1936.

.

,
.
1961.
.
1968. 1969.
(C IP R A ) ,
. 1970.
1990. ,
.



1985. .

. 0 6 -
, .
(, 1993.).

XX .
Strahinja Kurdulija was b om in 1936 in
Korita near Bileca. H e finished the elem en
tary school and the gram m ar school in Jasa
Tomic and the Secondary Geological Tehnicial School in Belgrade. In 1961, he com pleted
the course of studies in the School of Reserve
Officers of the Yugoslav N ational A rm y in
Kaiiovac, as the best student in his class. A s a
scholar of the French governm ent he attended
the International School of R esearch in N uc
lear Raw M aterials (C IP R A ) in Lim oges in
1968 and 1969, w here he obtained the highest
grades and gratuated as the best student in his
class. From 1970 to 1990, the year of his re tire
m ent, he w orked as a pilot in aerogeophysical
surveys.
The gathering and processing of the data
about the suffering of the Serbian people in
the territory of the Independent State of C roa
tia during W orld W ar II has been his preoccu
pation since 1985. H e has presented the results
of his research in a specific cartographic lan
guage. A large num ber of the historical and
ethnical m aps he has m ade have been publish
ed and some of them have been included in
school books. He is one of the authors o f the
book SRBI U IIR V A TSK O J (The Serbs in
C roatia) Belgrade, 1993. A t present, he has
been engaged in collecting the necessary data
for making the maps of the suffering of the
Serbs in the 20th century.

1941 -1945
ATLAS
OF THE USTASHA GENOCIDE
OF THE SERBS
Strahinja Kurdulija

The publication of this book was made possible by the

FOUNDATION FOR TRUTH OF THE SERBS
from Belgrade
and the publishers wish to express their gratitude on this occasion

 " HA HA
E D I T I O N " S E RB S ON T H E I R OWN L A N D

Edition Editor:

Slobodan RIBAR

ATJIAC
11 1941 - 1945.

Strahinja KURDULIJA

ATLAS OF THE USTASHA

GENOCIDE
OF THE SERBS 1941 - 1945.

,1993.

"EUROPUBLIC",
...

 1
ATJIAC
1941 -1945.

:
.

Strahinja K U R D U L IJA
ATLAS OF TH E U ST A SH A GENO CIDE
OF TH E SERBS 1941 - 1945.

Editors:
Predrag R. D RAG It? KIJUK
Dr. Slavenko TERZIC?

Reviewers:
Academician Slavko G A V R IL O V ld
Academician Vasilije KRESTI(j


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, 1993.

The se e d o f h a tred tow ards all th at is Serbian a n d Orthodox,

diligen tly cherished un der the w ing

o f the Roman

C atholic

Church in C roatia, fou n d a fe rtile so il f o r its flourishing ju st in

the black Ustasha uniform. The black se e d brought forth

crim e unprecedented in the history o f m ankind. A p a rt o f that

crim e is presen ted in this book.
Since the karst p its - m ass Serbian g ra ves - have been
sea led with conrete, it is a human obligation not to a llo w also
the sealing o f the historical m em ory a n d the concealing o f the
horrendous crim es com m itted b y the C roatian a n d M oslem Us
tasha again st the innocent Serbian p e o p le , in the fa sc ist Inde
pendent State o f C roatia in the p e rio d 1941-1945.
The total num ber o f S erbs killed in the territory o f the Inde
pen den t State o f C roatia is considerably la rg er than the num ber
shown on the m aps. The investigation an d the d ata p resen ted on
the m aps d o n ot include the victim s fro m

the cencentration

cam ps o f Jasenovac and Stara G radiska, in which, accordin g to

the p o st w a r findings o f the State Com m ission o f C roatia, there
w ere between 600 an d 700 thousand cam p inm ates killed, with
Serbs being a m ajority o f them . W hat w e n t on in those concen
tration cam ps, the suffering a n d a g o n y o f the inm ates there are
subjects requiring special in vestigation s.
The author's efforts h ave been d ire cted tow ards establishing
the localities and the num ber o f victim s o f the d ire ct a n d imme
d iate Ustasha genocide, w ithout including in th at p ro ced u re the
victim s killed in bom bardm ents, those who d ied o f hunger, cold,
typhoid and other diseases o r those killed in som e other way.
The atlas o f the gen ocide is the resu lts o f a fru itful coopera
tion with the H istorical Institute o f the Serbian A cadem y o f S ci
ences and A rts. F or this reason the auth or f e lt it his duty to
a pply h im self to gathering a n d pro c e ssin g the d ata an d making
the m aps with utm ost respon sibility an d seriousness.
The suggestions given by Prof., D r. B udim ir K osutic, acade
m ician

R adovan

Sam ardzic,

Slavko

G avrilovic,

an d

Vasilije

K restic, a s w ell a s the hearty assistan ce lent by D r. Slavenko

Terzic, P redrag R. D ra g ic Kijuk, D r. Sava Skoko, Dr. Zdravko
Antonie, D r. P eta r O pacic a n d Branko Bokan, w ere a constant
impetus an d encouragem ent f o r the au th or to bring his w ork to
an end.
The m aps w ould have certain ly been p o o r e r i f an abundance
o f data had not been p ro v id ed also b y M ilos G acesa, D ane Lastavica,

Jovo

B ajic,

B ogdan

B osiocic,

A rchpriest

B ozidar

B osanac, Anton Duhacek, Jefto Sasic, N ikola Zivkovic, Ljubo

N ovakovic, D juro R oksandic, M ilan B atnoga, D jordje O rlovic,
Branko Bosanac, P riest P ero K osoric a n d m any others. The
author is availing h im self o f this opportunity to expresses his
since rest gratitude to them.

Belgrade, May 1993

THE AUTHOR

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1. Ljudevit Gaj: Izjavljenje radi Starcevicevih clanova o Srbima i srpskom jeziku. Narodne novine od
4 studenog 1852.; Dr. F. Ivekovic: Dr. Ante Starcevic - znacajne crte o njemu, Zagreb, 1905.; Dr.
Mile Starcevic: Dr. Ante Starcevic i Srbi, Zagreb, 1936.
2. Miroslav Krleza: Crno-zati skandal, Sloboda', Zagreb, 21.11.1918.
3. Edmund Glaisesvon Horstenau: Ein G eneral in Zwielicht, Wien, 1988, Band 3, s. 413.
4. Op. cit. S 430.
5. Fridrich Heer: Der Glaube des A dolf Hitler, Muncben, 1968, & 457,593.
6. Hrvatski narod, 6 svibnja 1941,
7. Wo Bogdan: Dr. A nte Pavelie je rieso hrvatsko pitanje, Zagreb, 1942, str. 33.
8. Narodne novine 25 veljace 1942, str. 7 Govor Andrije Artukovica u Hrvatskom sabora.
9. Hrvatski narod, 3.6.1941.
10. Hrvatski narod, 30. 1941.
11. Narodne novine, 4 lipanj, 1941.
12 Vojno istorijski institat JNA, Beograd - Arhiva neprijateljskih jedinica, K.332. Commando del 3 XI
Corpo D Armata N. 3010,9 maggio 1941.
13. O p.cit K.55. Commando VI Corpo dA nnata Stato Maggiore Ufficio Informazioni N, 1375/1 di prot.
Li 24 giugno 1941.
14. Op. cit. K. 332 Commando Dei CC. R R Della Div. di Fant "Lom bardia, (57) N. 3038 RM N. 485 di
prot. seg. 30 maggio 1941.
15. Op. cit. K. 54. A1 Comando della 2 Armata, N. 539/5 di Prot. A/C.
16. Op. cit. K. 332, Commando C C R R Della 2 Armata, Nr. 3039 R I, Nr. 40/180 di prot. Seg. 7 gingno
1941.
17. Op. cit. Comando dei Carabinieri Della 2 A rm ata Nr. 3052 R I Nr. 40274 di prot. 24. giugno 1941.
18. Op. c il K. 542. Legione territoriale dei Carabmieri Reali di Ancona - Compagnia di Z a ra N; 1/45 di
prot. Seg.
19. PA/AA - R 29666, B 4 2Deutsche Inf. Stelle III, Nr. 489 gRs. (arhiva min. inostranih poslova u Bonu).
20. Arhiva Nez. drzave Hrvatske: K. 75, reg. br. 34/5-4. Okruznicka postaja Brcko br. 264,23 travanj 1942
21. ZNOR, T. V, knj. 32, str. 123.
22 Op. cit, knj. 1, Dok. 230.
23. Nikolic dr. Nikola: Jasenovacki logor, Zagreb 1948.
24. . . 22-2, per. . 2960,2/6, . 512

Prof., Dr. Smilja Avramov

FOREWORD
The genocide of the Serbs, Jews, and Gypsies committed in Croatia during the
course of World War II, is among the most monstrous events in more recent history,
considering the number of its victims and methods of murder. Until recently it was a
taboo topic in Yugoslavia; the strategy of "oblivion' and "overcoming' the past by
proclaiming taboo topics has proved to be wrong in many aspects. The fact that
"history" has been silent has often been interpreted as the posthumous victory of a
criminal system. On the other hand, the dark corners of our subdued past have brought
forth the intellectual progeny of the Ustasha ideology and Nazism. That is the basic
reason why 50 years after the tragic events in the territory of Croatia the process of
genocide has been resumed. Nevertheless, the development of the situation in the
country, indicates that the scenario of a new genocide according to the model from
the past is difficult to achieve. Instead of that, there is a civil war in progress, in the
background of which lies genocide. The centres of massive pogroms of the Serbs shown
on geographical maps coincide with the centres of the current civil war in Croatia and
Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The genocide in Croatia in 1941 started immediately after the creation of the
quisling "Independent State of Croatia" on the occupied territories of the Kingdom
of Yugoslavia. In terms of time, the genocide coincided with the war events, but, its
roots reached deeper into history; even the very enforcement of the policy of genocide
was independent of the war operations, in a certain way.
The ideological foundations of the politics of genocide were laid by Dr. Ante
Starcevic (1811-1896) in the second half of the 19th century. Accepting the doctrine
of "scientific" racism developed at the time in Great Britain and France, Starcevic
applied the global racist division of the world into black, white, and yellow races, to
the provincial framework, building it into the relations between the two related Slav
peoples, the Serbs and the Croats, and trying to prove that their origins were different.
Starcevic did not invent his concept of the world (in the centre of which he had placed
the Croatian people) on the basis of historical facts, but on the basis of an imaginary
projection, in fact, an anthropological fantasy. The basic thread linkingall the segments
of Starccvics doctrine is ethnocentrism and xenophobia. Although the Croatian state
disappeared from the international scene more than eight centuries ago, and the
Croatian people found themselves under foreign rule -that of Venice, Turkey, and
Austria-Hungary - Starcevic depicted the Croats as the "ruling people", who occupied
a central place in the course of events in the Balkans. In contrast, the Serbian people,
who had already liberated themselves from Turkish oppression at the time, and who
had established a state of their own and had been accepted among the community of
European nations, had their history and culture negated by Starcevic, and even their
very right to existence. Despite substantiated criticism by his contemporaries and even
later, Starcevics ideas became an integral part of the programme of the Croatian
Rights Party formed by Starcevic and Eugen Kvaternik. By acting among the masses,
the "rights seekers", as the members of that party were popularly called, gradually
gave rise to an anti-Serbian movement which had its powerful stronghold in the politics
of Austria-Hungary. For Austria-Hungary, an awakened and revived Serbia consti
tuted a threat to their interests in the Balkans. Following her victorious wars against
the Ottoman Empire, Serbia became a significant factor in the politics of the Balkans.
An additional element was the Serbian people in Austria-Hungary, respected by the
Vienna court as a healthy military element where struggle against the Turks was
concerned, but constituting a danger when they naturally turned towards Serbia, the
motherland, in altered circumstances. The strategy of confrontation of ethnic commu
nities was a constant instrument of diplomacy in the hands of Austria-Hungary with
the purpose of blunting the resistance of that same community towards the centre of
the state.
The defeat of Austria-Hungary and the proclamation of the Kingdom of Serbs,
Croats, and Slovenes, was a challenge to the Rights Party as much as to the Vatican,
which had lost its strongest fulcrum in Europe by suffering that defeat. For Curia
Romana, Yugoslavia was only an Orthodox unit and a hindrance to the fulfillment of
the Catholic politics towards the East. The rights seekers gathered around them the

semi-feudal layer stripped of power, demoralized Austrio-Hungarian officers and

soldiers, who returned to Croatia as the remainder of the defeated army. Tliey were
also joined by the former bureaucratic apparatus, as well as by a large number of
Catholic clergy. For all of them, the freedom that the Serbian army had brought to
them, as the Croatian writer Krleza put it, was a defeat. Burning inside them were
"all those primary and chaotic impulses, living in demoralized mobs, which are an
element dangerous to any civilized form. They are a dangerous element here to us,
all the more so considering the fact that our civilization is a minor pellicle above the
chaotic Balkan blackness".
In March 1919, the Croatian Rights Party published its Programme in which it
demanded "a free Croatian state", namely, a republic. The extreme opposition in
Croatia was immediately supported by the countries that had territorial claims on
Yugoslavia, and particularly by the Vatican. By a skilful manipulation of national and
religious fanaticism in Croatia, Serbophobia took increasingly deep roots, and speak
ing about a part of the Croatian people, it became an integral part of their national
feelings which had started losing every touch with reality.
The Ustasha ideology represented an extension of the Croatian nationalist
ideology of the Rights Party, with certain modifications and a change in the strategy.
Starcevics racist views were pushed to the background for a certain time, only to be
revamped immediately before World War II. In the period between the wars, the
emphasis was placed on the cultural "superiority" of the Croats and the "inferiority"
of the Serbs, along with emphasizing religious differences, Serbian hegemony, and
"Balkanization" of the European politics. The collective consciousness formed on the
basis of negative stereotypes and schemes was the most decisive factor in effecting the
genocide of the Serbs.
However, it would be wrong to attribute the causes of Serbophobia solely to the
Rights Party and the Ustasha. It had deep roots, also, in the Cominterns view of the
Balkaas and its division into the oppressed nations and the oppressing ones, in which
case the Serbian nation was put in the latter category. The official political strategy of
the Comintern, after the last hopes for an international revolution had been buried,
took up the idea of "settling" national issues in certain countries, i.e. using national
conflicts with the purpose of breaking up "bourgeois" countries and creating condi
tions for a Bolshevik revolution. Yugoslavia, being a multinational state, new, and
economically undeveloped, at a significant geographical location, was given priority.
At the 5th Congress of the Comintern in 1924, a decision was taken on the breaking
up of Yugoslavia and the creation of independent states of Croatia, Slovenia and
Macedonia. At the Congress of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, held in 1928 in
Dresden, the communists took upon themselves the obligation of fighting unsparingly
for the independence of Croatia. The two rivals, the two Internationals: the Comin
tern and the Vatican, whose ideologies were mutually exclusive, became natural allies
in the task of breaking up Yugoslavia. The guiding ideas in both cases were imported
from abroad. Hatred motivated by national, religious, and social class reasons, merged
into an integrated course. The fusion of extreme right and left radical ideas brought a
new dimension to Serbophobia, touching off a disgraceful eruption of wrath and
madness, that fell upon the unarmed and unorganized Serbian people in Croatia.
Changes in the attitude of the Comintern in relation to Yugoslavia ensued too late to
be able to affect the political climate that had been built up for years. The remark
noted down by the German General Von Horstenau in his memoirs, in which he says
that Pavelie came to the country encircled by communists who were, overnight,
converted to radical nationalists, is worthy of notice.3
There is another angle to this problem. Croatian nationalism found its refuge in
two totalitarian systems: the Bolshevik and the national socialist system. Both were
characterized by atrocious methods in political life. The simultaneous appearance of
two extremist ideologies, behind which lay brutal systems, could fill up only the space
of a country that had no democratic tradition and an environment with a low political
awareness. Serbophobia was incited, on one hand, by religious Manichaeanism and
on the other, by an ideological one, a black and white image of history and the world.
The key point in both cases was "danger from the Serbs".

The formation of the Independent State of Croatia implied the existence of

certain collective presuppositions for committing the genocide. Growing national
egoism, indoctrination and religious fanaticism, without clearly articulated moral
norms, represented the basis on which it was easy to found the fatal fiction about
genocide being the salvation of the future of Croatia. Even at the very last minute, it
was possible to prevent the catastrophe, had the two most crucial factors in Croatia the Church and the Croat Peasants Party, the two most influential people Vlatko
Macek, leader of the most numerous Croatian organization, and Dr. Alojzije Stepinac,
Head of the Catholic Church - risen above the situation. They, however, opened the
way to genocide. Instead of dissociating themselves from the Ustasha as a terrorist
organization, from their well-known ideology whose programme included racism,
genocide and terror, they sided with the Ustasha in the most critical moment of their
peoples history, confusing the peasantry, the most numerous social group in Croatia,
and makingthe intellectuals hesitate. The accomplishment of the Ustasha programme
would not have been possible without that presupposition. The Ustasha acquired
power through the internal spiritual unity of the Catholics, embodied in Archbishop
Stepinac, and their ability to act through the Croatian Peasants Party and the
well-organized and well-armed Croatian Peasants Guard that Macek had placed at
the disposal of the Ustasha. Considering the situation described above, the only thing
left for Pavelic to do was to institutionalize genocide and to raise it up triumphantly
to the "legal' level. The terror machinery was put into operation and the politics of
genocide yielded its first results. According to German and Italian sources, in the first
six months of their reign the Ustasha killed about 300 thousand Serbs and about 20
thousand Jews.
The genocide in Croatia cannot be explained within the parameters of civilized
behaviour. Certainly one of the best commentators on what was happening in the
Independent State of Croatia, General von Horstenau, characterized Croatian poli
tics as "the mast brutal, the most dreadful event in more recent history, conducted
without any principles, and serving exclusively the satisfaction of inhuman instincts".
Referring to the Croats, von Horstenau says, "we, Austrians, have had a wrong
impression, with which, unfortunately, I also came to Zagreb in 1941... The Croats
are a wretched people who have never known what they really want ".4 The Austrian
historian Friedrich Heer considers that the things that happened in Croatia were a
consequence of "an archaic fanaticism from prehistoric times". To him, Pavelic is "a
unique figure of a 20th century murderer".5
In order to explain the genocide in the Independent State of Croatia, one must
penetrate down to the deeper layers of crisis at that particular time and of the cultural
level of the country in which it took place. Fascism and Nazism were not the models
from which the Ustasha ideology sprang. Pavelic included within his political frame
work some things from both the former and the latter, drawing closer to Rome at one
moment, and Berlin at the other, thus trying to secure their support. At the same time
he also cooperated with all illegal organizations of the right and of the left, regardless
of their profile. The Ustasha were recognized, financed and placed under the trustee
ship of Italy; they were used as groups designed for exerting pressure on the govern
ment in Belgrade, or for tasks which were beneath the dignity of a nation with a history
such as Italys. Therefore, the starting point and the basis of the support Italy offered
to the Ustasha rested in the field of everyday policy, and not ideology. As a result, the
Ustasha ideology cannot be explained on the basis of general criteria of Fascism or
even totalitarianism. It is a result of cumulative historical events.
In contrast to the genocide of the Serbs, the roots of which were of a local
character, the genocide of the Jews and Gypsies in the Independent State of Croatia
was an integral part of global Nazi politics, but it must be underlined that anti-semitism was an integral part of the Ustasha ideology as well. On the basis of the Ustasha
principles adopted in 1933, anti-semitism of the Ustasha had a conspicuously ecdesiastical-theological character; following the establishment of the Independent State of
Croatia, the official policy of that country adopted the German variant of anti-semitism in which the central place is occupied by racism. In his interview to the Berlin
newspaper "Borsenzeitung" on May 6,1941, Pavelic emphasized that he would
"radically settle the Jewish issue in accordance with racist and economic views".6
Immediately after the establishment of the Independent State of Croatia, a special
12

