD OF AUGUST 20, 1941, AFTER VISITING SEVERAL MASS GRAVES NEAR VELIKA KLADUŠA, WITH A PROPOSAL OF MEASURES TO PREVENT SPREAD OF INFECTION.^[1]

Translation. Confidential! Attachment 4^[2]

Subject: Hygienic conditions of graves in Velika Kladuša

Strictly Confidential!

District administration

in Velika Kladuša

On August 19 of the current year, based on an invitation from the said authority, and due to the safety situation, we have inspected 3 new graves, about 2 km away from Velika Kladuša. These graves are located in trenches (fortifications) dug by the Yugoslav army. On this occasion, we have determined the following.

1.) Most of the graves are bordered by a swamp into which liquid from corpses leaks.

2.) The ground above the graves is cracked and a terrible stench spreads from these cracks, as well as from the swamp.

3.) From the graves in question, and from the swamp, polluted water flows into a small stream.

4.) At about 1800 m from these graves there is another smaller cemetery, and from it at a distance of 100 m there is another cemetery. The hygienic conditions of these graves are the same as those first described.

5.) In the vicinity of these graves there are springs from which people draw water. There is a possibility that during heavy rains, these springs can be contaminated with fluids from the corpses. For health protection, it is necessary to take the following measures:

1.) The entire trench (fortified place) should be buried in the length of 2 km, as long as there are graves there, whether it is on the direct line or extended. During this, it is necessary to fill in the trench and the swamp to the left and right of the graves and cover it with earth, in the same length as the length of the graves: about 100 m.

2.) In order to destroy germs and mosquitoes, it is necessary to pour lime milk over all graves, about 300 liters. In addition to that, a layer of 30 cm soil must be laid over. Lime milk is prepared in the following way: first, 100 liters of water is poured over 100 kg of quicklime, so this way the quicklime is turned into slaked lime. Another 300 liters of water is added to this, and in this way lime milk is made.

3.) Workers working on graves as well as the surrounding population must be prohibited from drinking water from springs near the graves until further notice.

4.) More workers than are currently employed there are needed to fill in and lay earth over the mentioned graves.

5.) If all the measures recommended here are carried out, there will be no danger for the environment from the spread of infection, as well as from malaria, when the surrounding wetlands are filled in at the same time.

Dr. Miroslav Schlesinger,^[3] doctor for the treatment of endemic syphilis in Banja Luka based in Pecigrad^[4]
Vladimir Hećimović, stud. of med.
Vladimir Palmović, stud. of med.

Pecigrad,^[5] August 20, 1941

^[1] АВ, Ф. 562, 3.1.1.2, 139; translation from Croatian.

^[2] Handwritten note.

^[3] Dr. Miroslav Schlesinger (Serbian spelling Šlezinger; Našice, 1895 – Sutjeska, 1943); J. Romano, Jevreji Jugoslavije 1941-1945. Žrtve genocida i učesnici NOR, Beograd: Savez jevrejskih opština Jugoslavije, 1980, 486-487.

^[4] Pećigrad.

^[5] Same as previous.

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.