No. 83

THE STATEMENT OF A REFUGEE FROM SARAJEVO WHO FLED TO SERBIA ON MARCH 14, 1942, ABOUT THE CRIMES OF THE USTASHAS IN SARAJEVO, SOKOLAC AND OTHER PLACES.^[1]

15/4^[2]

One refugee states:

I lived in Sarajevo with my husband, a postal clerk. At the end of June of this year I was arrested by the Ustashas because someone was allegedly shot in the house where I lived. My husband hid in his hometown, Sokolac. I was in jail for 2 days and then I was released. The prisons were full of Serb men and women. There was also a nurse in my cell, Balić Gina, who was terribly abused and beaten. Tailor Miličević Slavica, 16, was also horribly abused.

There were Serbs in the next cell. Their moans and sobs were heard every day. At night, they were taken to behind the Jewish cemetery, where everyone was shot dead on the spot. Miličević Dušan, a railway worker from Sarajevo, and 19 other Serbs were killed in this way.

In mid-August 1941, I was arrested again. I was accused that my brother Ilija Tešić and 2 other relatives joined the Chetniks. After a few days I was released.

In September 1941, I was arrested for the third time. This time I was accused of keeping Jews in my apartment. They let me go again after a few days. The abuse of Serbs continued in prisons, they were taken behind the Jewish cemetery at night and shot there. That is how they executed: Popović Veljko, a clerk, Jovanović Miloš, a railway worker, and many other Serbs whose names I do not know.

My husband was fired from work.

On December 1, 1941, I fled with my children to my husband in Sokolac. I walked through the forest for 3 days. Sokolac was then in the hands of the Chetniks.

On January 20, Sokolac was conquered by the Ustashas. I was immediately arrested, I was accused of serving as a cook for the Chetniks, even though I did not. Me and my three children were taken to Podromanija, 3 km away from Sokolac. They interrogated me every day. When they asked me why I left Sarajevo, I told them that my husband had to leave Sarajevo, and that I could not exist with my family without support. An Ustasha replied: “Well, you are still young, you could have offered your body for sale in Sarajevo!” I didn’t answer anything. I was returned to Sokolac with the children. On the way, we met a boy of about 15 years old in Ustasha uniform, armed, who was escorting 2 women peasants. He shot them both in one place and left their corpses lying on the road. Later, other Ustashas took another young woman peasant, about 20 years old, with them, and also shot her.

In early February 1942, the Ustashas began killing the Serbs in Sokolac. Nešković Drago, a merchant from Sokolac, 40 years old, the father of three children, was skinned from a living body, so that he died only after terrible suffering. Kovačević Drago, a merchant from Sokolac, and his mother Danica also fell victim to the horrible martyrous death. His mother was slaughtered while still in the house, and his eyes were plucked out first and he was killed then. On the same day, Karabatković Ilija, a farmer, and his wife Darinka were also killed. They beat me with a rifle butt and told me that I would be shot the next day.

Killings also took place in the village of Baltići. Young girls were publicly raped, which I saw with my own eyes. They took 200 dinars from my purse, my only cash.

The remaining Serbs from Sokolac were imprisoned in 2-3 houses. And I was locked up with my children. During the night, I managed to escape with my children. So, going through the forest, I came to the Serbian village of Vražići, which was completely deserted and looted. I found 67 corpses in 3 houses, mostly women and children. Among these corpses, I recognized the Pajić, Orašanin and Zečević families.

A large number of Serbs fled along the Drina river. I also joined this group. Due to the severe winter, the children especially suffered! Many children froze along the way. For 2 nights I lay with my children on bare ground.

On March 14, 1942, I came to Serbia and on March 18, I arrived in Belgrade.

^[1] АВ, Ф. 562, 3.1.1.2, 295-296.

^[2] Handwritten date and initials.

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.