mission of the Gestapo arrived in Zagreb to speed up the settling of the Jewish
problem.
Genocide in the Independent State of Croatia was an integral part of the state
policy regulated by "legal" provisions, the execution of which involved diverse state
machinery, with thousands of professionals of different backgrounds. A huge bureau
cratic apparatus was engaged in the task of drawing up lists of would-be victims, their
dispersal to collection centres, confiscation of their property and a series of other
"technical" measures. The Croatian railway and other means of communication had
an important role in the deportation of the victims to the point of their execution. The
final act, their murder was a privilege of the people most devoted to the Ustasha
cause. It is a fact that the Independent State of Croatia was a totalitarian state and
that it rested on the principle of having a "Fuehrer" figure. However, that principle
could function only with massive support propping it up, which was doubtless true in
this case. It is another question whether that support was a result of delusion, a lack
of culture, fear or coercion. The plan of genocide was carried out on the basis of a
defined sequence of actions, with an astounding readiness on the part of the bureau
cratic apparatus to undertake the execution of such a task, an almost unbelievable
one: the cold-blooded murder of their fellow-dtizens regardless of their age and sex.
All that took place before the public, the local and the international alike. There were
no secrets for anyone.
The first step in implementing the genocide politics was the dehumanization of
the victims, presenting them in the worst possible light and reducing them to
semi-human beings. The Serbs were branded by the Ustasha movement as the cause
of all evil, all the historical misfortunes of the Croatian people, as the basic impediment
in their "centuries-long struggle for freedom".7 The commander of the concentra
tion camp of Jasenovac, Friar Miroslav Filipovic-Majstorovic, stated that all the
officers and soldiers were given orders "to endeavour to exterminate the Serbs in the
Independent State of Croatia at all costs, because that is the programme which must
be carried out". In the words of Andrija Artukovic, Minister of the Interior in the
Independent State of Croatia, the Jews are "one of the most dangerous international
institutions which has been preparing a global revolution for centuries with the aim
of enabling the Jews to have full control over all the goods in the world, and total
power in the world, and for which other peoples are supposed to serve as middlemen
in their dirty deals and their greedy materialistic and gluttonous attitude towards the
world".8
The mass media, daily press and radio repeated day after day: "There can be no
Serbs and no members of the Orthodox Church in Croatia", ailing on the people to
confront them without mercy. Members of the Croatian government and the Ustasha
leadership established direct contacts with the people by organizing mass rallies.
Minister Dr. Milovan Zanic stated on June 2,1941, at a meeting in Nova Gradiska:
"This is going to be a land of the Croats and nobody else, and there is no method, that
we, as Ustasha, shall not use to make this land really Croatian and to cleanse it of
Serbs. We do not hide this, that is the policy of this state and when we have done that
we shall have fulfilled that which is written in the Ustasha principles."9 Secretary
General of the government of the Independent State of Croatia, Professor Aleksandar
Zajc put the problem within a broader context, stating: "The Jewish-Serbian, capital
istic-democratic front must disappear from the whole world as well as from our
Croatia, for ever."10
Propaganda represented the basic method of psychological mobilization of the
masses. An illusion was created that what was concerned was "a great historical
event", a deed that had to be carried out in furtherance of supreme national interests.
Following the model of the Nurnberg racist laws enacted in 1935, on the basis of which
anti-semitism was raised to the level of a legal responsibility, the Independent State
of Croatia adopted analogous regulations on racial affiliation, on the protection of the
Aryan blood, etc. As a legal provision for the protection of the national and Aryan
culture of the Croatian people it was forbidden for the Jews "to take part, in any way
whatsoever, in the work, organization and institutions of the social, youth, sporting,
and cultural life of the Croatian people in general, and finally in literature, journalism,
painting and music arts, architecture, theater, and film".11 The Serbs were treated in
the same manner, but in their case, the decisive factors were religion and nationality.

Both the Serbs and the Jews were dispossessed of their whole property, their
Orthodox churches and synagogues were destroyed, with certain Orthodox churches
being turned into Catholic ones. The legal technique was part of the administrative
coercion, completing the bureaucratic machinery for the execution of the genocide.
The Independent State of Croatia imitated Nazi Germany in many aspects.
However, where genocide was concerned, it surpassed it. Unlike the Nazis, who
established a system of impersonal extermination of people in crematoriums and gas
chambers, genocide in the territory of Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina involved
ritual murders in public places and giving sadistic reign to ones desires. The bestiality
of the genocide in the Independent State of Croatia surpasses ones imagination. It
was a sublime expression of all historically known forms of physical and spiritual
terror. It must be pointed out that the genocide of the Serbs was a much more complex
operation than the genocide of the Jews, which was carried out in the greatest number
of cases in concentration camps. The Reich endeavored to implement a uniform
system of extermination of the Jews in all occupied regions. In contrast to that, the
genocide of the Serbs was conducted in several parallel ways: 1. by synchronized mass
murders at victims homes and outdoors, 2. by a system of concentration am ps, 3. by
converting members of the Orthodox Church to Catholicism and 4. by moving them
out of Croatia. It was by the elaborated strategy of the four above-mentioned methods
that the Independent State of Croatia planned a complete genocide of the Serbian
people. The maps appended show the places where genocide was conducted using the
first two methods.
As early as the first days of the existence of the Independent State of Croatia,
the commander of the 4/XI Corps of the Italian occupation forces sent reports to his
headquarters about the persecution of the Serbs in Slavonia explaining that the Croats
wanted "to totally banish the Orthodox religion from their state". In his opinion, that
problem was not easy to resolve, since in that most fertile part of the territory annexed
to Croatia there were about 500 thousand members of the Orthodox Church.12 In a
report sent by an Italian officer to his superiors it says that "the Drava carries along
with it many Serb bodies, mark?d with captions Travelling free to Belgrade".13 The
headquarters of the "Lombardia" division reported the suffering of the Serbs in
Plasko, Ogulin, Dreznid, and other places, and the panic that seized the Serbian
population that sought protection from the Italians.14 On the night of May 30, Italian
soldiers in Medak came across the corpses of 80 massacred Serbs. In his report of June
3, the commander of the 6th Army Corps, General Renzo Dalmaco noted down mass
murders of the Serbian population and unheard-of terror.15 Another report
informs of the participation of friars in the violence committed against the Serbs.
"Franciscan friar Father Vjekoslav Simic from the monastery of Vrpolje does not
hesitate in leading the Ustasha in night expeditions to arrest local Orthodox Serbs.
The arrested are then subjected to torture", the report points out, "and their homes
are plundered. There are hundreds of murdered people in Ogulin, Gospic, and
Otocac... Our soldiers with their naturally subtle feelings keep their dignity in regard
to this delicate situation."16 The headquarters of the 6th Corps reported on June 18
of the wide extent of the persecution of the Serbs, of the murder of children. "We have
invested a great effort", the report adds, "but we did not succeed in making the
authorities act in a reasonable and logical way. 7 The legion of carabineers informed
the prefecture in Zadar on June 25, that the Ustasha had planted mines underneath
heaps of dead Serbs so as "to remove the bodies of the Serbs killed during the previous
days. InKistanje, they murdered 20 Serbian children".18
Dramatic reports supported by photographs and films on mass crimes against the
Serbian people were submitted also by certain German units operating in the territory
of the Independent State of Croatia, as well as by the German consulate in that
country. The German legation in Zagreb informed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in
Berlin that "the Serbian issue has been growing significantly strained lately.... Perse
cutions are going on in all parts of the country. General von Horstenau", the report
adds, "has talked to Pavelic and Kvatemik and has expressed his disapproval".1
The plundering of Serbian and Jewish property was an integral part of the terror.
The later destiny of that property was settled by a "legal provision". However, the
distribution of the booty frequently used to be the cause of conflict within the Ustasha
ranks. The police station in Brcko described one of such cases in its report: "Certain

district officials and clerks who disposed of Jewish and Serbian possessions which
were estimated in Brcko at billions, not millions, distributed them among themselves,
by either presenting them to their kin or friends, or selling them at low cost. These
possessions were not obtained by treating the people with kid gloves but rather by
treading over their dead bodies. In only one night, collaborating with the abovementioned Ustasha officers, that municipal police murdered about 200 Jews and threw
them into the Sava... Certain wealthier Greek-Easterners in the district area were also
summoned and detained and searched in prison. If they had money they were released
to go home at night, as innocent, but on their way home they were ambushed, killed
and robbed... The truth of this is vouched for by Commander, Headquarters Master
Sergeant Mirko Gjuran."20
For the Independent State of Croatia 1944 was the year of the greatest tempta
tions and burdens; general insecurity took hold of the country, as well as a state of
chaos in communications and a lack of basic foodstuffs. It is unbelievable but true
that pogroms proceeded even then. Masses of prisoners were liquidated in death
camps and traces of the crimes were removed by cremating them. Groups of Serbs
who collaborated with the occupation forces, as did Nedics guard or Ljotics detach
ments, who were retreating towards the west before the approaching Partisan units,
were ambushed on an organized basis. All of them were killed without mercy despite
the agreement they had readied with the German occupation forces and Pavelics
promise that they would be given a free passage. These last criminal knee-jerk
reactions touched off a storm of protests and bitterness from Berlin itself. Ribbentrop
personally ordered his emissary in Zagreb to immediately hand in a protest note to
Pavelic. There are numerous German reports about the atrodties which filled up the
last pages of the history of the Independent State of Croatia. Serbophobia had an
absolute supremacy over all ideological positions. On May 4,1945, in Sisak, about 500
Serbs were murdered and thrown into the River Sava, only several hours before the
town was liberated.
The technique of the pogrom was simple. The people were summoned to come
to their meeting places, at schools, churches or in the fields, with a note that they would
be sent off to work, or that there was an "important" announcement for them to hear.
The disciplined response of the Serbian population was a result of the drcumstance
that the summons were sent to them by local Croat inhabitants, with whom until that
time the Serbs had been living on good neighbourly and friendly terms. After their
money and valuables were taken away from them, they would be killed on the spot
or burnt alive in their homes or churches as, for example, in Glina or in certain villages
of Slavonia. Following that, new groups would be invited with a note that the previous
group had been transported to Germany to work. That falsehood was soon revealed.
"The command of the Second Infantry Division" informed their superiors of that,
asking for help and advice. The report states: "Before, it was possible to tell these
people that their folk had been driven off to forced labour, but now, the people realize
that that is not true. What reminds the people of this most of all are the graves, since
there are corpses that were buried quite shallow in the ground, and some of them have
even been dug out by dogs... These graves should be removed from these fields, and
so the people will forget about that from time to time. However, looking at that all
the time the people are constantly reminded of their hatred towards the Croats.
Colonel-Commander Tomasevic." 1
Starting as early as late 1941 till the end of the war, a different technique was
used, a technique of encircling the villages and killing the inhabitants with the help of
the regular army. This was presented to the Germans and Italians as "cleansing the
area of communist Chetnik gangs. In Lika, Dalmatinska zagora and Herzegovina,
corpses and even living people were thrown into karst pits several dozen metres deep,
and in some places even more than a hundred. The karst pits as mass graveyards
represent a peculiarity which makes the genocide in the Independent State of Croatia
stand out from among the cases known so far. The report of a carabineer from Zadar
addressed to the Governor of Dalmatia on July 28,1941 reads: "At two hundred
metres from the house of a certain Djordje Marcetic, a merchant, there is a hole where
corpses of male and female children have been thrown, and at a distance of several
dozen metres from there, one can see protruding legs and arms of corpses buried
there."22

Even before the war, the illegal Ustasha organization in the country had con
ducted a census and had determined the exact capacity of certain karst pits in the
territory of Croatia and Herzegovina, and had put signs on power transmission posts
to mark the way to them, using symbols that only they could understand.
The system of concentration camps in the Independent State of Croatia was
basically constructed according to the model of Nazi concentration camps. Plans for
the construction of the camps, according to German sources, were made by Maks
Luburic, while he was still living abroad as an emigrant. After the formation of the
Independent State of Croatia, Luburic was sent off to Germany to acquaint himself
better with the organization of concentration camps. A former detainee in "Jasenovac", one of the biggest concentration camps, listed in his book fifty ways in which
prisoners were killed, starting with firearms which were reserved for "more signifi
cant " figures, goingon to hanging and finally murderingwith a wooden mallet, an iron
bar and killing with knives specially produced for that purpose. Killing by beating
and deprivingthe prisoners of water and food were also included.23 Usingfire to kill
people followed a little bit later when massive collection of other prisoners rendered
it impossible to do the "job". Dead bodies were cremated in special tunnels, but so
were living people. A note taken by Doctor Samuel Pint, who survived by a stroke
of fate gives a description of that: "They murdered them by cutting the victims
stomachs and by dealing them a blow on the head with mallets, and sometimes they
threw them into brick kilns while they were still alive... It also happened that the
Ustasha wanted to establish what the capacity of those bricks-kilns was when fed with
people instead of ordinary fuel, and so they cremated only those prisoners who were
dazed by a blow of the mallet." The kilns were designed by Hinko Piccili who also
acted as their operation manager. The establishment of particular concentration
camps for children is a unique example in history, and that bestial deed belongs to
the Independent State of Croatia. In Jastrebarsko and in Gornja Rijeka, near Krizevci,
there were camps of that kind called "Collection Stations for Children". The childrens
camp in Jastrebarsko which was one of the largest, was under the supervision of nuns
belonging to the congregation of Saint Vinko.
The campaign of terror and giving free reign to ones sadistic desires in the
concentration camps in Croatia was an operation programmed in a routine way, with
the functionaries in the camps enjoying a broad discretionary authority. The liquida
tion of victims was a regular "public service" job for them, for which the Catholic
Church gave them blessing and "pardoned their sins". It is, however, difficult to
understand these monsters from the perspective of an individuals observation of the
horrors they inflicted. To be able to make a portrait of an Ustasha criminal, the matter
has to be raised to the social level. All the more so considering the fact that thousands
of citizens of Croatia took part in the terror campaign, and that the concentration
camps were spread all over Croatia, and finally, the fact that the Ustasha were
recruited from all social levels.
The genocide in Croatia has left a destructive mark on the collective conscious
ness of the Serbs and the Croats. A people as a whole cannot be qualified as genocidal,
but the painful fact that the genocide was committed in the name of the Croatian
people and for their "salvation" remains, along with the absence of any moral
recompense for the people against whom the genocide was committed. During the
four post-war decades, Croatian hands or money did not build or renovate a single
one of the 500 Orthodox churches destroyed in the period 1941-1945. And in
September 1991 and in the months that followed, they proceeded with the destruction
of the Orthodox churches that had remained in that republic. The political pathology
of the Ustasha ideology is permanently stirred up by religious pathology. The Catholic
Church in Croatia holds, even at the present time, the same position of outmoded
clerical nationalism as in 1941, which has not been the case in any other country in
the world. The year 1991 in Croatia witnessed a revival of the same methods of
violence as those used against the Serbian people in 1941. In order to come to an
answer as to why the genocide in Croatia was possible, why it has become so incredibly
widespread, and why it was resumed after 50 years, one must establish a link between
the popularity of the idea of a state for the Croats, the cultural level of the given
environment and religion.
Yugoslavia was created in 1918 on the basis of the ideas that were analogous to
those on the basis of which Italy was created in 1871 or Germany under Bismarck.
14

For Croatia, that was a bridge at a certain point in history, that made it possible for
it to cross painlessly from the defeated camp to the side of the victor, in 1918 and in
1945. However, despite all the positive results that Croatia achieved in Yugoslavia
and by means of Yugoslavia, the majority of the Croatian people never recognized
Yugoslavia as their homeland. Their ideal was the Independent State of Croatia. The
answer to the question as to why a great number of Croats chose to carry out their
ideal in a most uncivilized way, must be sought in the non-existence of a cultural and
ethical filter among the Croatian masses. The two traditional pivots of morality of a
nation:thelegal system and religion, wereplaced in theserviceof the genocidal politics
in 1941 and 1991. The mobilization of the masses was carried out on that basis. The
number of lives lost through the genocide, the number of the villages and sacred
buildings of the Orthodox Serbs burnt down and destroyed, speaks for itself. To ignore
these facts would mean closing ones eyes to reality.

1. Ljndevit Gaj: Izjavljenje radi Starcevicevih clanova o Srbima i srpskom jeziku. Narodne novine od
4 stndenog 1852.; Dr. F. Ivekovic: Dr. A nte Starcevic - znacajne crte o njemu, Zagreb, 1905.; Dr.
Mile Starcevic: Dr. Ante Starcevic i Srbi, Zagreb, 1936.
2. Miroslav Krleza: Crno-zuti skandal, Sloboda', Zagreb, 21.11.1918.
3. Edmund Glaises von Horst enau: Em G eneral im Zwielicht, Wien, 1988, Band 3, s. 413.
4. Op. cit. S. 430.
5. Fridrich Heer: Der Glaube des Adolf Hitler, Munchen, 1968, S. 457,593.
6. Hrvatski narod, 6 svibnja 1941.
7. Ivo Bogdan: Dr. A nte Pavelie je riesio brvatsko pitanje, Zagreb, 1942, str. 33.
8. Narodne novine 25 veljace 1942, str. 7 Govor Andrije Artukovica u Hrvalskom saboru.
9. Hrvatski narod, 3.6.1941.
10. Hrvatski narod, 30.7.1941.
11. N arodne novine, 4 lipanj, 1941.
12 Vojno istorijski institut JNA, Beograd - Arhiva oeprijateljskih jedinica, K.332. Commando del 3 XI
Corpo D'A rm ata N. 3010,9 maggio 1941.
13. O p.cit K.55. Commando VI Corpo (Armata Stato Maggiore Ufficio Informazioni N, 1375/1 di prot.
Li24gm gnol941.
14. Op. cit. K. 332 Commando Dei CC. R R Della Div. di Fant 'L om bardia', (57) N. 3038 RM N. 485 di
prot. seg. 30 maggio 1941.
15. Op. cit. K. 54. A1 Comando della 2 Armata, N. 539/5 di Prot. A/C.
16. Op. cit. K. 332, Commando C C RR. Della 2 Armata, Nr. 3039 R. I, Nr. 4080 di prot. Seg. 7 giugno
1941.
17. Op. cit. Comando dei Carabinieri Della 2 Armata. Nr. 3052 R I Nr. 40274 di proL 24. giugno 194 J.
IS. Op. c il K. 542. Legione territo rial dei Carabinieri Reali di A ncona - Compagnia di Z a ra N. 1/45 di
prot. Seg.
19. PA/AA - R 29666, B d 2Deutsche Inf. Stelle III, Nr. 489 gRs. (arhiva min. inostranili poslova u Bonu).
20. Arhiva Nez. drzave Hrvatske: K. 75, reg. br. 34/3-4. O k n iM ik a postaja Brcko br. 264,23 travanj 1942
21. ZNOR, T. V, knj. 32, str. 123.
22. Op. cit. knj. 1, Dok. 230.
23. Nikolic dr. Nikola: Jasenovacki logor, Zagreb 1948.
24. y . K. 22-2a, per. . 2960,216, crp. 512.

