No. 94

STATEMENT OF TWO REFUGEES FROM SANSKI MOST, ABOUT THE MASS KILLINGS OF THE SERBS IN SANSKI MOST AND THE SURROUNDING VILLAGES IN JULY AND AUGUST 1941.^[1]

15/4^[2]

Two refugees state:

On July 27 of this year, three Ustashas came to the village of Zdena. One of them was Zečević Zdeno, and we did not know the other two. They immediately came to the house of Mandić Jovan and took his brother Milan to Sanski Most, where they imprisoned him in the primary school.

All prominent Serbs were arrested in Sanski Most, including: Jovo Kragulj, innkeeper, Tontić Stevan, merchant, Tontić Milan, private clerk, 7 Ivanić brothers, Zurnić^[3] Pero, merchant and his brother Tošo, Miličević Lazo, innkeeper, Novaković Đuro, innkeeper, Kovačević Dušan, Todić Drago, driver, Gvozden Pero and his brothers Milan and Mladen, students, Dodig Đuro, court clerk, Mijatović Vid, merchant, Praštalo Ilija, innkeeper, Basara Ilija, innkeeper and his son Dušan, student, Vezmar Đuro, gendarmerie patrolman, Martinović Josip, same, Popović Milan, pensioner, Sakradžija Milan, farmer and his son Ilija, postal clerk, Nedimović Milan, engineer, Milinković Jovo and his son Lazo, veterinarian, Lazić Milan, head of the railway station and his two sons Branko and Svile, students, Vojvodić Vid and his brother Jovo, shoemaker, Mijatović Slavka, teacher, daughter of Mijatović Vid, and many others, whose names we do not know. On the same day, 140 Serbs were arrested. The next morning, another 160 Serbs from the vicinity of Sanski Most were arrested; there were therefore a total of 300 Serbs.

Until August 2, of this year, they did not commit any atrocities. Of the 300 imprisoned Serbs, 18 were singled out, and then taken to a granary, where they were first abused and then killed: Zurunić^[4] Pero, merchant, Gvozden Mladen, merchant, Sakradžija Mile, innkeeper and his son Ilija, postal clerk, we cannot remember the names of others.

Mara Mandić was shot in front of the school building.

On August 3 of this year, they took the remaining 282 Serbs to the site called “Šušnjar” and there they were all killed and buried behind the Orthodox cemetery.

From July 30 to August 4 of this year, the Ustashas from Sanski Most gathered Serbs from the following villages: Zdena, Hrast, Usimovci, Kruhari, Čaplja, Kljevci, Usorci, Koprivna, Oštra Luka, Rasovci, Brdari, Dževar, Suvača, Podvidača, Budimlić, Japra,^[5] Dabar, Bosanski Milanovci, Djedovača, Tomina, Trmošnja, Kozica, Podovi, Umci, Fajtovci and Lukavice. Most of the Serbs were driven to the granary, where they were abused and then killed. The corpses were buried by the Sana River. 3000 Serbs were killed in this storehouse. As mentioned earlier, large massacres took place in the “Šušnjar” field. Two large pits, 100 m wide, 4 m wide and 2 1/2 m deep, were ready for these victims. Before they fell as victims, they had to sing a song, and that was: “Pavelić, Pavelić, may you live long, long, for you’ve killed Serbian hajduks all”, or “Pavelić, long live your guard, for you won’t let Serbia rule.” Thereafter, they had to enter the dug pits, where they were mowed down by machine guns. The next day, other victims were lined up again, and so it went from July 20 until August 4 of this year. At this “Šušnjar” site, 4,000 Serbs met their death. We are of the opinion that 7,000 Serbs fell victim in the grain storehouse and in “Šušnjar” alone, and in the entire District of Sanski Most, hence, over 10,000 Serbs. From July 30 until August 4, the greatest atrocities were committed. For example, young girls were raped and then beheaded. That happened in the village of Suvača to the daughters of Dobrijević Dušan and Štrbac Mileta. The same thing happened in the villages of Kljevci, among other places. After that, the villages were usually looted and set on fire. Djedovna, Umci and Usimovci were completely burned. 300 houses were burned in the village of Dabar, and many fires were recorded in the villages of Kljevci, Lušci Palanka, Miljevci and Praštali.

These massacres, robberies and arson were committed by the Ustashas from Herzegovina, Bosnia and Croatia, together with the local Croats from Sanski Most under the command of Ljevar Mile, a merchant from the village of Sasin, and an Ibrahim, whose last name I do not know. The latter is tall, dark-skinned, about 40 years old.

Among the local Ustashas, the following stood out in these atrocities: the District Chief from Sanski Most Ivica, last name is unknown to me, Cerjan Josip, lawyer, Pašić Ibrahim, judge, Krupić Ferhat, Usumović Salko, Nalić Ibrahim, police officers, Kamber Ibrahim and his brother Alija, Kamber Islam and his brother Bejdo, Kamber Maho, Kamber Ibrahim, merchant, Jakupović Ibrahim, merchant and his sons Miralem, Sulejman and Dedo, Okčić Šemo, Burnić Bego, Burnić Smajil, Karabeg Vehat, blacksmith, all from Sanski Most.

The Serbs were taken under protection by Banović Vid, Dane and Stjepan, all from Brdari, Čorak Vlado, Marko, Mile and Luka.

Because of these atrocities and abuses, we left our homes and came to Belgrade.

^[1] АВ, Ф. 562, 3.1.1.2, 319-320.

^[2] Handwritten date and initials.

^[3] Zrnić.

^[4] Same as previous.

^[5] Budimlić Japra.

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.