No. 91

STATEMENT OF A REFUGEE FROM TREBINJE ABOUT THE MASSACRES OF THE SERBS IN TREBINJE AND THE SURROUNDING VILLAGES, DEPORTATION TO THE GOSPIĆ CAMP AND PUBLIC HUMILIATION OF THE SERBS UNTIL THE ARRIVAL OF THE ITALIAN SOLDIERY IN SEPTEMBER 1941.^[1]

15/4 42^[2]

One refugee states:

Until May 30, 1941, while the Italian army was in Trebinje, there had been total peace in this town and its districts. No harm was done to the Serbs.

On May 30, 1941, the Croatian army took over the administration in Trebinje. The next day, the Ustashas arrested the former police chief Boško, Miljković Stevo, a police officer, and Bulić Nikola, the warden of the district prison.

On June 1, 1941, the Ustashas went from house to house and arrested all Serbs. The following were killed: Kovačević Gaša, he was killed before the very eyes of his seven children, then Brković Milan, a municipal official, he, too, was killed before the very eyes of his five minor children, Babić Vaso, merchant, Nagulić Dušan, merchant, Palikuća Vlajko, shoemaker, Đurić Šćepan, butcher’s assistant, Lečić Radovan, barrel maker, Popović Vlado and Kukurić Ilija. These unfortunates were almost all killed in their homes. Among the many Serbs who were arrested was Davidović Bogdan, president of the District Court, Bokić Rajko, professor. All of the arrested Serbs had to perform the roughest work on the roads.

On June 23, 1941, 16 Serbs were taken from prison and to the village of Pridvorci, where they were beaten dead at the crossroads. Their bodies were thrown into a cave. Then the victims were: former police chief Boško, Miljković Stevo, police officer, Babić Trifko, railway clerk, Kukurić Lazar, innkeeper, Pidžula Božo, innkeeper and his only son Milorad, 19 years old, Sokolović Aleksa, pensioner, Ćurić Blagoje, innkeeper, Ćurić Đorđe, worker, Madžar Jovo, innkeeper and Stijačić Obren, farmer. At the last moment, Škoro Jefta, post clerk, Vlačić Jovo, railway clerk, and Popovčević Vasa, farmer, managed to escape. They left for Montenegro, whereafter they came to Trebinje again in September, because the Italian authorities took over the administration.

On July 2, 1941, the arrested Serbs in Trebinje were released again, whereafter they were arrested again. During the month of July, 3 transports were taken to the concentration camp in Gospić. In the first and second transport there were: Čučković Filip, landowner and merchant, Komad Ubavko, saddle maker, Čučković Milan, high school student, Jeremić Mića, bricklayer, Govedarica Vaso, shoemaker, Tarana Savo, tailor, Vuković Dimitrije, shoemaker, Kovačević Vlada, school inspector, Stijačić Mara, innkeeper, Simović Persa, housewife, Kovačević Bosiljka, housewife, Tupanjanin Anđa, midwife, Vujin Krsta, housewife and her sister Zora with one six-year-old child, Osmokrović Bosiljka, a clerk in the District Court, and many other Serb men and women. Their fate is unknown to me. The third transport went to Čapljina. Of the 27 Serbs in this transport, all were killed. Among them were many whose last names were Milojević and Šišković, as well as Ratković Aćim, an innkeeper.

In July 1941, the Ustashas killed 8 Serbs in the village of Zipci.^[3] Their names are unknown to me. In the village of Lastva, 2 Begenišić brothers and their 2 sons were killed. In the village of Trebilovci,^[4] Tanasković Dušan was killed, and in the village of Poljice, Risto Miljević, the Mayor and his son Jovo. Miljević’s legs were cut off while he was still alive, and his son’s eyes were plucked. The father witnessed these atrocities. They further beat Ninković Boro, whose eyes they had previously plucked, and cut off his nose and other parts of his body. In the village of Poljica, 300 Serbs were killed. 700 Serbs were killed in the village of Ljubinje. In the village of Trebilovci^[5] near Čapljina, 30 Serbs were killed in June. The others fled into the woods. The women and children who remained in the village were picked up by the Ustashas and thrown alive into the abysses between Kručevići and Šurmanovci.^[6] Lero Milena was also arrested in June and then released.

I fled to Montenegro, too, where I stayed until September 1941, and then I returned to Trebinje. In December 1941, the police arrested me under the pretext that I was in agreement with the Chetniks. I was in prison for 25 days, and I was released from prison on January 13, 1942.

Apart from the aforementioned horrific murders, the Ustashas belittled the Serbs at every step. In Trebinje, a sign was hung in a public park: “Serbian dogs and Jews are forbidden access to the park!” There was a monument to NJEGOŠ in Trebinje. On New Year’s Eve, they tied a horse tail to the monument and dragged it through the city, with music playing.

Among the Ustashas, the following stood out: Srinčić Đorđe, pharmacist, Šarić Muhamed, Mayor and dental technician, Šaran Hakija, chief of police, Radić Miko, high school student, Habul Hilmije,^[7] Marolt Nikola, worker, Kisić Nikica, retired postman, Kežić Juraj, photographer, Bračković Omer, merchant, Seklić Šerif, Muharem Ibro and Maho, worker, Fistanić Ivan, gendarmerie sergeant, Kapetanović Adem, tax clerk, Volić Fehin, worker, Resulović Salko, landowner.

On January 24, I left Trebinje. I received a pass from the Italian and Croatian authorities. Originally, the pass was for Vinkovci. An employee of the district administration extended my pass to as far as Zemun. When I came to Zemun, I got on a railway car that was going to Belgrade, and that is how I came to Belgrade. I will live in Belgrade with my sister, Lero Milena. My sister has lived in Belgrade since before the war, where her husband works in the company Dragomir Zdravković. She lived in Trebinje from April 4 to November 30, 1941.

^[1] АВ, Ф. 562, 3.1.1.2, 314-315.

^[2] Handwritten date and initials.

^[3] Zupci.

^[4] Prebilovci.

^[5] Same as previous.

^[6] Šurmanci.

^[7] Hilmija.

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.