HERZEGOVINA

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he tragic drama of the Serbian people in Herze

govina, touched off by the establishment of the In
dependent State of Croatia (in April 1941) turned
this rocky province into an arena where the most
abominable crimes that history has ever recorded were commit
ted, but also into the cradle of the first massive insurrection
against the fascist tyranny in oppressed Europe.
The things that the wild Ustasha and Moslem hordes did in
the spring and summer slaughters of the Serbs from Herzegovina
in 1941, surpasses the imagination and bestiality of the most atro
cious crimes that history has recorded. Men, women, children and
the elderly were killed in the most horrifying way: by being
burned in their homes, being given blows with mallets and rods,
strangled with wires and ropes, thrown down into dark abysses
and fast Herzegovian rivers. The bullet of a gun was gods mercy.
During the 1941-1945 war, more than 12,000 Serbs in Herze
govina were killed and thrown into pits, rivers, and chasms, by
the Ustasha, Germans, and Italians. A hundred and eight places
of mass execution have been registered up to date with about
7,000 victims.
THE FIRST wave of the Ustasha genocide against the Her
zegovian Serbs, started in the night between May 31 and June 1,
1941 in Mostar. A group of Ustasha 'hunters', arrested five citi
zens of Mostar, and took them to the banks of the Neretva near
the village of Ortijes, where they bestially murdered four of
them, while the fifth managed to escape.
The next day, June 1, a group of the Ustasha arrested 60
Serbs in Trebinje, immediately killing nine of them in a brutal
way in the presence of their families. The following day, the Us
tasha posted notices all over Trebinje announcing that from that
moment on, the Ustasha authorities would shoot 100 Serbs for
each Croatian killed.
June 1 was the day when massive arrests and killing of the
Serbs from Nevesinje and the surrounding areas started. On June
2, a group of about 80 Ustasha burst into the village of Udreznje,
killing 27 Serbs on that occasion.
Six days later the chief Ustasha commissar for Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Jure Francetic arrived in Nevesinje issuing an order
that 20 very distinguished hostages be assassinated in both Neves
inje and Gacko. In the night between June 9 and 10, twenty Serbs
were massacred with mallets, iron rods and knives in the sheds of
the military camp in Nevesinje. They were buried in the pit that
the hostages had to dig themselves.
This first wave of the Ustasha genocide afflicted the hardest
blow on the then Administrative District of Gacko. Under the
leadership of the Ustasha commissar Herman Togonal and Khoja
Muharem Glavinic, almost all the men from the village of Korita
aged 16 to 60 were arrested. In the night between June 4 and 5, a
hundred and twenty-one prisoners were thrown into the 30 me
tres deep Golubinka pit. While standing above the pit before be
ing thrown down their heads were smashed with mallets. Those
who were arrested and detained in the elementary school in
Korita, served the Ustasha as moving targets to shoot at. With
their arms bound, they let them move away to a distance of 30-50
metres only to shoot them in the back of their heads, competing
among themselves who would be the more accurate. Seven
Milovices were killed on that same day in the vicinity of the pit,
and were thrown together with this group into the Golubinka pit.
It has been established with certainty that 167 Serbs from that
area were plunged into that pit. It is also well-known, that on
June 5, the Ustasha threw another 50 people into that same pit,
their names not having been discovered since they were driven to

 ce cy 5. y
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The Independent State of

Croatia was divided into
22 parts called Velike
zupe. The head of a Velika
znpa was called Veliki zupan. O ne Veiika znpa
comprised 5 - 9 administra
tive districts. O ne adminis
trative district consisted of
several municipalities.

16

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the place from other administrative districts. * In the neighbour

hood of the village of Stepen, the Ustasha killed 19 very distin
guished Serbs from Gacko. Their bodies also ended up in the
Golubinka pit. The exact number of the Serbs who were de
voured by that pit in the June slaughters, will never be estab
lished. After the slaughter, about 15,000 head of cattle and
sheep and goats were stolen from the rich village of Korita, only
to be distributed to the perpetrators of that crime, the Ustasha
and the Moslems from the neighbouring village of Fazlagic
Kula.
The first wave of the Ustasha genocide grievously afflicted
the then Administrative District of Ljubinje as well. During the
first three days of June, a wild Ustasha detachment about 500
men strong plundered all that was Serbian in Ljubinje and the
neighbourhood. During the plunder they killed 8 Serbs, arrest
ing 170. All of them were murdered in the Kapavica pit in the
region of Ljubinje. Ten of them were tied together in a line by a
rope. Before being brought to the pit, they were blind-folded so
they would not see where the Ustasha were taking them. On the
brink of the pit, they would smash the heads of the first three,
using mallets. These three would plunge into the abyss dragging
the others along.
In the night between June 13 and 14, the Ustasha from Lju
binje picked 36 most prominent hostages from the district
prison, and literally massacred them, throwing them down into
the Pandurica pit. Among the murdered was also Priest Bozidar
Sarenac, son of Priest Scepan Sarenac, the man who vigorously
opposed all those who wanted to take revenge on the Croats and
Moslems in 1918 because of the crimes they had committed
against the Serbs in World War I.
In the Administrative Districts of Stolac, Capljina, and
Konjic, the first wave of the Ustasha atrocities did not produce
devastating consequences. In these regions there were not many
Serbs arrested or assassinated. That, however, lulled their
awareness, a fact they paid for dearly in the slaughter on the
next St. Vitus Day.
THE SECOND wave of the Ustasha genocide, planned by
the Ustasha as "The St. Vitus Day Action", started on June 22,
by massive arrests of the Serbs and Jews in Mostar, Stolac,
Capljina, Ljubinje, Nevesinje, Gacko, Konjic, and other places
of Herzegovina. The commander of Pavelics Guard Battalion,
Mijo Babic, gave orders that the area bordering Montenegro be
cleansed of Serbs, thus enabling the execution of "The St. Vitus
Day Action". The onslaught of the Croat and Moslem Ustasha
left 140 murdered men, women, and children in the villages
around Gacko. How monstrously cruel the miscreants were in
performing their tasks is evidenced by the fact that they exter
minated even entire families. They threw into the pit called
Cavcija jama 9 members of the family of Todor Nikolic from
Kula, while 13 members of the families of Piljo and Spiro
Boljanovic were thrown into the abyss of the River Musnica.
They spilt oil and alcohol over the hair and beard of priest Vidak Visnjevac and set fire to it, burying him half alive in a septic
tank. In the village of Vrbica near Gacko, they burnt 19 women,
old people and children in the house of Vule Bjelogrlic. In the
Nevesinje military camp they massacred 28 citizens of Gacko.
The tempest of the second wave, fell on Popovo polje on
June 23. Of about 200 people who were out in the fields of Po
povo Polje, the lives of 165 of them were ended in a dreadful
death in the Jagodinjaca pit, in Rzani Dol. The next day, the Us
tasha in the village of Zavala caught 34 Serbs, and having tied
them up in a "chain" of 10, plunged them down into that pit.
On the basis of the data gathered by the Commission for
the Establishment of Crimes Committed by the Occupying Pow
ers and Their Collaborators, 1,200 men, women, and children

 ,
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were thrown into the Jagodnjaca pit in Rzaiii Dol, during the
course of the war.
Under the leadership of the Ustasha First Lieutenant Franjo
Sudar, a particularly atrocious massacre was carried out among
137 hostages from Nevesinje. One of them was Priest Bogdan
Djogovic whose eyes were picked out, his nose and ears cut off,
gold teeth pulled out, beard plucked out and stuffed into his
mouth, horse shoes nailed into his chest, only to be killed by a
nail hammered into his head.
Massive arrests in the Administrative District of Stolac
started on June 22. From June 22 till June 26, almost all the men
of Serbian nationality between the ages of 16 and 60 were ar
rested. The Ustasha slogan in that region was: "Do not spare a
Serbian cat, let alone a child." It was just at that time that certain
inhabitants of Stolac had their eyes picked out in the Ljubinje
prison. Italian soldiers there found a metal box full of human
eyes soaked in milk. In the accompanying letter addressed to
Ante Pavelie it said: "We assure you, dear Leader, that this is not
a gift from dead but from living people." These events are con
firmed in the notes of the Italian journalist Curzio Malaparte
stating that Pavelie got a present for his birthday (July 14) from
his "faithful Ustasha", consisting of 20 kgs. of human eyes.
In the night between June 27 and 28, all the arrested Serbs
from Stolac and the neighbourhood, were driven off to Vidovo
polje and murdered there. In Berkovici, 170 old men, women and
children were killed with blunt instruments. On June 27, thirtynine people were killed on Pileta, and their bodies thrown down
into the Neretva. On June 29, seventy people from the village of
Trijebanj were viciously murdered and thrown down into the pit
on Bivolje brdo. A hundred and forty Serbs from the villages of
Oplicici, Prenj, Recice and Lokve who had been arrested, were
taken to the banks of the Neretva and murdered there. Of the
105 Serbs from Gomji Hrasan who were driven off by the Us
tasha on June 27 to be thrown into the Gavranica pit, 39 saved
themselves by running away owing to bad Ustasha organization.
In the June slaughter alone in Capljina and the surrounding
areas there were 526 men, women, and children killed. Two
hundred and ninety-four people were murdered in the night be
tween June 25 and 26, near Opuzen. About 300 Serbs from the
villages around Capljina were imprisoned in the notorious "Silos"
near the village of Tasovcici, who were then taken to different
places of execution and liquidated. From June 22 till June 26, a
hundred and seventy Serbs were arrested in neighbouring Gabela, and were liquidated at places of execution near Kriza and
Opuzen, in an outrageously cruel manner.
The wave of the Ustasha genocide organized for St. Vitus
Day swept through the Serbian population living in the Ljubuski
Administrative District. Of all the pits in the Ljubuski District,
the one that must be particularly singled out is the pit at Humac
situated within the walls of the Franciscan monastery there.
When the Serbs were massacred and thrown into that pit, in the
night between June 30 and July 1, although the innocent victims
shrieked and screamed for help, not a single of the "Servants of
Christ" in that monastery came out to see what was happening.
Massive arrests and slaughter of the Serbs living in the city
and the Administrative District of Mostar started on June 24. In
that city alone there were four hundred and eighty people ar
rested. The arrested who were not killed the following night on
the bridges on the Neretva, on the Buna, at the Ortijesko grave
yard and other places of execution, were driven off and plunged
down into the known and unknown pits of Herzegovina. The
wave of the Ustasha genocide swept also through the Serbian vil
lages around Mostar. In that Ustasha campaign all the priests of
the monastery of Zitomislic were also killed. They were plunged
into the Vidonje pit in the vicinity of the village of Blizanci.

 9 : 2 , 4 3 .
, ,
1.008 994 . 6.
7.30 13.30 120
470 (237 233
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THE THIRD wave of the Ustasha genocide was initiated

by order of the Ustasha Main Office issued on July 20,1941.
The Ustasha took particular pains to purge Ljubuski, the place
of birth of their Minister of the Interior, Andrija Artukovic. On
that occasion, 754 people were killed at places of execution in
Humac, Hrascani, Cmopod, Cerno, Ljubuski, Grabovo vrelo,
Crljevici, Zveceleva drin and others. In Ljubuski, only 9 people
of Serbian nationality survived the war: 2 men, 4 women and 3
children.
One of the most horrifying tragedies befell Prebilovci, the
most homogeneous Serbian village in the neighbourhood of
Capljina, in which 994 of the 1,008 citizens were of Serbian na
tionality. On August 6 alone, from 7:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. the
Croatian Ustasha plunged 470 people (237 children and 233
women) into the 120 m deep Golubinka pit. The day before the
tragedy, they raped almost all the girls from Prebilovac - in pub
lic, before the people and their parents. A group of these bestial
Ustasha while hunting for their victims and ransacking the
houses came upon Mileva Medan who was in labour. To make
her labour "easier" and shorter, they cut open her stomach with
a bayonet and took the child out, then slew it and wrapping it in
the diapers that had been prepared there, put it back in its
mothers womb. This slaughter made 54 families from Prebilovci
extinct. Ninety-five-year-old Vasilije Vitkovic was among the
group of Serbs who were slaughtered near the village of Vitina.
While the Ustasha tore the beard and skin off his face with a
knife, they ordered him to shout out: "Long live the Leader".
But, he told them calmly: "Children, just do your job."
Written in the documents of the State Commission for the
Establishment of Crimes Committed by the Occupying Powers
and Their Collaborators, it says that about 2,000 victims were
thrown into the Golubinka pit near Surmanac, during the course
of the war.
The Ustasha organized a hunt for the remaining inhabitants
of Prebilovci who were not killed in the August 6 slaughter, as if
the people were game. How successful they were in their enter
prise is best evidenced by the fact that of the 994 citizens of Pre
bilovci who were of Serbian nationality, 826 did not live to see
the end of the war. Half of Serbian families were made extinct.
After Prebilovci it was the turn of the villages of Tasovcid,
Klepci, Loznica, Visnjici, and others. About 1,000 inhabitants of
these villages were arrested. A majority of them found death in
the pit on Bivolje brdo.
Of a total of 1,760 victims among the Serbian population in
Capljina and the surrounding areas documented up to now,
1,649 were killed by the Croatian Ustasha, which is 15 times
more than the the Italians, Germans, and Chetniks did alto
gether.
The August slaughter which took place around St. Elias
Day 1941, did not spare the Administrative District of Stolac,
either. The villages of Oplicid and Poplat endured particular
suffering. In the village of Ljubljenica, the Ustasha set on fire 24
people in a shed covered with straw. Of the Serbs who were
from the town of Stolac, only 7 adult men (mostly old and sick)
survived the war. Of the 1,250 victims from Stolac and the
neighbourhood that have been documented so far, the Ustasha
murdered 854, while in 1941 alone, they killed 662 people of
Serbian nationality in a dreadfully cruel way.
Ransacking the villages of Grbesi, Glavinici, Begovic Kula,
Banjevd and Poljice in the region of Trebinje, the Ustasha ar
rested 28 men and 1 woman. They shut them in a freight car in
Trebinje and transported them to Capljina on August 4, slaying
them all in the car the very same day. Of a total of 882 victims
among the Serbian population in the Administrative Distrid of
Trebinje, 572 were assassinated by the Croatian Ustasha.

8.000 , 1941.
, ,
852 .
.
, ( ).
,
.
, , , 3-4
108. -
.
1941.
,
. , 7. 1942. ,
163 . . To
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.
.
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.

.
.
. .
,

.

The slaughter around St. Elias Day afflicted most griev

ously the Serbs and the Jews in the city and the Administrative
District of Mostar. Seven hundred and fifty people were arrested
between July 19 and August 4. They were then driven off in
groups to various concentration camps and places of execution in
the Independent State of Croatia. Just to illustrate this, of the 174
people in the first group, survived only five. The intensive depor
tation of the citizens of Mostar to the notorious concentration
am p s lasted until August 17. According to the data of the Us
tasha police, after the Ustasha a m e to power, of the 8,000 Serbs
who lived in Mostar in the spring of 1941, only 852 remained in
late August. The others were assassinated or deported to the Us
tasha concentration am ps. Serbian villages in the neighbourhood
of Mostar also endured grievous suffering, and the village of
Bacevic, in particular (a compact Serbian village on the right
bank of the Neretva).
Massive arrests and assassination of Serbs in Konjic started
at the same time as in Mostar. One hundred and eight people
were arrested in 3 to 4 days in the neighbouring villages of Bord,
Bijela, Vrdolj, Blac, and Zagord. Most of them were driven off to
mountain Ivan planina and murdered there.
Among the Ustasha bestialities after 1941, the one to be sin
gled out, in particular, is the pogrom of the Serbs in B o ra above
Gacko which unambiguously shows its religious aggressiveness.
On the day of the Orthodox Christmas on January 7,1942, the
Ustasha caught 163 inhabitants of the village of Pridvorica by
tricking them. The criminals had a good reason for choosing the
Orthodox Christmas. That is a day when the Serbs are glad to
welcome anyone to their homes. All of the 163 poor people were
shut in several sheds and set on fire. It was by chance that 4year-old Gaja Skoko survived. All the families from this village
were made extinct.
After Pridvorice, the Ustasha lunged at Donji Borac (the
Administrative District of Nevesinje) where they killed 149 peo
ple, as recorded in their own reports.
The consequences of the Ustasha genocide were dreadful.
There was not a single Serbian family in the area of Herzegovina
that was spared or that had no members killed. Many of the vil
lages were completely annihilated. Many families were made ex
tinct for ever. Dozens of thousands of children have remained
orphans. And while the lean Herzegovian soil boiled from hot
Herzegovian blood, the wailing of the despairing women and
children echoed in the barren Herzegovian mountains.




1941.

.

v
. , 22. 1941. ,
.
40 ,
45.
.
, (
) 25 ,
7, 6, 25, 9,
35, 2, 6, 18, 54,
27, 14, 7, 2, 54,
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.
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1941. , , ,
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12. 1941.
.
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. , , .
100 .
, .

EASTERN BOSNIA
rrests of the Serbian clergy from a rather large
area of Eastern Bosnia and their deportation to
concentration camps in April and May 1941,
were only an introduction to a dreadful Ustasha
pogrom that was about to befall the Serbian people living in that
area.
The first rather extensive action of arrests and killing of the
Serbs took placc in the Administrative District of Vlascnica fol
lowing the sending to this region of Musan Mutavelic, an Us
tasha commissar for the administrative district. An organized
purge of the Serbs in that region started concurrently with the
German attack on the Soviet Union on June 22,1941. The Us
tasha first killed 40 Serbs in Rasica gaj, and immediately after
that another group of 45. That was followed by massive arrests
of the Serbs and their deportation in an unknown direction. On
the eve of St. Vitus Day, on June 27, (under the pretex of pre
venting a Serbian insurrection) the Ustasha arrested 25 Serbs in
Olovo, 7 in Srebrenica, 6 in Kalesija, 25 in Bijeljina, 9 in Bratunac, 35 in Tuzla, 2 in Lopare, 6 in Kozluk, 18 in Knczina, 54 in
Vlasenica, 27 in Kladanj, 14 in Brcko, 7 in Papraca, 2 in Milici,
54 in Breza, 25 in Vares, 3 in Lasva, 6 in Zcpce, 10 in Zenica, 19
in Visoko, 9 in Kalinovik, 36 in Semizovac, 9 in Alipasin Most
(near Sarajevo), and 11 in Pale. All of the arrested were quite
prominent Serbs.
This was immediately followed by a wave of arrests in Dcrventa, Podgora, Nova Kasaba, Gornji Zalukovik, Milici, ctc.
The letter of the Board of Moslems of the town of Rogatica
addressed to Dr. Dzafer Kulenovic, Vice-President of the Gov
ernment of the Independent State of Croatia, on December 6,
1941, contains an evident complaint about the Ustasha Leaders
commissar Hakija Hadzic, officially assigned to that region, be
cause he had said in his proclamation, among other things, that
he would "exterminate all the Serbs from this region, and so
only Croat-Moslems and Catholics will remain'. The fact that
Hadzic really meant what he had said could soon be felt by the
Serbs in the administrative districts of Vlasenica and Rogatica.
To begin with, 34 Serbs from Rogatica were taken away never to
return again. In late July 1941, the Ustasha deported 74 Serbian
peasants from Pale, killing them all in the Krusnica concentra
tion camp near Vitez. The captured Serbs were deported to the
Sarajevo prison "Hasan Kula" in which there were about 2,000
prisoners at any time. When that prison became too cramped,
the Ustasha turned the Orthodox seminary in Sarajevo into an
ancillary prison. The greatest number of those prisoners ended
their lives at the Vrace place of execution above Sarajevo.
The Serbian resistance towards the Ustasha pogroms,
which started on June 3,1941, in Eastern Herzegovina, caused
real hysteria among the Ustasha authorities. They immediately
killed 100 Serbs in the field ailed Sarajevsko polje. The Ustasha
committed a particularly atrocious and grievous crime in Drinjaca near Zvornik, on August 12,1941. In the yet unpublished
diary of Pcro Djukanovic it says: "... When we entered the
premises of the warehouse, we saw a dreadful sight. The whole
room and even the ceiling were stained with human blood. On
the side of the warehouse there was a rather large open oak bar
rel in which there were 150 litres of human blood... The victims
were stripped naked. They would then be driven down the
stairway and slaughtered above the barrel containing the blood.
The Ustasha used to say that they were preparing a gift for Ante
Pavelic, their leader in Zagreb. Next to the warehouse there was
a hole that had been dug and filled with about 100 slaughtered
victims. Since the victims were not properly covered up with
earth, stray dogs started dragging them around."

