No. 89

STATEMENT OF A REFUGEE FROM TOPUSKO ABOUT THE KILLING OF SERBS IN KORDUN AND BANIJA, FORCED CONVERSION TO CATHOLICISM, ABOUT BEING TAKEN TO THE GOSPIĆ CAMP, THE UPRISING OF THE SERBS AND ABOUT THE JOINING OF CROATS TO THE INSURGENTS.^[1]

15/4 42^[2]

One refugee from Topusko states:

In April 1941, I found myself as a prisoner of war in the camp in Doboj, from which I escaped one day and walked home to Topusko via Banja Luka.

In May of the current year, the Ustashas in the Vrginmost District arrested prominent Serbs, namely: Žutić Miloš, landowner, Roknić Nikola, retired gendarmerie sergeant, Kordić Milutin, farmer, Dr. Branko Vurdelja, Jovo Vorkapić, hotelier, Stanko Škara, innkeeper, Vujošević Milutin, merchant, native of Montenegro, Škara Nikola, waiter, Bjelić Nikola, waiter, Mamuzić Ilija, farmer, Janjanin Stojan, farmer, Ćelap Nikola, farmer, all of them from Topusko. They came to Sisak from Topusko and from Sisak to Petrinja. They were held in Petrinja for 1 month, whereafter they were all taken in an unknown direction. Shortly afterwards, it became known that all the aforementioned Serbs from Topusko had been killed in the Brezovica forest near Sisak. These atrocities were discovered because the Ustashas ordered some Gypsies to bury the corpses of these Serbs and take their clothes. That is how a Gypsy was seen in the suit of the murdered Škara, and a letter written by Škara to his wife was found.

After these murders, the action of conversion to the Catholic faith began, which, however, had only a few followers.

On the night between July 27 and 28, in the village of Poljana near Topusko, Breški^[3] Šime from Zagreb was killed. Serbs were accused of killing him, which led to a terrible reaction from the Ustashas. 370 Serbs were arrested. One part was imprisoned in the municipality building and the other part in the Orthodox church in Topusko. On that occasion, I was also arrested and driven to the church. We were beaten and abused here. A few days later, Rajšić Luka, a farmer from Ponikvar, and Škundrić Ilija, a hotelier from Topusko, died as a result of these horrible abuses. The Serbs who were imprisoned in the municipality building, 70 of them, were taken by truck to the Topusko railway station, from where they were driven to the concentration camp in Gospić and from there to Jasenovac. There is no trace left of these Serbs, and most likely they were all killed. Among them were: Obradović Matija, hotelier, Batalo Mitar, merchant, Miljević Milan, merchant and Miljević Milan, clerk, Batalo Mirko, clerk, Žutić Matija, butcher, Batalo Milan, Matija, farmers, Mišćević Nikola, Miljević Ilija and Đura, Zlokas Vasilije with his sons Nikola and Pero, Zlokaš^[4] Miloš and Sima, Miljević Stojan, Škara Milan with his son Pero, Škara Marko, Bjelić Matija, carpenter, Dragojević Marko, landowner, Ratković Nikola and his son Dane, Radićanin Pera, Lončar Pera, farmers, brothers Gušić Milan and Rade, Vorkapić Nikola, farmers.

Personally, I saved myself, by hiding in the church tower and throwing church wreaths on myself. I heard everything that was happening in the church. The Serbs were abused in the most horrible way, beaten with rifle butts, forced to sing Ustasha songs and swear allegiance to Ante Pavelić. Then all but 3 people were taken to Glina. Petković Tošo, pharmacist, Vorkapić Pajo, notary and Korić^[5] Adam, landowner, were released to go home. Thousands and thousands of Serbs were killed in the Orthodox church in Glina, so that their blood spilled through the church door. At midnight, I managed to get away from the church, whereafter I hid in the field for 3 days. As the Ustashas did not find me at home, they arrested my wife Olga together with the children, and took them to the camp in Petrinja, from where they were released after a five-week stay to go back home. Every day the Ustashas searched for me; one day they found me with my brother-in-law, the Muslim Hasan Karaić. I was taken to court. Thanks to the statements of my relatives and friends, that I did not carry any weapons with me, and that I did not hide among the Chetniks in the forest, I was released and came to Kraljevo, where I stayed with my cousin, Simić Pera, a teacher, until 20 January 1942.

After these events in Topusko, the remaining part of the Serbs who survived hid in Mt. Petrova Gora and an uprising against the Ustashas was organized. The Ustashas took revenge again on old and weak women and the elderly, as well as on children. They looted and set fire to all the neighboring villages in Topusko. The villages of Katinovac and Vorkapić were spared from the torching.

Nobody buried these corpses, and I witnessed in the village of Vorkapić how the dogs tore these corpses to pieces. These killings by the Ustashas have continued in the districts across Banija and Kordun since August of this year to this day. They plunder all movable property and livestock.

1500 Serbs were killed in Vrginmost. In the Municipality of Topusko, 400 Serbs lost their lives, in the Municipality of Čemernica 600 of them, and in the villages in the District of Vrginmost, 500 Serbs lost their lives. These numbers do not include the number of children, women and the elderly killed. The Serbs from the village of Čemernica were shot in a ditch near Krnjak. That is how one of my relatives, Milan Jarčov, was killed here.

In the forest of Mt. Petrova Gora, among the insurgents, who declared that they did not agree with the policy of Supreme Leader Ante Pavelić, there were a lot of supporters of Dr. Maček, and those were some workers from Zagreb, Sisak and Karlovac. The Croats, who joined forces with the Chetniks in Croatia, ravaged and set fire to all Croatian state organs, the railway and telephone lines.

Among the Ustashas who stood out in particular, I mention: Malinac Mato, house painter from Hrvatsko Selo, Putrić Jure, farmer from Vranovina, Orečić Mirko, worker, Briješki Ilija, Kocman Anton, teacher from Topusko. There were also those Croats who took Serbs under their protection: like Babić Ivo and Stevo, farmers from Topusko, Išeka Stanko, shoemaker from Topusko, Darović, then manager of the power plant in Topusko, and Muslim Hamdija, confectioner from Topusko.

The District Chief from Topusko, Čidić, also strongly advocated for the Serbs, which is why he was fired. He was replaced again by a Croat who committed suicide due to horrific atrocities committed against innocent Serbs. During his tenure, two full train wagons loaded with ammunition of Italian origin were discovered, and he was accused of being involved in this affair, and that the ammunition was intended for those Serbs who joined the Chetniks. According to one story, this affair was the reason for his suicide. On this occasion, 6 Italian officers were also accused of delivering the ammunition in question to the Serbs.

The Italian authorities are still in Vrginmost today. The Croatian authorities, in agreement with the Ustashas, continue their work, not caring about the Italians.

^[1] АВ, Ф. 562, 3.1.1.2, 310-311.

^[2] Handwritten date and initials.

^[3] Briješki.

^[4] Zlokas.

^[5] Korać.

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.