- .
,
, . .
2.000
. ce nehe
. ,
400
> ,
.


50.
-
1942. 726 , a 1.470 .
, , .
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80 ,

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17 1 16 .
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600 . 30
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1. 1942.
. 30
.

The joint Ustasha-German band of soldiers targeted with

particular zest the rebels territory along the River Trebava and
the left side of the River Bosna. All the people they could not
shoot on the spot were taken away by them to the concentration
camps in Doboj, Derventa, Modrica, Maglaj, and other places.
In the concentration camp of Doboj alone there were more then
2,000 people in late August. The exact number of people shot in
these concentration camps will never be established. In that ac
tion in the area of Majcvica, Semberija and the Bosnian part of
Posavina, the Ustasha captured more than 400 Serbian peasants
and drove them off to Jasenovac, with not a single one of them
ever to return from there.
A practice was introduced in the Administrative District of
Bijeljina according to which 50 peasants were killed in each mu
nicipality in the territory of which rebel unrest occurred.
The Ustasha-German offensive against Eastern Bosnia in
January 1942, left 726 people of Serbian nationality dead, while
1.470 were arrested. In their reports the Ustasha point out that
the victims were, allegedly, rebels. It was just at that time that
Francetics "black legion" arrived in the area of Romanija. The
atrocities by which that legion was well-known were soon dem
onstrated by their extensive killing of the Serbian population
and the burning of their houses. They first lunged at the villages
of Bogovodje and Rosulje. The villages were burnt down and
the children who could not escape were slaughtered. In Hotocina and the surrounding areas they slew 150 Serbs. In Pale and
the surrounding areas they killed 30 Serbs. The suffering of the
settlements of Sokolac, Podromanija and Gazivode was no less
grievous.
The Ustasha were so brutal in their sadism that they threw
even old men who were more than 80 years old into the houses
they had set on fire, as they did with Ilija Vuksanovic aged 85
and Milica Djurdjevic also 85. Whenever they could, they exter
minated even whole families. In Ballici they killed the wife of
Milos Jovanovic with her 6 children between the ages of 2 and
14. In Bjelosavici, they killed 17 children in the Curevic family
alone, who were aged between 1 and 16. They also committed a
terrible slaughter in the villages of Rastenica, Bandin Odzak,
Cavarine, and Citluk. In the Devetak-seliste forest, the Ustasha
surrounded a Serbian refuge comprising people from several vil
lages. Most of the people were killed on the spot, while a part of
them were driven off to the village of Osa, shut in a stable and
set on fire. Among the people burnt there were also 11 little
children. The same destiny also befell another refuge in the
Klisura woods near Kalimanic. There were quite a few children
in the refuge and even twins, two months old. Not a single one
of them survived. They were all slain.
After Romanija, Francetic and his legion lunged at Rogatica and its neighbourhood. As soon as he got there, he ordered
that all the Serbs should be arrested. To start with, he killed 68
of them. In Gornje Osovo, the miscreants slaughtered 33 peo
ple, burning them afterwards in three houses. Among the 33
people, there were 17 children who were under 14. In the vil
lages of Varosiste (the hamlet of Mesici), Starcid, Klisura,
Borike, and Sljedovici, they caught 70 inhabitants, after which
they shut them in several houses and burnt them. The Bozic and
Kosaric families were made extinct on that occasion.
After their incursion into the municipality of Borike, the
Ustasha of that legion killed more than 600 people. In Miljkovici they burnt 30 people, in Osoj 80, in Gajevo 9, and in Dub
80...
After their entry into Han Pijesak, they killed all the Ser
bian inhabitants who had not managed to escape. In the villages

 ,
.
, 130
( ), 220 700
.
,
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, 25-
. 190 260 .

. 1.000
.

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20. , ,
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, 150 400 .
-
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--, 4.
1942. ,
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. 85 .
, ,
. 86
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,

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4.000
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,
.
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.
1942.

. 450 : 96,
135, 64, 69, 47 .
,
, , , , , , .
144 . 23 -

of Jaruge, Kusace, Mironje, and Kraljevo Polje, they killed 40

old men, women, and children and burned 150 houses.
A part of that legion broke into Vlasenica on March 1,
1942. They immediately dragged 30 Serbian patients out of the
hospital, killing them all in a place called Ploce. As they had
turned Vlasenica into a powerful stronghold, they made more
frequent incursions from that place into Serbian villages. In
early April, they killed 130 inhabitants (mostly women and
children) of the villages of Gornji Zalukovik, Dolovi and
Odzak, where they also burnt down 220 houses and 700 ancillary
buildings.
In the bloody Ustasha attack on the villages of Zagradje,
Igriste, Malo Polje, Kozja Glava, Tisanj, Srpski Dzemat and Sirovine they killed 42 adult people and 11 children. In the village
of Igriste, 25 of the poor people were burnt alive in the house of
Trifun Paro. One hundred and ninety houses and 260 ancillary
buildings were burnt down.
In the area of the municipality of Milici, the Ustasha rav
aged everything. They burnt more than 1,000 houses and several
thousand ancillary buildings. All the Serbian inhabitants who
could not flee, were killed with knives or thrown into the fire.
Twenty five people were burnt in the hamlet of Vrtoce and 20 in
Ratkovici. In the villages of Donji Zalukovik, Nedeljiste,
Buljevici, and Zaklopaca, the Ustasha killed 150 men, women,
and children. They also burnt 150 houses and 400 ancillary
buildings. Kadrija Hatic from Nova Kasaba slaughtered the in
nocent Serbian people for a reward of 50 kunas a head.
A devastating Ustasha offensive started on April 4,1942
with the purpose of exterminating the Serbian people living in
the region of Vlasenica - Zvornik - Srebrenica, which has re
mained in the memories of the people as the "offensive of fire
and sword". The Ustasha came down like a tempest, attacking
the villages of Potocari, Vijagora, Lipovac, Palez, Slatina, Zagari, Sase, Osatica, Ratkovic, Vranjesevici, and others in whichthey killed 270 men, women, and children either by throwing
them into the fire or slaughtering them with knives. In the re
gion of Toplice, they slew 85 people. In the villages of Karina,
Bajevici, Jaketid, and Zljebac they did not spare even the chil
dren who were in their cradles. In the village of Kosovci they
took 86 Serbs and drove them off to Fakovici where they mur
dered them.
Many Serbian refugees from other parts of Bosnia were
killed in the area of Skelani and Fakovici where they had come
in order to cross the Drina and find shelter in Serbia. Thousands
of refugees were killed with daggers and knives at practically ten
makeshift crossing points on the Drina, which the Ustasha used
to cut off frequently. Many of the poor people wishing to es
cape the knife chose their death by jumping into the rising
Drina. Many desperate groups of girls chose to be devoured by
the Drina as their graveyard, in order to escape rape. During the
second half of April and in early May alone, about 4,000 people
who had not been fortunate enough to cross over to Serbia,
were killed at these crossing-points. A dreadful slaughter of the
refugees was committed at a place called Bjelosevac. The
Pusonja family from Dzimrije numbering 43 members was also
among the victims. Several days after the slaughter, Stana Sarac
from Djedoviri on mountain Romanija passed that way looking
for her daughter who was married to a man from the Pusonja
family. She found her daughter among the slaughtered. Her eyes
were picked out, her breasts cut off, and lying on her breast was
her five-month-old baby with its head cut off.
From mid-April till mid-May 1942, the Ustasha undertook
another offensive in the broader area of Romanija in order to
liquidate the Serbs who had remained. In the Rogatica Adminis
trative District alone, they killed 450 people, namely: 96 in

 , 17 , 13 .

, ,
.
,
, 1941.
1942.
. 5.000-6.000 ,
, ,
.
.
, ,
, : ,
, .

.
, 150 .
.
, 1.200
.


- .
,
17 , 731
, 1941-1945,
, 50.000
.
5 : , ,
, , 1947. , 22.000 .

Borike, 135 in Kozici, 64 in Seljani, 69 in Osovo, 47 in Mesici,

etc. Numerous groups of refugees were also liquidated in that
area, namely near Borik, Baljak, Sjeversko, Mrkonjic, Brankovic, Osovo, Milkovici, and other places. In the village of
Surovici alone, there were 144 refugees killed. Twenty-three
members of the Vukasinovic family were slaughtered on that
occasion, as well as 17 of the Furtulas, and 13 of the Rackovic
and Radjenovic families.
The plan of the Ustasha was to completely purge the .Serbs
from the area of Eastern Bosnia, from Foca to Zvornik, and
thus cut off all their links with Serbia.
North of Zvornik, in the area of Velika zupa Usora i Soli,
the Ustasha formed a legion at the turn of 1941/42, called "The
National Insurrection Volunteers Legion". It numbered
5,000-6,000 people, located in various Moslem villages, allegedly
to defend the Moslems from the Chetniks. In the region where it
operated, that legion plundered all the Serbian villages and
killed thousands of people. The following villages endured par
ticular suffering: Pozamica, Kolimer, Cviljevine, Potras, and
others and in the valley of the River Spreca: Dubnica, Srpska
Kalesija, Rajinci and Jeginov Lug. The whole Serbian popula
tion from the villages in the Spreca valley that could not escape,
was killed. According to the report of the Ustasha Lieutenant
Suzak, 150 people were killed in Dubnica alone.
North-western Bosnia was not spared, either. To cite just
one example, 1,200 people were killed on the bridge near Brcko
alone.
The destiny of the Serbian people in Eastern Bosnia would
certainly have been less tragic and less harsh, if the Ustasha cut
throats who had come from other regions had not also been
joined by the Moslem-Ustasha from that region.
In the territory of Eastern Bosnia, which consisted of 17 ad
ministrative districts before the war, there were 731 major and
minor places of execution, which have been documented up to
date. According to the first post-war investigations, the number
of people of Serbian nationality killed there in the period 19411945 was at least 50,000.
According to the first field reports from 1947, in the area
of the following 5 administrative districts alone, namely: Bi
jeljina, Zvornik, Vlasenica, Srebrenica, and Rogatica, there
were 22,000 Serbs killed.

cy

.
9
.
Regional units called
banovine existed until the
establishment of the Inde
pendent State of Croatia.
The pre-war Yugoslavia
consisted of 9 banovinas
each governed by a b aa

cy
,


.

, .

, ,
2.011 .
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25. 26. 1941.
720 , .
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.
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22. 1941.
,
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.

: , - , ,
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. - 15 , , , 1941.
.
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1941.
19
.
, .
,
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.
1941. ,
, , 22
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,
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( )
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, .
, 14 , ,
, , ,

CENTRAL BOSNIA
he Ustasha got down to "settling the Serbian is
sue" in an organized way also in the area of Cen
tral Bosnia. Testifying to this is the order issued
by Viktor Gutic, the Ustasha Chief of Staff for
Vrbaska banovina, that the Serbs be destroyed economically
and exterminated. The measures of the Ustasha authorities cited
in that order afflicted most grievously the Serbian people in the
Administrative Districts of Derventa, Doboj and Prnjavor.
In the area of the Administrative District of Derventa
alone 2,011 people of Serbian nationality were killed in a direct
genocide by the Ustasha, according to Ihe evidence provided up
to now. The villages that suffered most of all were: Bosansld
Luzani and Novi Luzani, Gornja Barica and Donja Barica, Kostres, Visnjak, Grk, Cerani, Detlak, Miskovci, Rapcani, Kulina,
Bukovica, Lup-ljanica, Mala Socanica and Velika Socanica,
Osojd, and Kalenderovd.
According to an Ustasha report, in the night between Au
gust 25 and 26,1941, seven hundred and twenty Serbs - men in
their prime - were deported from Bosanski Luzani and Novi
Luzani, Gornje Barice and Donjc Barice, and Kostres, to Slavonska Pozega. None of them returned; they were all murdered.
In the villages of Gornja Barica and Donja Barica the only ones
to survive were three adult men.
How great the suffering of these villages was can be seen
from the report of the supreme authority of the Derventa Ad
ministrative District, sent on November 22,1941 to Velika zupa
Posavje, informing of the arrest of the Serbs as hostages, and
mentioning that in Luzane they had arrested only three men, as
no other men had been left there.
In the area of Prnjavor and Srbac, Serbs were killed in the
following villages: Strpd, Kremna - the hamlet of Petrovid,
Hrvacani, Luzani, Corle, Grabik, Ilova, Donja Lepenica, Sitnesi,
Brezovljani and others as well as prominent Serbs from the city
of Prnjavor.
Several unbelievable dramas have been noted down in this
region. The most prominent Serbs -15 of them from Sitnes, Bre
zovljani, Lepenice and Zukalo, were driven off by the Ustasha
to the Radnja woods, on the left bank of the River Sava, in July
1941, where they were murdered in the most bestial manner.
They took Bosko Djajic alive and cut open his stomach, taking
out his intestines and binding them around the waist of his fa
ther Djordje.
On August 25,1941, in Dubocke Bare, the Ustasha robbed
and then killed 19 adult Serbs from Bosanski Kobas. Only
Djoko Bosnjak, who was tied up with his father Vasa managed
to save himself. While they shot at them, a bullet cut the wire
with which they were bound. After they were plunged into the
Sava, Djoko managed to dive under and swim across the river to
the Slavonian side, although he had been wounded twice.
On December 16,1941, in the village of Kremna, the ham
let of Petrovici near Prnjavor, the Ustasha burnt 22 inhabitants,
mostly women, children and elders. All the victims were driven
into a building where the Ustasha opened fire on them. The Us
tasha covered the dead and the wounded, who had dropped to
the floor, with cornstalks, and after spilling gas over them set
them ablaze. Among the victims was Staka Petrovic (maiden
name Radonjic) with her four children: the eldest Novak was 9,
Ljeposava 8, Milisava 2 and the little Tomislav 3 months old.
Stakas father-in-law Antonije, 80 years old, was also among
them. With an injury to her head 14 cm long that was caused by
a blow one of the Ustasha had dealt her with an axe, with her
left arm smashed by a machine-gun burst, from the shoulder
down and with her legs singed, Staka managed to take two chil-

- . , ,
, , .
, . .
, .
: , ,
, 1944. 1945.
1.130 .
. .

1.008 .
20, 55, 48,
32, 17, 17, 23,
14, 13, 43 .
, .
,
25. 1941.
, :

.
.
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.

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. , 19. 1941. ,
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,
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,
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.
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40
.
31. 1. 1984. ,
,
:

dren out of that hell making a superhuman effort. By groping

through the fire and smoke she found the little Tomislav and
got hold of him with her teeth while taking 2-year-old Ljeposava
in her right arm and managed - not even she could say how - to
get out into the yard of the building, where she fainted.
When the Partisans arrived, they could see a horrible sight
in the home of Todor Petrovic. His 17-year-old daughter was
crucified on the wall of the house. Her hands were nailed down
and her legs and breast charred.
From November 1944 till April 1945, eleven hundred and
thirty people of Serbian nationality were assassinated in Odzak
and the neighbouring villages: Novigrad, Zorice, Svilaj, Dubica.
Few of them have graves. After being killed they were mostly
thrown into the Sava.
In the part of the municipality of Doboj, to the west of the
River Bosna, the Ustasha murdered 1,008 people of Serbian na
tionality. Twenty were killed in Ritesic, 55 in Podnovlje, 48 in
Majevac, 32 in Kladari, 17 in Glogovica, 17 in Lipac, 23 in
Kostajnica, 14 in Civcije, i3 in Opsine, 43 in Prijedol, etc. Most
of the Serbs were killed in Bare in the suburbs of Doboj.
In his speech delivered on the occasion of the tearing down
of the Orthodox Cathedral in Banja Luka on May 25,1941, Vik
tor Gutic, a notorious Ustasha criminal threatened: "The Ser
bian people are going to be cleansed so thoroughly that they
wont have a single estate left intact." He emphasized that he
was "an iron broom" which would carry that out. In the part of
the Administrative District of Banjaluka, to the east of the
River Vrbas, the Ustasha broom of genocide took away 403
Serbian lives.
How atrocious and unscrupulous the Ustasha were in ar
resting the Serbs can be proved by the case of the little Jovanka
Banicevic. On St.Nicholas Day, December 19,1941, a hundred
and eighty Serbs from Gomji Koricani in the vicinity of Travnik
were arrested and imprisoned in the gymnasium in the village of
Turbe. Among the people arrested then was also Bosko
Banicevic. While the Ustasha were beating him, the women and
children in the house started crying. His daughter Jovanka, 11
years old, seeing her father being beaten and tied up, dropped
down as though frozen and died on the spot.
In the southern and south-western part of Central Bosnia,
the Serbs who suffered most were those from Livno, Duvno, Bugojno and those living on the Kupres plateau.
According to the census of 1931, there were 1,222 persons
of Serbian nationality living in the area of the Administrative
District of Duvno (Tomislavgrad). Four hundred and seventyeight of them were killed as victims of the Ustasha genocide
while 241 of that number were plunged into pits.
The master mind behind the Ustasha crimes in this region
was Friar Mijo Cujic from Duvno. No one dared do anything
without his orders or clearance. It was by his order that Serbian
villages were systematically destroyed. Testifying about this is
the fact that not a single person survived the Ustasha slaughter
in the villages of Cebara, Prisoje, and Vrila. In Cebare there
were 129 inhabitants killed. Of that number 126 were plunged
into the Dvostrucica pit in Zeleni gaj. Seventy-five victims were
under the age of 20: two of them were newly born, 4 children
were less than a year old, while 39 were between the ages of 1
and 10.
In the slaughter of the inhabitants of the village of Cebare,
the whole family of the Zelens - Rade and Stana, their 5
daughters aged between 9 and 17 and two sons Stevo (6) and
Pero (4), were killed.
It is significant to point out that Catholic and Croatian
chauvinism displayed no change even 40 years later. That is the


/...

1931. ,
6.296 .
1941-1945. 1.714. - 1941.
. 1.504 ,
88% .
,

25 .
, : ,
, ,
. ,
.
10. 1941.

,
,
.

, . ,
, 167 ,
.
.
, .
.

, ,
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.
1941. : ,
,
218 - , . ,
.
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. 39 ,
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.
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20. 1942.
,
, ,
, 401 ,
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,
27.
.
.
, , ,
. . , . , .

reason why in the night between July 31 and August 1,1984, a

group of Croat youths at a party in the village of Donji Brisnik
in the area of Duvno, started singing with delight:
Little church onBrisnjickihill
YoubreedPave/ices m't/iskill...

According to the census of 1931, there were 6,296 people of

Serbian nationality living in the territory of the Administrative
District of Livno. Seventeen hundred and fourteen men, women
and children were killed in the direct Ustasha genocide commit
ted in the period 1941-1945. The period June - December 1941
was particularly tragic for the Serbs in that area. Fifteen hun
dred and four people were killed in less then seven months, ac
counting for 88% of all the victims.
The genocide of the Serbs gained ground with the arrival in
that region of "professional" assistance from Zagreb which con
sisted of the Ustasha Adjutant Mijo Bzik and Priest Nikola
Blazevic with a group of 25 Ustasha policemen. They were en
couraged also by Friar Srecko Peric words: "Croats, my broth
ers, go and slaughter all the Serbs, and first of all my sister who
has married a Serb. After that, come to me and I will take all
your sins upon my soul."
The Ustasha envoys held a meeting in Livno on June 10,
1941, to see how they could speed up the actions of "cleansing"
those regions of the Serbian population as they were dissatisfied
with the speed of the action that had started in the villages of
Donje Polje, where the Serbian population was predominant.
The most prominent Serbs ended in the pit above the vil
lage of Suhac as early as June while massive crimes began in
July. The Ustasha arrested 167 Serbs from Livno and the imme
diate neighbourhood taking them to a place below the village of
Prolog and killing all of them. They buried them in the holes
from which sand used to be dug out for house construction. The
whole operation of deportation and assassination was carried
out secretly during the night. The rest of the people were told
that the arrested Serbs had gone off to work.
On July 31, the Ustasha threw down alive, into the pit near
Prolog, the wife and daughter of Priest Kosta Stanisic from
Livno. They brought the priest to "supervise" the event, only to
slay him after that and throw him after the two.
In late July 1941, the Ustasha plunged 218 Serbs - men,
women, and children into the Ravni Dolac pit. The victims were
from the villages of Odzak, Listani, Gornji Rujani and Donji
Rujani. Since the Ustasha were in a hurry, they did not have
enough time to liquidate each of the victims individually. That is
the reason why 20 living people found themselves in the pit.
They were mostly women. Thirty nine days later, 14 of them
were taken out from the pit under the protection of the Italian
army. They were living skeletons. They fed on what they found,
searching the bags of the dead, since many of these unhappy
people had taken some food - for their journey, hoping they
were going to be taken to Serbia. They licked the moist walls of
the pit and drank their own urine. Stana Crnogorac was among
the ones saved. She had delivered a still-born baby girl in the pit.
On October 20, 1942, the Supreme Headquarters of the
National Liberation Army of Yugoslavia issued a statement in
forming that the number of people killed in the villages of
Odzak, Gornji Rujani and Donji Rujani and Listani as estab
lished on the basis of the Ustasha archives that had been seized,
was in total 401 people of the Orthodox creed, of which number
181 were children younger than 14.
Local Croats and Moslems spearheaded by the Ustasha be
sieged the Serbian village of Golinjevo on July 27, capturing all
of the inhabitants. Men were driven off to mountain Tusnica
and thrown down into the Kamesnica pit. Three weeks after that
horror, two boys, Bozo and Vaso Crnogorac somehow managed
to climb out of that pit. The district chief placed them in the hos-

 231 ,
35 14 .
30. 1941.
.

. , ,
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,
.
.

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, 30. 1989, , ,
.
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. 1941.
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,
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, 1.500
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.
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, , 400
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, -,
. 500, 1941. 700 - , .
40 .
-
26 .
, , ,
,
: .
, .

1.036 . 300 , 255 10
. , ,

pital in Livno. Having found out about that, the Ustasha broke
into the hospital and slaughtered the two boys as well as all the
Serbs they found in it. The Ustasha also killed the children and
the women of Golinjevo so that no one escaped the slaughter.
The number of the victims in that village recorded so far is 231
of which 35 children were younger than 14.
The event that occurred in the school of the village of Celebic on July 30,1941 is hard to believe. Such monstrosity could
have been conceived and done only by the Croat Ustasha. Mara
Kozomora who managed to save herself says: "When the Us
tasha drove us into the school playground we beheld a horrify
ing sight which is difficult to describe. We saw bloody blocks of
wood and blood-stained hatchets, axes and butchers knives.
Lying around the stumps were womens braids the criminals had
cut off together with the heads. In several places one could see
the white of spilt human brains lying in pools of blood with
swarms of flies around them. The horror was such that none of
us could utter a word or cry..." In that most noble institution of
our civilization 416 Serbs of all ages finished their school of
life that day - in the most barbaric way. Forty-eight years later,
on July 30,1989, the day of the Orthodox feast, St. Marina, the
Great Martyr, a Catholic church was dedicated in the village of
Kovacic, situated at only a kilometres distance from the site of
the crime committed against the Serbs.
In the Administrative District of Livno, the Serbs to suffer
most were those in the following villages: Celebic, Golinjevo,
Donji Rujani and Gomji Rujani, Guber Veliki, Listani,
Caprazlije, Potok, Smrcani, Zastinje, Zabljak, Glavice, Bojmunti, Provo, Sajkovic, Radanovci, Bogdase, Vrbica, Gubin as
well as those in the town of Livno, itself.
After these pogroms, not a single Serb was left in the fol
lowing villages: Podgreda, Potocani, Smrcani, Glavice, Golinjevo, Srdjevici, Grborezi, Bila, Odzak, Listani, Gomji Rujani
and Donji Rujani and Priluka.
In early July 1941, the Ustasha ordered a forced emigration
of the Serbs from Bugojno, Kupres, Cipuljici and Vesele. The
Ustasha picked the building of the Civilian School for a collec
tion centre. Almost the entire Serbian population from Bugojno
was moved out by the end of August, 1941. Before the eviction
started, all male inhabitants of Bugojno and its neighbourhood
of the age of 16 up, were arrested. The prisons, both the real and
makeshift ones, were packed with people in their prime. The
last nights of July in Bugojno were nights of horror for every
one, and for more than 1,500 arrested Serbs that was also the
last moonlight they ever saw. The Ustasha killed them down to
the last and plunged them into the pit near the village of
Zanesovici. The Head of the Administrative District Branko
Kustro bragged through Bugojno about how he alone had sent
more than 400 Serbs to heaven with his gun. During the course
of the war, that pit was filled with more Serbian people so the
final number of the murdered and those plunged into it rose up
to 1,700 victims.
According to the number of the crimes committed, Kozvarice, a region on the right side of the Bugojno - Kupres road,
is in second place. Five hundred people were killed there in the
month of July, and during the course of the whole of 1941, about
700 men, women, and children.
The locality of Gromile near Suplji gaj was the place of
execution of 40 Serbs from Zijamet and Donji Vakuf. The Us
tasha were particularly bloodthirsty where Zijamet was con
cerned. In July, they plunged into the Kalin pit another 26
people from that place.
When notorious Ustasha cut-throats Bozica Krizanic, Ivo
Jerec, and Perica Kutlesa asked Friar Emanuel Rajic from Bu-

 . 405 . ,
24. 25. 1941. ,
. , ,
, . , , . ,

. ,
.
1941. , 2.
, . He 2.
, cy 45
. .
,
3.000 . 186
.
. 185
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.
.

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, 21. 1941, 400
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1941.
320 - ,
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, . 1942.
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1942.
86 , . , ,
7 .
Tpeher . ,
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82 .
, ,
, 28.
, 72
.
. . .

gojno to confess them, he replied: "It is too early for you to

confess. Come after you have done everything, and 1will confess
you."
Ten hundred and thirty-six Serbs from the Kupres plateau
were killed in the Ustasha genocide. Of the 300 children killed,
255 were younger than 10. During the course of the war, the Us
tasha raided the Serbian settlement of Vukovsko, on the Kupres
plateau, thirteen times. They killed 405 Serbs in the raids. Dur
ing the night between June 24 and 25, the Ustasha took away
Archpriest Marko Popovic. He was slain in the village of Gracanica at the River Vrbas, by Branko Kustro, a 25-yeai-old
teacher from Bugojno. The innocent Marko had helped him to
find a job a couple of years before that. Immediately after
Markos assassination, Dobro Dobrosavljevic, an Orthodox
priest was also deported from Vukovsko. The Ustasha nailed
horseshoes onto his feet and drove him off to the Koprivnica
woods where they killed him.
On July 31, the Ustasha sent their messengers to all the
Serbian villages summoning them to come to Kupres on August
2, St.Elias Day, for the purpose of registration. Without waiting
for August 2, the Ustasha crept out into the Blagaj field and
seized 45 Serbs who were reaping their fields. All of them were
bestially killed and thrown into the pit called Rajiceva Kosa.
On St.Elias Day, 3,000 people came to Kupres from the
surrounding villages. The Ustasha picked 186 people from Vuk
ovsko and shut them up in the shed of the Pavices. On August 6,
they were deported by trucks in the direction of Borovo polje.
That night 185 inhabitants of Vukovo were killed and covered
up with earth in large holes left after excavating sand. Todor
Nikic was the only one who managed to flee from the place of
execution. The Ustasha believed that after the liquidation of the
inhabitants of Vukovo they would be able to operate more
freely on the plateau of Kupres. After the slaughter a certain
calm seemed to prevail.
On August 21, a line of vehicles consisting of a bus and a
number of trucks passed down the road to Bugojno. They were
packed with Serbs from Livno and its neighbourhood. They had
been told that they would be taken to Serbia. They found "Ser
bia" in the Koprivnica woods, beyond the Kupres gate. Ismet
Duran, a Moslem, the driver of the bus, left testimony about the
suffering of these Serbs. He says: "After the vehicle had pulled
up in the forest, all the victims were robbed. They were stripped
of all their clothes and tied up. The mothers were placed in a po
sition to watch the Ustasha rape their underage children and
young girls. Then, knives started flashing. They cut the breasts
of the women and the girls. Little childrens heads were cut off
and thrown into their mothers laps. They cut open the stomach
of Dobrila Bajilo and took out her baby."
Among the 400 Serbs murdered in that place of execution
on August 21,1941, exterminated for ever were the Kujundzic,
Mitrovic, Bajilo, Radeta, Stevie, Ivica, and Lalic families.
During the course of 1941, three hundred and twenty Serbs
were killed on the Kupres plateau. The greatest number of them
were from Gomje Vukovsko and Donje Vukovsko, followed by
those from the villages of Blagaj, Donji Malovan and Gomji
Malovan, etc. The arrival of the Italians restored a relative free
dom. Following the departure of the Italians in the spring of
1942, the Kupres plateau became an Ustasha reserve for the
execution of the Serbs, once again. On July 28,1942, the Us
tasha broke into the village of Gomji Malovan killing 86 men,
women, and children. In Blagaj they killed 7 Serbs on that occa
sion.
On August 3, the Ustasha surrounded the village called Begovo Selo. They took away with them all the inhabitants indud-

Tor 23 , a
.
1942.
, , ,
62 .
,
1991.
2-3
.

ing the yet unbaptized children and the old. exhausted people.
They drove them into a stable and slaughtered all of them, after
which they burnt down the stable. That bloody Ustasha feast left
82 charred bodies.
On August 28, at the spring of the Tremosnica rivulet on
mountain Crni Vrh, the Ustasha found the refuge of the people
from the village of Katanici killing all of the 72 people they
found in it. They made a big fire on top of their dead bodies.
The Katanici village was made extinct forever. Not a single
household was ever restored.
On that same day, the Ustasha killed 23 people in Vukovsko, burning the village of Blagaj down to the ground.
On November 2,1942, the Ustasha from Gornji Vakuf,
Ivice, Planinice, Skrta and Kordici, broke into the hamlet of
Bucevaca belonging to the village of Vukovsko, killing 62 peo
ple there.
Ample evidence of the consequences of the Ustasha geno
cide in the above mentioned regions is provided also by the
data based on the 1991 census, showing that the greatest num
ber of Serbian households on the Kupres plateau consisted of 2 3 members of rather old age.

BOSNIAN KRAJINA

n the region of the Bosnian Krajina the number of

victims of the Ustasha genocide established so far
77.200 amounts to 77,200. Considering the people who were
.
killed in unknown places, and the families which were
,
completely
, ,exterminated with no one left to give any informa
tion about them, one can claim with certainly that the above

. , , - number of victims is not accurate. The final number will prob
ably never be established.
.

, :
, , , .
: , , , , ,
.
19. 1941.
(2 ).
. 0
, ,
.
.
. ,
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. , .
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46 14.450 .

28. 1941. .
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.
30. , ,
: ,

. 1.200 ,
. 8. 11.
180 .
1941.
800 , 268
.

: ,

THE ADMINISTRATIVE DISTRICT OF BIHAC

Massive killing of the Serbs in the Administrative District

of Bihac started early. Contributing to such circumstances was
the fact that certain notorious Ustasha found themselves in that
area, namely: Ljubomir Kvatemik in the office of Veliki zupan,
the notorious Maks Luburic, Major Stjepan Vindakijevic, En
ver Kapetanovic, and many others. First of all, they liquidated
all the more prominent Serbs: the president of the court, the secondary-school headmaster, teachers, lawyers, physicians, promi
nent merchants, etc.
From July 19, 1941 they started delivering hundreds of
Serbs to Kapetanova kula and killing them at the places of exe
cution of Garvica and Ugljevite bare (2 km. from Kula). Many
of them were plunged into the abyss called Delica jama. An al
most unbelievable story about the atrocities committed by the
Ustasha, was noted down by Mirko Turic, who was tried sum
marily on that occasion but miraculously survived. "They
rubbed some sort of a liquid onto the beard and moustache of
Priest Ilija Tintor. One of the Ustasha lit a match and set his
beard on fire. When the flame went out, the priests face was re
vealed looking dreadful, black, roasted... The priest was silent.
He neither moaned, nor moved. He was petrified like the
sphinx, like a wonder of nature. One of the Ustasha grabbed his
bayonet and poked out the priests eye saying: Ill leave you the
other one so you a n see where your grave will be. The priest
continued to stand motionless, as if it concerned someone else
and not himself."
The number of victims of the Ustasha genocide committed
in 46 places of execution in the Administrative District of Bihac,
who have been documented up to date is 14,450.
THE ADMINISTRATIVE DISTRICT OF KRUPA

Massive arrests and assassinations of the Serbs in the area

of Krupa started on July 28,1941. The majority of the Serbs
were imprisoned in the district prison, the gymnasium, and the
Orthodox church. Ajsa Suljic, a Moslem, witnessed: "They
slaughtered the Serbs by having one of the Ustasha hit the vic
tim from the back with a bayonet and when the victim fell
down, the other Ustasha would cut off his head with a butchers
knife." A number of Serbs were transported by the Ustasha to
the lake ailed Cmo Jezero and slain there. For days the bodies
of the victims floated down the River Una but no one dared to
take them out.
Starting on July 30, in just a few more days, the Ustasha
committed a slaughter in the villages of the Buzim area:
Zbariste, Stabandza and Dobro Selo, which was so wanton that
these villages never managed to recover from that. Twelve hun
dred men, women, and children were slain on that occasion. Be
tween August 8 and August 11, the Ustasha slaughtered 180
Serbs in the village of Drenova Glava. The Serbian villages of
Zojluk and Pistalina lost 800 women and children in July and
August, 1941, with 268 adult men driven off to Macin do near
Cazin and killed there.
Dr. Marin B uan, the then Head of the Administrative Dis
trict in Dvor na Uni, stated after the war: "I have personally
seen about 60 children aged several months to 2-3 years, all

- , 60 2-3 ,
.
34 , ,
, 5.198 .

2. 1941. .
, ,

.
, , , ,
, .

41 .
, , 60 99-
. ,
, .

, . , , 300
.
1941.
40, 460 .

4.600 .
, 1942.
,
1941. 8.300
.
33
12.000 , .

27.
1941. .
. XIII ,
. ,
4. ,
: !
.

.

16. 1941. :
2. 3.
.
800 .
, 3.000
.

4.326 , 36
.

1941. . ,
, 350
.

slain with a knife or killed by being clubbed on the head, lying

on the way between the municipality of Zirovac and the neigh
bouring Administrative District of Bosanska Krupa."
Thirty four places of execution have been documented in
the region of Krupa with evidence of about 5,198 victims of the
Ustasha genocide.
THE ADMINISTRATIVE DISTRICT OF CAZIN

The genocide of the Serbs from the Cazin region started on

August 2,1941. It is difficult to describe the sadism that Himzo
Hadzic and Ale Omanovic displayed together with their com
pany in an uninterrupted nine-hour-long killing of the Serbs in
Macin do. The victims were tortured with knives, mallets, rods,
shovels, pitchforks, and all sorts of other things, to be finally
plunged from a cliff into an abyss.
Khoja Becir Baric broke into the village of Majostra to
gether with his fellow-murderers, slaying 41 adult Serbs. Several
days later, he broke into that village again, driving off 60
women and 99 children to the neighbouring woods where he
slaughtered them. In the village of Zoralici, the same khoja ac
companied by his murderers shut 10 women and children in the
house of Ilija Trbojevic and burnt them all together.
The pogrom of the Serbs from Velika Kladusa, escalated
particularly after the arrival in that region of the Ustasha chiefs
Vidakovic and Vitorio Baljak, called Ventura. Immediately af
ter their arrival, acting together with their cut-throats they
killed about 300 Serbs from Vmograca and the surroundings.
The Ustasha reports for August and September 1941 cite that
the least number of Serbs they killed per day was 40, with the
highest being 460.
In those two months, there were 4,600 Serbs killed in the
region of Velika Kladusa alone.
The Partisans who came to that region in December 1942,
were told by the Moslems that in late 1941, the Ustasha had
brought there 8300 Serbs from another place who had been
converted to Catholicism, and had killed them all.
At 33 places of execution in the area of the Administrative
District of Cazin, the Ustasha killed 12,000 Serbs, the number
that has been documented up to date.
THE ADMINISTRATIVE DISTRICT OF SANSKI MOST

A larger number of murders of the Serbs in this administra

tive district started on July 27,1941. The Ustasha were joined in
that action by "armed citizens". Surpassing the others in the
murder was the so called "13th Zagreb Company", known as the
"executioner company". In order to establish "order" in that
part of the Independent State of Croatia, on August 4, they
gathered the inhabitants of Sanski Most and the surrounding ar
eas in a field called Alagica polje and ordered the town crier
Milo Krunic to announce the following: "Hear ye! From today
on, the Serbs cannot be killed by just anyone. From today on,
the Serbs a n be killed only by the members of the mighty Ger
man Reich and the armed forces of the Independent State of
Croatia."
Head of the Administrative District of Sanski Most, lawyer
Ivica Simeon, reported on August 16,1941: "In the night be
tween August 2 and 3, the Ustasha killed the hostages that I had
ordered to be imprisoned at the beginning of the rebellion.
Eight hundred hostages are thought to be killed. The total num
ber of the killed has not been established, but it is, nevertheless,
thought that 3,000 people have been killed."
In the Administrative District of Sana, the number of vic
tims of the Ustasha genocide documented up to date is 4326.
Tbey were killed at 36 different places of execution.
THE ADMINISTRATIVE DISTRICT OF KUUC

The Ustasha killing of the Serbs from this region was in full
swing in late July and early August 1941. At that time, the Us
tasha shut 350 Serbs from Gornja Sania and the surrounding

 ,
.
, 85
, .
, 2. , 50
.

66 , 30. .
31. 1.
542
. .
, 2. ,
50 . 1941.
5.
, 105 ,
.
12 .

1941. ,
, , , a 190
. 30. 2. 902 .
27
, , 1.660 .

26.
10 . 29. 31.

.
. .
-
. , ,
66 , 159,
39, 84, 37, 35,
-- 42.
- 597 ,
, 37 ..

, 1941. - 950
(, ).
1941-1945.
22
3.790 .

.

22. 1941.
, ,
. 2.
,
, .
, .
70 . . .
,
.
. ,

logging sites, in the warehouse of the railway station. A part of

them were killed in Sanski Most and another part transported to
Jasenovac. During the funeral of Dusan Sabljic, the Ustasha sur
rounded the village and the graveyard, and arrested 85 inhabi
tants from Bravsko and the neighbourhood, shutting them in a
stable where they burnt them alive. Fifty Serbs from the village
of Pistanica were killed on the railway bridge in Vrhpolje, on
August 2.
Sixty-six Serbs from Ribnik and the surrounding areas were
arrested on July 28. They were deported to Kljuc where they
were all killed on July 30. The Ustasha killed 542 people in the
night between July 31 and August 1 in the elementary school in
Kljuc and in the brook near the forestry administration. Most of
the victims were from Kopjenica. On the day of the Orthodox
feast, St.Elias Day, August 2, the Ustasha killed 50 Serbs in
Sklop by the River Sana. In mid-September 1941, a platoon of
the 5th Ustasha Assault Battalion broke into the village of
Bravsko capturing 105 men, women, and children and burning
them all in the house of Glisa Raca. That day, the flames de
voured 12 members of the family of unhappy Glisa.
The September 1941 report of the headquarters of the
Vrbas Division area states that the villages of Jasenovac, Bunari, Bravsko, Donje Polje and Glavica had been burnt with 190
people killed and burnt. From July 30 till August 2, the Ustasha
killed 902 people of Serbian nationality in the area of the Ad
ministrative District of Kljuc.
According to the data gathered up to date, in the genocide
the Ustasha committed in the Administrative District of Kljuc
during the war, they killed a total of 1,660 people at 27 different
places of execution.
THE

ADMINISTRATIVE

DISTRICT

OF

BOSANSKI

PETROVAC

The slaughter of the Serbs in that administrative district

started on July 26 with the murder of 10 local residents of the
village of Kolunic. Between July 29 and 31, the Ustasha packed
the elementary school in Petrovac with people from the sur
rounding villages. They were all killed by machine-gun bursts.
After the massacre, the Ustasha set the school on fire.
In the area of Kulen Vakuf many villages endured great
suffering. The Ustasha killed 66 people from Strbac, Kestenovac, Rusevic, and Seoce, 159 from Kalata, 39 from Gece and
Palucak, 84 from Rajinovci, 37 from Ostrvica, 35 from Orasac,
and 42 from Kulen Vakuf. In that slaughter in the Kulen Vakuf
office area the Ustasha killed a total of 597 men, women, and
children, while 37 were driven off to Bihac and killed there.
According to the data that a group of Moslems from Banja
Luka gathered and sent to the Moslem ministers in Pavelics
government, by mid-September 1941, the Ustasha had killed 950
Serbs in the area of Kulen Vakuf and the surrounding areas
(men, women, and children).
By committing genocide in the area of the Administrative
District of Bosanski Petrovac in the period 1941-1945, the Us
tasha killed a total of 3,790 people of Serbian nationality at 22
places of execution. This number does not include the victim
from the Risovaca and Boricevac pits.
THE ADMINISTRATIVE DISTRICT OF BOSANSKI NOVI

The slaughter of the Serbs in that district started on July 22,

1941, after the arrival of the Ustasha headed by Cerovski, the
Ustasha Head of the Police in Zagreb. It was on August 2, after
the arrival in Bosanski Novi of a train full of Home Guardsmen,
as support for Cerovskis Ustasha, that the real hunt for the
Serbs began. The first villages to suffer were Suhaca, Blagaj,
and Vidorije. About 70 Serbs were arrested. They were driven
off to the village of Rudice and shot there. A new wave of ar
rests followed. The arrested Serbs from Novi were taken to the
football ground from which place they were driven off in groups.
The first group was taken to the Crkvine quarry right away and

250, , 2.
. 380
. , 300 , .
, ,

862 -.
200 .
, , .
- 146.
159 .
- , 1941. ,
:
, ,

, ,
. ()
, , 1.800 ,
900 , 2
.
, 21.
1941. ,
, 6 7
14 .
.
17
3.495
, .

27.
1941. .
. 413 . .
,
530.
7.
1941. .
200 . , 165 ,
.
25 .
, ,
> , 3. 10.
1941. , 1.681 : 806
, 286 589- . 1.709
3.849 .
. ,
, 83 ,
76,
60, 44,
40, 7.
44 , 21
.
.
17 , 29, ,
29 .

killed there. The next bigger group, 250 of them., were killed on
the day of the big Orthodox feast, St.Elias Day, August 2. The
following day, August 3, a group of 380 Serbs were slaughtered
in the vicinity of the football ground. The fourth group, some
300 Serbs, were slaughtered on the bridge and plunged into the
river.
The letter of the Moslems from Banjaluka addressed to the
Moslem ministers in Pavelics government cites that the Us
tasha had slaughtered and killed 862 Christians - Serbs - in
Bosanska and Hrvatska Kostajnica, in just one day. In Dobrljak,
the Ustasha slaughtered and killed 200 Serbs in an atrocious
way. After the massacres, they raped underage girls, young girls
and women, only to slay them after their orgy. In the village of
Blagaj, all Ihe male Serbs -146 of them, were slain. In the village
of Ravnice, they killed 159 men.
Doctor Marin Bucan - a Croat, who was the head of the
Administrative District of Dvor na Uni in 1941, stated after the
war: 'M y clerk told me that he had seen with his own eyes that,
when they were slaughtering certain Serbs in Bosanski Novi, an
elderly Serb took out a watch from his pocket and gave it to the
Ustasha who did the slaying, asking him to slay him as soon as
possible. On that same occasion a young man came to me (to
Bucan) asking to see the head of the Administrative District of
Bosanski Novi, to get a payment of 1,800 dinars, because he had
killed about 900 people, and the reward he asked was 2 dinars
for each slaughtered man."
According to the notes taken by Vojislav Kecmanovic Djedo, in addition to several adult males slaughtered in the vil
lage of Citluk on August 21, there were also six women and
young girls and 7 children up to 14 years of age slain there. A
majority of them were slaughtered by Dr. Branko Stipancic, a
Croat, and his 14-year-old son.
In the region of the Administrative District of Bosanski
Novi, at 17 major places of execution there were 3,495 Serbs
killed in the direct Ustasha genocide, who have been docu
mented up to date.
THE ADMINISTRATIVE DISTRICT OF JAJCE

The first massive slaughter of the Serbs in the Administra

tive District of Jajce took place on July 27,1941. On that day
many peasants went down to Sipovo and Jezero to sell their cat
tle. The Ustasha used that opportunity to arrest 413 peasants in
Sipovo. They drove them off to Sipovacke bare and slaughtered
all of them. Later, another group was brought there, raising the
final number of victims at that place of execution to 530.
The first slaughter of the Serbs in Jajce was committed on
September 7,1941. Several days before that, the Ustasha ar
rested about 200 Serbs living in the surrounding village, assign
ing them to makeshift prisons in Jajce. The first group
numbering 165 Serbs was assassinated under the railway bridge
on the banks of the Vrbas. The others were slaughtered and
plunged down the 25 metres high Pliva waterfall.
From September 3 till 10,1941, having launched an offen
sive against Janj and Pljev which were free, the Ustasha and the
Home Guardsmen acting together with the Germans cruelly
killed 1,681 people in that area, namely: 806 adult men, 286
women, and 589 children. They burnt 1,709 houses and 3,849 an
cillary buildings. A large number of local residents were burnt in
their houses. In the village of Greda, in the shed belonging to
Luka llic, they burnt 83 people, in the hamlet of Kicevsko Brdo
in an old enclosed porch of a Turkish style house, 76 people, in
Nikola Milicics shed in Podosojci 60, in Zatos shed in Prosjek
44, in Donji Mujdzici 40, in Babici in the stable of Marko Plavsic
7. Among the 44 people burnt in Prosjek, 21 of them belonged
to the family of Mihajlo Cata. Two of his children who had not
been burnt were plunged by the Ustasha into a well. In the fam
ily of Milo Stupar from Krcevo there were 17 members killed,
and in the families of Spiro and Ilija Jandric 29, while the num-

 31 ,
5.400 .

1941.
700 . ,
300 .

, , , , .
. ,
.
, , 1.
400 . ,
, 2.
.
487 .
15
2.682 , .

, 31. 1941,
350 , .
,
73 10 15 .
,
.
54 .
12 , a 65 .
, - , ,
50 , .

.
.

, ,
.
.
27
1.383 .

crape , 1941.
, ,
94,35% ,
.

, . 1941.
250 . 1.111
.

1941. , -
, 170
, a 200 .
2. , 862 , a 107 . -

ber of persons killed in the families of Dusan, Toma, and Petar

Mitric was 29.
Thirty-one major places of execution have been docu
mented in the Jajce Administrative District with 5,400 victims of
the Ustasha genocide recorded up to date.
THE ADMINISTRATIVE DISTRICT OF PRIJEDOR

In the first days of August 1941, Kvatemiks Ustasha

Guard and the Mobile Police Company killed 700 people of
Serbian nationality in Prijedor and its neighbourhood. Immedi
ately after that slaughter, 300 people were killed in the villages
of Omarska and Piskavica.
The Serbs from Piskavica who were killed on that occasion,
had been boarded onto railway wagons after their arrest, alleg
edly to be transported to Serbia. The naive Serbs believed that
Ustasha story. The Ustasha disconnected the railway wagons
from the rest of the train and drove them away from the station
where they killed all the arrested Serbs.
In Urije, near Prijedor, the Ustasha killed 400 Serbs on Au
gust 1. All the inhabitants of the hamlet of Tomasi which is part
of the village of Miska Glava near Ljubija, were slaughtered on
August 2. In the place called Zajednica the Ustasha killed 487
people from Potkozarje.
In the area of the Administrative District of Prijedor, the
Ustasha killed 2,682 people at 15 major places of execution, ac
cording to the data gathered up to date.
THE ADMINISTRATIVE DISTRICT OF GLAMOC

On July 31,1941, in the Ustasha breakthrough towards

Glamoc, via Koricna and Tisovac, 350 men, women, and chil
dren were killed in the most atrocious way. In the villages of
Han Vrbina and Rudine, the Ustasha stayed only for an hour,
but they left 73 dead bodies behind, each with 10-15 stabs of a
knife. In the village of Podgradina, they slew all the Serbs they
had caught, because they had received orders to spare their am
munition. Fifty-four people were killed in that massacre. Imme
diately after arriving in Glamoc, the Ustasha killed 12 Serbs
while 65 of them were plunged down into the Koricna pit.
After entering the village of Prijani in their advance from
Mrkonjic Grad towards Glamoc, a rather strong Ustasha group
arrested 50 elders, women and children. They shut them in the
house of Nikola Nikic and opened fire on them through the win
dows and the door. Before leaving, they also threw several
bombs on that lifeless mass.
On September 13, the Ustasha killed all the inhabitants of
the village of Debeljak they found in a meadow, regardless of
their sex and age.
The greatest number of the Ustasha cut-throats who raged
through that region were from Western Herzegovina.
Twenty-seven places of execution with 1,383 victims have
been recorded up to date in Glamoc and the surrounding areas.
THE ADMINISTRATIVE DISTRICT OF BOSANSKO
GRAHOVO

After the breakdown of the old Yugoslavia until the end of

1941, the Serbs living in the Administrative District of Bosansko
Grahovo, accounting for 94.35% of the total number of the
population, had organized themselves and had thus provided for
their protection from the Ustasha genocide. The reason for that
lies in the fact that they had used the breakdown of Yugoslavia
to become well armed, and, by the end of July, they had even
cleansed the whole area of that administrative district of the Us
tasha. During the course of 1941, only 250 Serbs were killed.
The others, up to a number of 1,111, were killed during the war
in the periods when the Ustasha managed to assume control of
that region.

 : , , ,
, , , , ,
, , .

1941-1945. 7.248 ,
.

1941. ( )
.
25
. 200
. , .
9.920
.
-

.
-, ,
250 .

.
1941.
553 .
153 , 15 .

1941.
59 .
. 17.
1941. , 500
.
,
( )
2.635 .

1941.
1942.
.
21 , 18,
8. ,
160, . ,
,
.
.

THE ADMINISTRATIVE DISTRICT

OF BOSANSKA GRADISKA

In late November 1941, the Ustasha killed 170 people in

the Ustasha-German attack on Kozara, in the area of the village
of Jablanice, and took 200 boys and girls away to Dubica. Ac
cording to the report of the commander of the 2nd Home
Guardsmen Corps, 862 people were killed and 107 arrested. The
villages which endured particular suffering then were: Gomjii
Jelovac, Medjuvodje, Koturovi, Maglajci, Bjelajci, Vojskova,
Kadin Jelovac, Gunjevac, Sovjak, Gasnica, Bijakovac, and Jabianica.
According to the data gathered up to date, 7,248 people of
Serbian nationality were killed in the area of the Administra
tive District of Bosanska Gradiska in the period 1941-1945.
THE ADMINISTRATIVE DISTRICT OF BOSANSKA DUBICA

The June 1941 massacre of the Serbs committed in the Or

thodox church in Hrvatska Dubica will be particularly remem
bered in the area of that administrative district. Serbs from
Bosanska Dubica (an unidentified number of them) were taken
into the church by the Ustasha and killed with axes. They ar
rested 25 Serbs in Novoseld, killing them on the way to town.
During those days they arrested 200 Serbian peasants in the
surrounding areas of Dubica. At night they took them to the
bridge on the Una, slaughtered them and threw them down into
the river.
The number of victims of the Ustasha genocide in the area
of that administrative district recorded up to date is 9,920 peo
ple.
THE ADMINISTRATIVE DISTRICT OF MRKONJIC-GRAD

The horrifying slaughter of the Serbs in that region was in

full swing after the arrival of the Herzegovian Ustasha battalion
under the command of the Ustasha Colonel Narcis Jesenski, as
well as the battalion of the Ustasha Commander Ivan Herencic.
In the hospital of Mrkonjic Grad which the Ustasha had turned
into a prison, these miscreants killed 250 Serbs in one go. Wit
nesses say that certain victims had their heads cut off with
butchers knives and then impaled on poles.
In the period from April to September 1941, the Ustasha
killed 553 people in the area of that administrative district.
Among the victims were also 153 children, 15 of whom were not
even a year old.
THE ADMINISTRATIVE DISTRICT OF BANJALUKA

At the beginning of May, 1941, the Ustasha killed Bishop

Platon in Banja Luka and another 59 prominent Serbs. In July
they moved almost all the Serbs out of the town. According to
the report made by the commander of the Sana Brigade, the Us
tasha General Rumler on August 17,1941, there were approxi
mately 500 Serbs killed in that region.
According to the data gathered up to date, 2,635 people of
Serbian nationality were killed in the Ustasha genocide in the
area of the Administrative District of Banja Luka (the part in
cluding the territory west of the River Vrbas).

MAJOR CRIMES AFTER

1941
On January 15, 1942, the Ustasha broke into the Serbian
village of Draksenic near Bosanska Dubica killing almost all of
its inhabitants. In the house of Rade Grbavac, they killed 21
members of the family, in the house of Nikola Grbavac 18, and
in the shop of Marjan Toroman 8. The remaining inhabitants,
160 of them were killed in the village church. That horrifying
slaughter that only three women and a girl survived, was carried
out under the command of the notorious Max Luburic. After
the slaughter the village was plundered and burnt down.

 .

.
1942.
, -,
.
46 ,
.
,
7. 1942.
,
1.180 ,
.
,
1940. . : ... ,
, , , , , : ',

. ,
.'
,
.

( ) 68.600 . 12
.
.
1.600 , 800,
700 .
9.
1942. , 23.858
, 12.000 . , .
1942.
468, 1.124.
1941. 1945.
11.202 - 6.348 4.854 ,
6,7 : 17,
- 1.129; 1 957; 2 1.000;
3 960; 4 807; 5 723; 6
685; 7 558; 8 444; 9
587; 10 384; 11 806; 12 570;
13 821; 14 754.

1943.
1.699 , , 6.348. ,
.

.
( ) - 1941. 55.000 .
3. 1941. .

The people who came after the massacre to collect their

dead and bury them found a dreadful scene. The floor and the
walls of the church had so many human brains spilt over them
that these people buried them in a separate grave.
In early February 1942, the Ustasha broke into the village
of Piskavica, situated next to the Banjaluka-Prijedor railway,
killing all the Serbian inhabitants they captured. The Milosevic
families alone suffered a toll of 46 men, women, and children.
Eleven hundred and eighty men, women, and children
were killed in the most monstrous way in the Ustasha campaign
against the villages of Drakulic, Motike and Sarganovac carried
out on February 7,1942, and spearheaded by the monster, Friar
Miroslav Filipovic - Majstorovic. Teacher Milka Hadzistevic
noted down that the first victim was a girl called Vasilija Glamocanin, born in 1940. The note reads:"... While Friar Majstorovic
held a knife under her throat, twisting her head backward with
his other hand so her throat would be stretched better, and
pressing her little belly with his knees so she would not wiggle,
that satan in a friars disguise addressed his brotherhood, saying:
Ustasha, I am doing this in the name of God in order to baptize
these degenerates and you follow suit. I shall be the first to ac
cept all the sins upon my soul, and 1 shall confess you and ab
solve you from all your sins." In this massacre not a single shot
was fired. A hundred and fifty families were exterminated for
ever.
In the summer offensive against the free territory in the
area of Kozara, the Croatian Ustasha and the Germans cap
tured (according to their own reports) 68,600 people. They ass
igned them to 12 nearby concentration camps. Massive
executions of these prisoners started immediately. Sixteen hun
dred people were executed at the Bosanske Dubice graveyard,
800 near the sawmill and 700 at the Cerovljani railway station.
According to the report of the Ustasha envoy made on Au
gust 9,1942, there were 23,858 children in those concentration
camps, 12.000 of whom were from Kozara. Because of the ex
tremely difficult conditions in these concentration camps,
masses of the children died. In the last two months of 1942
alone, 468 children died in Jastrebarsko and 1,124 in the Caprag
childrens concentration camp near Sisak.
From 1941 till 1945, eleven thousand two hundred and two
children from Kozara were killed in the Ustasha atrocities 6,348 boys and 4,854 girls, their average age being 6.7 years: 17
of them had not yet been baptized; 1,129 were up to twelve
months old; 957 were 1 year old; 1.000 were 2 years old; 960
were 3 years old; 807 were 4 years old; 723 were 5 years old; 685
were aged 6; 558 were aged 7; 444 were aged 8; 587 were aged 9;
384 were aged 10; 806 were aged 11; 570 were aged 12; 821 were
aged 13; 754 were aged 14.
In the onslaught of the Ustasha and the Germans on the
Bosnian Krajina in the period January - April 1943, in the Sana
Administrative District, the Ustasha killed 1,699 men, women
and children, and in the area of Mountain Grmec, 6348 people.
They were mostly refugees who had fled to that mountain seek
ing shelter.
Dreadful crimes committed against the Serbs are substanti
ated by the reports of the occupation forces.
A German report ("The Beginning of the Rebellion in
Croatia") cites that 55,000 Serbs were killed in the period April
- August 1941 in the area of the Bosnian Krajina. A similar fig
ure is cited in the report issued by The Second Italian Army,
dated September 3,1941.

1,

LIKA, KORDUN AND BANIJA

LIKA

. 10.
10. 1941.
,
. .
.
,
, .
32
.
> 1

16.554 .
1.325, 72%
,
.

.
10. 27.
1941. 932 ,
24. : ,
508 , 124, 166,
24, 51 .
.
.
56 20 .
,
. To , ,
.
.
1. 1941.
161 : 70 15 ,
39 , 7 , 6 39
20 . ,
3. 1.
, : .
. 2. 3. .
,
. ,
.
, : , .
83 , 37 .
,
. :
- 750 ,
124, 864 .
, ,
1.388 , 20 . 1.368
, 1.206

he Ustasha genocide crimes in the area of Lika

were premeditated and directed from the Head
Office of the Bihac Ustasha District. The period
from April 10 till June 10,1941, was used by the
Ustasha to rally, arm themselves and to work out a plan of de
struction of the Serbs from that region. Arrests and killings
started concurrently with that action. In the beginning they did
it at night and stealthily. That was followed by pogroms of
groups of approximately fifty people, after which - in the month
of June - the Ustasha shifted to large-scale arrests and killing,
which, judged by the extent of the action and its unscrupulous
ness, took on the characteristics of unconcealed genocide.
The greatest number of victims from Lika ended up in the
32 pits uncovered in that area so far.

THE ADMINISTRATIVE DISTRICT OF DONJILAPAC

Up to the beginning of World War II, there were 16,554

Serbs living in the territory of the Administrative District of
Donji Lapac. The number of the Croats was 1,325 with 72% of
them living in the village of Boricevac which became the centre
of the Ustasha policy of genocide in the territory of the Admin
istrative District of Lapac. The village had only three Serbian
families and these were to be the first victims of the Ustasha
cut-throats in that region.
In the period from June 10 till July 27,1941, the Ustasha ar
rested 932 people from the territory of the Administrative Dis
trict of Donji Lapac, with only 24 of them surviving. The villages
which were to pay most dearly for belonging to the Serbian peo
ple were the following ones: Osredci, Suvaja and Bubalo with
508 victims, Nebljusi with 124, Meljinovac with 166, Misljenovac
with 24, Lapac with 51, etc. The suffering of the Serbs from the
village of Nebljusi is a story that should be singled out. They
were summoned by the Ustasha to get documents which were
supposed to enable them to move to Serbia without any hin
drance. Among the 56 people who came to the summons there
were 20 children. The Ustasha told them to take food for only
one day as they would get plenty of everything in the place
where they were going to. The "plenty of everything" was in the
pit called Bezdanka where they were plunged down to the last
one of them.
The Serbian village of Suvaja also had a tragic fate. On July
1,1941, the Ustasha killed and slaughtered 161 of its inhabitants
in an outrageously brutal way. The victims were 70 children up
to the age of 15, thirty-nine women, 7 girls, 6 young men, and 39
men over 20. The fact that the Serbian village of Osredci did not
have a better fate, either, can be illustrated by the report issued
by the commander of the 3rd Ustasha Company of the 1st Batallion, saying: "Today, I visited the village of Osredci Licki which
was burnt down. Bodies of dead people were lying all around.
A terrible smell spread from those killed on July 2 and 3. Dogs
and swine nibbled the corpses, and the Ustasha do not permit
their burial. Those who have fled from their homes are dying of
hunger there."
It was immediately after these villages that suffering befell
the following Serbian villages: Dobroseljski Bubanj, Sarci and
Radenkovid. The Ustasha killed and slaughtered 83 people
among whom were 37 children.
In that region there are several notorious pits into which
the Serbs from Lapac and other places were plunged. Among
them are Bezdanka - Boricevac with about 750 victims, Bezdan

 . 399 368
.

27.859 .
70% , 29% , 1%
. , 3.227 ,
2.994 , 92,77%, 221 ,
6,84%. 2.994 , 1.869,
62,42%.

. 48
.
, .
130 ,
.

.
, he
.
.
, ,
31. 1941. , he

. 8.
- 21. 7 6
. ,
.
31. .
80 , , a
13 .
, ,
. 11.
. 18
, .
29. 10 , .
, 2. ,
54 : 19 , 4 , 7 , 2
22 15 .

, , , , 6.217 ,
11,53% . 5.538,
90,63% . 3.753 . 0

1.407 . , 521,
, >279,
180, 176, 159, 83,
9 . 279
27 -1 7 10 .
- ,
.

.
341 . 6. 1941.
, 240 .

under Kuk with 124 victims, Delic jama near Zavalja with 864
victims and others.
The number of people killed as victims of the war in the
territory of the Administrative District of Donji Lapac, was alto
gether 1,388, of which 20 were Croats. Of the 1,368 Serbs killed,
1,206 were killed in the direct Ustasha genocide. Among them
were 399 children and 368 women.
THE ADMINISTRATIVE DISTRICT OF GRACAC

In the area of the Administrative District of Gracac there

were 27,859 inhabitants, immediately before the outbreak of the
war. The Serbs accounted for about 70%, the Croats for about
29%, while Gypsies and others accounted for 1%. The total
number of the people who were killed during the course of the
war was 3,227 with Serbs accounting for 2,994 or 92.77% of that
number and Croats for 221 or 6.84%. Of the total of 2,994 peo
ple of Serbian nationality killed, 1,869 of them or 62.42% were
victims of the direct Ustasha genocide.
The first Serbs to be killed were those who responded to
the Ustasha summons to go to work in Germany. Among them
were 48 men from the village of Tomin Gaj. They were all assas
sinated in the vicinity of the home of Toma Marcetic, where
they were covered over with earth. After the war 130 corpses
were exhumed from that hole, prompting one to believe that
they were not the only group that had been brought there to
"work".
The organization of the monstrous Ustasha crime in Stikada was greatly assisted by the then Parish Priest Mihovil Marber. He invited all the Serbian people from the surrounding
areas to come to Stikadske Bare where he would convert them
to Catholicism and thus provide them with complete safety. The
Serbs who had gathered there were surrounded by the Ustasha
from Gudure and killed to the last man.
The first to pay with their lives after the announcement
made by Pavelics first deputy and Minister of Education in the
Government of the Independent State of Croatia, Mile Budak
in St. Roko on May 31,1941, that he would exterminate all
the Serbs from the territory of the Independent State of Croatia,
were the inhabitants of the village of Roncevic. The Ustasha
broke into that village on June 8 and killed all of its inhabitants 21 of them. Among the victims were also 7 children and 6 old
people. After the village of Roncevic it was the turn of the vil
lages of Ploce, Kik, and Gnjatovici. The Ustasha settled their
score with the inhabitants of the village of Ploce on July 31. In
less than two hours in the afternoon, they killed 80 old people,
women, and children, taking away with them 13 adult males
only to plunge them down into a pit.
The Serbian village of Rasoja was three times the scene of
Ustasha pogroms all within a short period. On June 11, the Us
tasha surrounded the monastery of Gnjatovici. They arrested 18
adult males and executed them the next day. On July 29, the Us
tasha broke into the village killing 10 people, mostly the elderly
and children. On St.Elias Day, August 2, they gave free reign
to their thirst for blood by making their third incursion into that
village and killing 54 people: 19 women, 4 elders, 7 young girls, 2
young men and 22 children under the age of 15.
THE ADMINISTRATIVE DISTRICTS OF GOSPIC AND
PERUSIC

According to the data gathered up to date, the number of

the people from the territory of the above two administrative
districts who either died or were killed, assassinated or who lost
their lives in another way during the course of the war was 6,217
or 11.53% of the population. The total number of the Serbs
killed was 5,538 or 90.63% of all the victims. The Ustasha geno
cide wiped out 3,753 people. How monstrous the Ustasha
slaughters were can be seen from the records showing that 1,407
children were killed in the territory of the Administrative Dis-


4. 5. 1941. ,

.

, : !
! , 295
, . Heurro
.
53.
, , ,
. ,
, 17
. , , 2.218
, 1.007, a 59
.
1941. 14
. , ,
107 , .
,
74 .
.
.
. ,
40 , ,
, .

14 .
, , 43 ,
25 2,
1,5 . ,
.
.
, ,
(17. 1941. ) 400 .

,

7.530 . 7.402, 98,3%, a
128, 1,7%.
4.324 , 1.750 .
7.402 ,
.
,
.
, 1941.
. , ,
150 .
313 . (27.
1941. ) 1.000
, . ,
. 3.
100 , .

. .
.

trict of Gospic. The greatest number of them were killed in the

municipality of Gospic, followed by the municipalities of Kosinj
279, Smiljan 180, Medak 176, Licki Osik 159, Perusic 83, Pazariste 9, etc. Of the 279 children from the area of Kosinj 27 were
newly-born -17 boys and 10 girls. The child of Mile Repac from
Kosa, only a day old, was thrown into the fire by the Ustasha.
In the territory of the municipality of Kosinj, the village
that suffered most was Mlakva. Three hundred and forty-one of
its inhabitants were killed or slaughtered during the war. The
most dreadful day was August 6,1941, when the Ustasha killed,
slew, or burnt 240 people.
One of the most horrifying slaughters of the Serbian popu
lation took place in the night between August 4 and 5,1941,
when an Ustasha battalion of the Lika Brigade came to liquida
te a Serbian refuge in Kruskovace. At daybreak, after they had
opened up fierce rifle and machine-gun fire on the still sleeping
people in the refuge, one could hear the command: "Dont
shoot! Slaughter!" When everything was quiet again, the scene
revealed 295 lifeless bodies of men, women and children. A few
of the people from the refuge managed to escape towards Visocica and Velebit. The Ustasha gave chase to them managing to
catch 53 people. They took them to Alanak where they all
cnde'1their lives in a dreadful way, in the pit called Jardja jama.
Celebrating their success, the Ustasha stopped by at Divoselo
and burnt a large number of houses together with 17 people in
them. Of the 2,218 inhabitants who lived in that village before
the war, 1,007 were killed by the Ustasha while 59 families were
made extinct.
In mid-August 1941, the Ustasha killed 14 Serbs in the vil
lage of Pocuca. Soon after that they made another incursion into
that village but, on the way to it, they also made an incursion
into the village of Velika Cesta killing 107 men, women, and
children there.
Implementing the St. Vitus Day proclamation about the
second wave of extermination of the Serbs, the Ustasha killed
and slaughtered 74 members of the Borcic family in the village
of Duboka. It was at the same time that suffering befell the vil
lage of Uzelci in Janjacka Kosa. All the inhabitants of that vil
lage were thrown into the Pavkusa pit. No one from Uzelci
managed to survive. Forty inhabitants of the villages of Pejnovici, Staro Janjce and Novo Janjce - mostly the elderly,
women, and children, were caught by the Ustasha and killed
with poles in a gorge.
Fourteen pits into which the Serbs were thrown have been
uncovered in the area of Gospic and Perusic up to date. The
most notorious was Saranova jama near Jadovno, in which spe
leologists have discovered a layer of human bones 1.5 m deep ly
ing at a depth of 43 m and covering the bottom of about 25 m .
The pit called Kod Macole which was named after the wellknown Ustasha cut-throat Stipe Markovic - Macola, is no less
notorious. After Saranova jama this was the pit which devoured
the greatest number of Serbs. The pit called Sevic jama is re
membered, besides other pits that were used, for the fact that
400 Serbs were plunged into it in just one day (July 17,1941).
THE ADMINISTRATIVE DISTRICTS OF KORENICA AND
UDBINA

According to the data gathered up to date, 7,530 people

lost their lives in different ways during the war in the territory of
the above two administrative districts. Seventy-four hundred
and two or 98.3% of the people killed were Serbs, and 128 or
1.7% were Croats. The direct Ustasha genocide wiped away
4,324 lives while 1,750 people died of typhoid.
With 7,402 victims among them, the Serbs in that area lost
every fourth inhabitant during the war.
The greatest number of the victims ended up in pits and
particularly in those around Jadovno. Of the massive slaughters,

 .

- 335
, 151 .

.
41 , 40,
28, 26, 24, 16,
10, 89
, .

1944. , ,

. ,
, 17 , .
1944.
128 , 30 .
. tyhe . 52 .
12.
1944. (,
). , ,
.
,
.
, , ,
, neh
,
. 145 , .
, 19. 1945. ,
( ) 20
, .
. 27 .
,
475 .
.

2.076 , 10%
.

3. 1942.
( )
.

one should single out the slaughter committed in the last days of
July 1941, on Prijeboj. A hundred and fifty Serbs from the vil
lages of Korenica were slaughtered at that locality in only a few
days. At the same time, 313 men from Petrovo Selo and the
neighbourhood in Lika were killed in their prime. One thou
sand Serbs - mostly men - from the area of the two administra
tive districts had been killed by the beginning of the peoples
insurrection (July 27,1941). After that date, massive killings and
slaughter ensued under the pretence of a reprisal for the actions
of the insurgents. Acting 'in reprisal" they killed 100 men,
women, and children in Bunic, as early as August 3.
In the last days of July, they slew the inhabitants of the vil
lage of Komnic. The people had fled from their village before
that. Their neighbours, Croats, invited them to come back to be
reconciled with them. The Serbs believed them and ended up
under the Ustasha knives. The village which was to pay most
daerly for being of Serbian nationality was Josan - with 335 vic
tims among whom 151 were children.
A particular feature of these two administrative districts
was the great number of victims burnt alive: in Komoljac the
Ustasha burnt 41 people, in Kalebavac 40, in Svrackovo Selo 28,
in Bunic 26, in Mekinjar 24, in Josan 16, in Vrelo 10, while an
other 89 men, women, and children were burnt in other villages.
THE ADMINISTRATIVE DISTRICTS OF OTOCAC AND
BRINJE

It was just in 1944, when the end of the war was in sight,
that the Ustasha of the notorious Mesics Battalion forced a
bloody showdown with Serbian rebel villages. In Divjaci, in the
hamlet of the village of Skare, they slaughtered 17 women, chil
dren and elders. In early April 1944, in the village of Donji
Babin Potok, the Ustasha slaughtered 128 people while wound
ing 30 as they tried to escape. On June 19, they surrounded the
village of Brakusova Draga and drove all the people they had
caught into the house of Dragan Brakus. After piling up enough
straw around the house, they shut it up tightly and set it on fire.
Fifty two people found a dreadful death in the burning flames.
The Ustasha committed one of the greatest slaughters in
the hamlets of Vodoteca (Orlici, Bukvici, and Kosovci) on No
vember 12,1944. In Orlici, the only person to survive of all the
inhabitants there was Mika Orlic with her two daughters. After
Orlic, the Ustasha from Mesics battalion attacked Bukvici and
Kosovci. Sixty-four-year-old Trive Kosovac, the son of Jovan
from Vodoteca, who was killed in that carnage, had shut his two
little grandchildren in the stove just before the Ustasha arrived,
and so the only ones who survived of all the inhabitants of the
village were those two little children. That day, 145 men,
women, and children in Vodoteca were killed and slaughtered.
On Epiphany Day, January 19,1945, in Tuzevici (the ham
let of Bozanici), the Ustasha killed 20 people and burnt all the
houses. On February 20 the same year, they killed all the people
in Draskovica that they could catch. Most of the 27 people killed
were women and children. In the villages of Gomji Kraj, Turjanski and Babin Potok, they killed 475 people. Not a single
family was left without at least one member killed.
In the area of the above two administrative districts the
number of the people killed in the direct Ustasha genocide was
2,076 people or 10% of the total Serbian population.

KORDUN
"Hrvatski narod"- a newspaper of the Croatian Ustasha
movement-reported on the front page, on January 3,1942 (with
the picture of their Leader and his escort) that Ante Pavelic had
visited the units of the Independent State of Croatia that had
participated in the "cleansing" of the Serbian people from Kordun.

 ,
, ce
1941-1945. ,
, , , ,
, ,
32% .

THE ADMINISTRATIVE DISTRICT OF SLUNJ

Ha y 7.758 .
1.640 ,
19,4% . :

292
172
145
137
111

80%
47%
43%
68%
45%

1.447 , 26%
.
:

447
261
256
219
104

30%
30%
30%
27%
15%

962 , 22%
.
:

408
261
108
75

71%
49%
52%
17%

2.166 , 28,5%
.
:

575
304
194
134
103
93

64,5%
44%
48%
26%
26%
62%

617 , 7,5%
.
:

How the Ustasha cleansed the territory from the Serbs and
how diligently they adhered to their Leaders instructions can be
seen from the fact that in the period 1941-1945,32% of the en
tire Serbian population in Kordun were murdered, slaughtered,
killed, burnt, or died of hunger and cold, or were killed in other
ways.

226
135
99
59

20%
38,6%
58%
6,7%

926 , 19%
.
:

The number of people of Serbian nationality killed in the

direct Ustasha genocide in the area of the Administrative Dis
trict of Slunj was 7,758.
Of that number 1,640 people or 19.4% of the total Serbian
population were killed in the municipality of Cetingrad. The fol
lowing settlements are prominent because of the number of
their victims:
Maljevac
80%
292
Buhaca
172
47%
Rusevica
145
43%
Begovo Brdo
137
68%
Delic Poljana
111
45%
The number of people killed in the municipality of
Primislje was 1,447 or 26% of the whole Serbian population.
The following settlements are prominent because of the number
of their victims:
30%
Gornje Primislje
447
Trzic Pounjski
261
30%
Tobolic
256
30%
219
Zbeg
27%
104
15%
Donje Primislje
The number of people killed in the municipality of
Dreznik was 962 or 22% of the whole Serbian population. The
following settlements are prominent because of the number of
their victims:
408
71%
Sadilovac
49%
261
Grabovac
Irinovac
108
52%
17%
Lipovaca
75
The number of people killed in the municipality of Rakovica was 2,166 or 28.5% of the whole Serbian population. The
following settlements are prominent because of the number of
their victims:
64.5%
Kordunski Ljeskovac
575
44%
Nova Krslja
304
48%
Masvina
194
134
26%
Brocanac
26%
Brezovac
103
93
62%
Jamarje
The number of people killed in the municipality of Slunj
was 617 or 7.5% of the whole Serbian population. The following
settlements are prominent because of the number of their vic
tims:
226
20%
Furjan
135
38.6%
Slusnica
99
. 58%
Miljevac
59
6.7%
Slunj
The number of people killed in the municipality of Veljun
was 926 or 19% of the whole Serbian population. The following
settlements are prominent because of the number of their vic
tims:


Choc

188
110
87
62

30,5%
35%
30,5%
16%

926 530 .

Veljun
Snos
Lapovac
Stojmeric

188
110
87
62

30.5%
35%
30.5%
16%

Of the 926 victims in the territory of this administrative dis

trict, 530 were driven off to the village of Hrvatsld Blagaj and
killed there.

THE ADMINISTRATIVE DISTRICT OF VRGINMOST

8.778 .
877 ,
22,6% . :

177
166
147
130

22%
27%
20%
24%

1.450 , 39%
.
:

428
286
246
208
194

35%
42%
22%
64%
53%

1.741 , 22%
.
:

516
49,5%

431
80,5%

245
18%

157
76%

125
21%

82
9%
2.962 , 27,43%
.
:

582
55%

492
46%

487
56%

305
32,5%

254
43,5%

133
15%
1.748 , 23%
.
:

341
24%

324
24%

293
24%

224
27%

162
25,5%

120
13%

The number of people of Serbian nationality killed in the

direct Ustasha genocide in the area of the Administrative Dis
trict of Vrginmost was 8,778.
Of that number 877 people or 22.6% of the whole Serbian
population were killed in the municipality of Bovic. The settle
ments with the greatest number of victims were the following:
Kirin
177
22%
Tolinja
166
27%
Cremusnica
147
20%
Bovic
130
24%
The number of people killed in the municipality of Cemernica was 1,450 or 39% of the whole Serbian population. The
settlements with the greatest number of victims were the follow
ing:
Blatusa
428
35%
286
Gornja Cemernica
42%
Donja Cemernica
246
22%
Batinova Kosa
208
64%
Cemernicka Bukovica
194
53%
The number of people killed in the municipality of Lasinja
was 1,741 or 22% of the whole Serbian population. The settle
ments with the greatest number of victims were the following:
Lasinjsko Dugo Selo
516
49.5%
Prkos
431
80.5%
18%
Lasinjacki Sjenicak
245
157
76%
Trepca
Stipan
125
21%
Lasinja
82
9%
The number of people killed in the municipality of
Topusko was 2,962 or 27.43% of the whole Serbian population.
The settlements with the greatest number of victims were the
following:
Staro Selo
582
55%
Pema
492
46%
Katinovac
487
56%
Cmi Potok
305
32.5%
Pecka
254
43.5%
Ponikvari
133
15%
The number of people killed in the municipality of Vrgin
most was 1,748 or 23% of the whole Serbian population. The vil
lages with the greatest number of victims were the following:
Slavsko Polje
Gornji Sjenicak
Pjescanica
Donji Sjenicak
Podgorje
Ostrozin

341
324
293
224
162
120

24%
24%
24%
27%
25.5%
13%

THE ADMINISTRATIVE DISTRICT OF VOJNIC

5.527 .
200 ,
3,3% . :

26
14%

23
15%

20
16%
1.930 , 35,3%
.
:

265
62%

223
67,5%

161
43,3%

141
40,5%

133
24%

111
60%
583 , 15%
.
:

98
17%

75
27,5%

39
14,7%

34
17,5%

21,5%
33

30
16,5%
296 , 12%
.
:

54
23,6%

48
33,5%

25
16%

21
32%
241 , 16,8%
.
:

85
15%

72
19%

61
15%
1.631 , 30,7%
.
:

359
38%

288
46,6%

95
51%

79
69%
646 , 14,18%
.
:

84
67
61
50

28%
17%
19%
10%

The number of people killed in the area of the Administra

tive District ofVojnic was 5,527 people of Serbian nationality.
Of that number 200 people or 3.3% of the whole Serbian
population were killed in the municipality of Barilovic. The set
tlements with the greatest number of victims were the following:
Koranski Breg
26
14%
Kosijersko
23
15%
Veliki Kozinac
20
16%
The number of people killed in the municipality of Krstinja
was 1,930 or 353% of the whole Serbian population. The settle
ments with the greatest number of victims were the following:
Svinjica
265
62%
Gojkovac
223
67.5%
Donja Brusovaca
161
43.3%
Siroka Rijeka
141
40.5%
Klokoc
133
24%
Jagrovac
111
60%
The number of people killed in the municipality of Krnjak
was 583 or 15% of the whole Serbian population. The settle
ments with the greatest number of victims were the following:
Budacka Rijeka
98
17%
Donji Budacki
75
27.5%
Donji Skrad
39
14.7%
Dugi Dol
34
17.5%
Mlakovac
33
21.5%
Brebarica
30
16.5%
The number of people killed in the municipality of Perjasica was 296 or 12% of the whole Serbian population. The set
tlements with the greatest number of victims were the following:
Perjasica
54
23.6%
Ponorac
48
33.5%
Perjasicki Tocak
25
16%
Mreznica Selo
21
32%
The number of people killed in the municipality of
Tusilovic was 241 or 16.8% of the whole Serbian population.
The settlements with the greatest number of victims were the
following:
Tusilovicki Cerovac
85
15%
19%
BrezovaGlava
72
Tusilovic
61
15%
The number of people killed in the municipality of Vojnic
was 1,631 or 30.7% of the whole Serbian population. The villaes
with the greatest number of victims were the following:
Kupljensko
Vojisnica
Kljucar
Radmanovac

359
288
95
79

38%
46.6%
51%
69%

The number of people killed in the municipality of Vukmanic was 646 or 14.18% of the whole Serbian population. The
settlements with the greatest number of victims were:
Vojnicka Bukovica
Popovic Brdo
Gornja Trebinja
Skakavac

84
67
61
50

28%
17%
19%
10%


, , , .
1942. ,
, .

. , .
, .
,
. ,
.

, . ,
,

. 310 ,
, 132 , ,
10 , 16
- 473.
185 , : 16 , 81 88 7 14 .
. : 1942. , ,
. , . , , 2
, ,
.
. ,
. ,
50 .
,
. 20
() 10 a 10 .
, . - , a
- .
,
- . , .
, (
) ...

Despite the fact that the data themselves say a lot about
the extent of the Ustasha crimes in Kordun, some of the crimes
should be singled out because of their bestiality.
On the last day of July, 1942, the Ustasha brought back
from their refuge the inhabitants of the village of Sadilovac to
gether with some people from the neighbouring villages, by giv
ing them their word that nothing would happen to them. The
Ustasha then gathered the Serbs who had returned to the village
and drove them inside the walls of the Orthodox church that
had been burnt down earlier. Mothers carried their children
and the younger ones helped the elderly and the exhausted. Af
ter they had driven them all into the church, the Ustasha started
taking out two men at a time. All the people taken out were
slaughtered in the vicinity of the church, in a nearby brook. The
women, the elderly, and children who remained inside the
church were riddled with machine-gun bullets. The Ustasha
spread straw over the dead and wounded, spilt gasoline over it
and set it on fire. The only one who survived by a miracle was
Milos Dragica Sasa who recounts that the wails and shrieks of
the burning victims made ones blood freeze in ones veins on
that hot July day. Three hundred and ten men, women, and chil
dren from Sadilovci were killed that day together with 132 from
Bugari, Cerkezovci and Rujnica, 10 from Kordunski Ljeskovac,
16 from Nova Krslja, and one person from each of four other
villages - in total 473. There were 185 children among the vic
tims, namely: 16 still in the cradle, 81 under the age of 7, and 88
between the ages of 7 and 14.
The event noted down by Petar Zinaic is unprecedented in
human civilization. He says: "Approaching the Masvina forest in
July 1942, standing on the crest of a mountain we could see all
the villages from Cazin to Rakovica. The houses were burnt everything was devastated. Entering the forest, we could see
dead bodies of children, women and the elderly lying scattered
along both sides of the path for a length of 2 kilometres. The
summer was hot and the corpses were putrefying. We could not
count them as they were scattered all around and the smell was
so strong. Going deeper into the forest we came to a clearing of
about 50 square metres. The ground on that clearing was cov
ered with green grass. Lying on it there were twenty babies up to
a year old. Of the twenty children 10 were girls and 10 were
boys. Not a single piece of clothing or diapers could be found on
them or around them. They were arranged in a circle with their
legs towards the centre and their heads in the opposite direction
- equidistant from each other. The girls were on the grass with
their legs and arms spread apart, and the boys were lying on top
of the girls - belly on top of belly. Each child had been slaugh
tered, i.e. their throats had been cut with a knife, but there were
no traces showing that they had been slain in that place (on the
spot)...

BANIJA

, ,
:
( )

.
.

, .

The former head of the Administrative District of Dvor na

Uni in the Independent State of Croatia, Dr. Marin Bucan
stated among other things in his testimony before the court in
Sibenik: 'Before all those crimes were committed (he referred
to the region of Banija) all the heads of the administrative dis
tricts comprising Velika zupa Gora were invited to a confer
ence. At the conference, Mirko Jerec, Veliki zupan, presented
them with the plan for the liquidation of the Serbs. He said that
that was an order issued by Andrija Artukovic and that it was
top secret, so it was only communicated verbally."

, ,
, 20.256 .

How thorough the Ustasha were in carrying out the order

given by their minister can be seen from the data gathered up to
date showing that the number of people killed in a relatively
small area of Bania according to the Croatian Ustasha state-

 1941.
, ,
,
.
897
, 657 .
11. 12.
(520) 16
. 433

- Xahep.
.
, ,
.
1941.
, , ,
.
, ,
, , ,
. 3.
8 . ,
, . .
.
, 1.030
. .
. ,

.
1941. ,
, ,
, .
,
, .
.

20.256 .
6.571.
2.438 2.333 ,
11.342. A
to 37,5% 30.606 ,
, 1931. , .

founding genocide plan, was 20,256 people of Serbian national

ity.
On July 24,1941, Bozidar Cerovski, an Ustasha envoy of
Andrija Artukovic, spearheaded a punitive expedition from Za
greb to Glina in which he included a company and a gen
darmerie squad. Within a period of 9 days, that Ustasha
expedition killed 897 Serbs in the area of Vrgin Most, 657 of
them being from the territory of the municipality of Topusko.
In the night between May 11 and 12, the Ustasha arrested
all the men from Glina (520) of Serbian nationality, who were
older than 16. The next night, 433 of them ended their lives in a
common grave at the point where the Maja brook joins the
River Glina - below the village of Hacer. Any trace of the others
has been lost forever. That whole slaughter was arranged at a se
cret meeting of the Glina Ustasha elite, in the Glina hospital,
under the chairmanship of the director of that hospital, Doctor
Rebok.
In early August 1941, the Ustasha called on all the Serbs in
the region of the western part of the Administrative District of
Glina as well as those in the region of the neighbouring Admin
istrative District of Vrginmost, to convert to Catholicism
whereby they would provide for their safety and be given all
citizens rights in the territory of the Independent State of Croa
tia. Those who had accepted that offer as well as those who had
been caught on the way were brought to the church in Glina
were the conversion was, allegedly, to take place. The "conver
sion" started on August 3 at 8 oclock in the evening. It was car
ried out in several shifts and that with knives, daggers, bayonets,
and butchers knives. The blood of the "converted" ran from
the church down to the street. That night, the Ustasha "con
verted" to a more sublime and noble faith, 1,030 Serbian lives.
Almost all the Serbs slaughtered there were in their prime. Af
ter the slaughter, they were transported by trucks to the pits that
had been dug up earlier in the Latinovo forest, and covered up
with earth. It is by a miraculous concurrence of events that
Ljuban Jednak from Seliste near Glina managed to survive that
slaughter.
During the month of July 1941, human corpses floated
down the Una, the Sana, the Kupa, and the Sava - in their thou
sands, either individually or tied in groups. It was only when
they had floated down the Sava and had readied the point of its
confluence with the Danube that the German occupation
authorities reacted, demanding that the murdered not be
plunged into rivers. From then on, mass graves started springing
up throughout Banija.
Sixty-five hundred and seventy-one people were killed in
the direct Ustasha genodde in the area of the Administrative
District of Glina. If this number is added to the victims of the
war, numbering 2,438 people and 2333 combatants killed, the
total number of victims in the Administrative District of Glina
amounts to 11342 people. That is 37.5% of the 30,606 inhabi
tants of Serbian nationality who lived in the territory of the Ad
ministrative District of Glina according to the census of 1931.

10. 1941. ,

.
, , ,
.
, . ,
. 98 12. 1941. ,
: 10.
, . .

.
.

.
.
.
:
.
,
. To - 1941. .

1941. .
1. 1900. .
105.000 , : , , , , , .
.
.
. 26. 1941.
, , 510
, .
.


.


. :
342, 115, 86,
93, 82, 106,
184, 135, 118,
81 . ,
1931.
11.211 ,
2.698.
,
1931. 13.028
.

SLAVONIA
he killing of the Serbs in Slavonia started in the
territory of the Administrative District of Slavonska Pozega, following the proclamation of the In
dependent State of Croatia on April 10,1941. The
first victims were people who were distinguished as politicians,
teachers, merchants but who were marked down by the Ustasha
as Chetniks. Their bodies could be found scattered in the for
ests, in streams and even along the roads. At that same time, the
head of the Administrative District of Slavonska Pozega, wrote
in his "Special Order" number 98 of July 12,1941: "A number
of citizens, and particularly Serbs from our administrative dis
trict, have been reported as missing, starting from April 10, this
year. The public have been reporting their deaths or voicing
their suspicion that they have been killed. The Public Prosecu
tors Office hereby issues an order that an investigation be car
ried out. I order that such investigations be performed in such a
manner that no members of the public or private bodies are in
terrogated. All the investigations are to be conducted so that
only Ustasha officers are summoned for hearings. If a member
of the public is interrogated, then utmost a r e must be taken
that such a person or member of the public is not encouraged in
the slightest way." Following this order, it is understandable why
the Serbs used to get the same reply to their reports each time:
"On the basis of the investigation conducted it could not be es
tablished who murdered the persons named."

Encouraged by such instructions and legal provisions of the

Independent State of Croatia, the Ustasha started a physical ex
termination and administrative uprooting of the Serbs. They in
dulged in that with particular intensity in the period April August 1941. Terror in the form of forced emigration became
most acute in the period from mid-April to the end of June
1941. The first to bear the brunt were Serbian volunteers from
World War I and those who had moved into Slavonia after
January 1,1900. One hundred and five thousand Serbs were
moved out on that occasion, with the greatest number of them
coming from the Administrative Districts of Virovitica, Podravska Slatina, Donji Miholjac, Osijek, Vukovar, Vinkovci and
Slavonska Pozega. That was the time when all the Serbs were
moved out from the villages of Trestenovac and Aleksandrovac
in the area of Pozega.
It was very soon after that, that the Ustasha went over to
the actual extermination of the Serbs, as well. One extreme ex
ample is Grubisino Polje. On April 26,1941, the Ustasha slew
in that place or dispatched to concentration camps, 510 men,
women, and children with no one ever to return from there. This
is one of the few places where no monument bearing the names
of the Serbs killed has been erected. The reason for that is the
fact that this poor municipality could not afford to buy a marble
block big enough for all the names of the victims to be inscribed
on it.
There is not a single village in Grubisino Polje that has not
suffered from the Ustasha slaughter. The following villages
stand out by the number of the victims: Velika Bama 342,
Gomja Rasenica 115, Dapcevacki Brdjani 86, Loncarica 93,
Mala Peratovica 82, Gomja Kovacica 106, Mali Grdjevac 184,
Veliki Grdjevac 135, Zrinska 118, Velika Dapcevica 81 etc. Of
the 11,211 Serbs who lived in the territory of that small adminis
trative district according to the census of 1931, twenty-six hun-


,
,
3.858 , : 2.035
, 904 , 389
530 14 .
2.647 .
(, , , .)
1.036 : 713 , 240 , 58 25
. (, , , .)
6.135 : 3.448 ,
1.531 , 413 743 . 3.450 .
7.647 26.053 .
210 ,
72 .
, , 70 , 94,6% .
.
76 , 72,38% ;
123, 64,74%; 101, 45,90%;
83, 42,77%; 96, 38,4%;
47, 37,6%; 133, 37,57%;
72, 32% .
1941.
.
, ,
.
, . 26.
1941. .
.
, , ,
.

. ,

, .
,
. ,
.
, 486 .
20 40 .

.
, , , 14
50 .
(- 1942. )


. 53.500
16.500 .
,
155 10.000
, . ( .
7319/42 31. 1942. ,
, 40 -

dred and ninety-eight were killed in the direct Ustasha geno

cide.
No better was the destiny of the Serbs living in the territory
of the Administrative District of Slavonska Pozega in which
there were 13,028 people of Serbian nationality, according to the
census of 1931.
On the basis of the documents of the State Commission for
the Establishment of Crimes Committed by the Occupying Pow
ers and Their Collaborators kept in the Archives of Croatia in>
Zagreb, the total number of the people killed in the Adminis
trative District of Pozega was 3,858 namely, 2,035 adult men,
904 women, 389 elders, and 530 children up to the age of 14. Of
that number 2,647 people were killed in the direct Ustasha
genocide. Violence involving bodily injury (mutilation, wound
ing, torture, rape, etc.) was done to 1,036 people: 713 men, 240
women, 58 elders, and 25 children. Violence involving the viola
tion of personal freedom (arrest, internment, removal to other
places, deportation to concentration camps etc.) was committed
against 6,135 people, namely: 3,448 men in their prime, 1,531
women, 413 elders, and 743 children. Thirty-four hundred and
fifty houses and other buildings were burnt and destroyed. Sev
enty-six hundred and forty-seven head of cattle and 26,053 head
of sheep and goats were stolen.
Of the 210 populated places in the Administrative District
of Pozega, 72 were purely Serbian. Among them, the village of
Bolomaca with its 70 victims or 94.6% of the total population
was the one to be afflicted most grievously. In that village, there
was only one family with four members that survived. Follow
ing Bolomaca is the village of Dzigerovci with its 76 victims or
72.38% of the total population, Gucane Gomje with 123 victims
or 64.74%, Kantrovci with 101 or 45,9%, Strijezevica with 83 or
42.77%, Dezevd with 96 or 38,4%, Seovci Kamenski with 47 or
37.6%, Sapna with 133 or 37.57%, Dobrogosce with 72 or 32%,
etc.
In early July 1941, the Ustasha set up a concentration camp
in Slavonska Pozega for the collection of the Serbs. Every day,
approximately twenty detainees were driven off from there to
the town graveyard. They had to dig their own graves and lie
down in them to be killed. A terrible massacre of detained
Serbs from Derventa and the surroundings areas was carried out
there on August 26,1941. One of the detainees who had been
suffering incessant and unbearable maltreatment by the Us
tasha, tried to take a rifle from one of the guards. Having
learnt of the event, Kljajic, the concentration camp commander
ordered that all the prisoners simply be killed. Gun and ma
chine-gun fire was then opened from the doors and windows of
the barracks onto the detainees. According to the testimony of
Jova Jovanovic from Mirkovci, after the Ustasha had given vent
to their rage, the walls of the barracks were stained with pieces
of flesh, brains, and blood. The floor was covered with bodies
many of whom were hard to recognize. The barracks was left in
such a state for another two days until a new consignment of
prisoners arrived. Before they cleaned it up, they carried out 486
corpses. The greatest number of those killed were between the
ages of 20 and 40.
Within the concentration camp compound, there was a
workshop in which the Ustasha used to extort confessions from
the prisoners. The extortions were carried out by means of
clamps, vices, winches, and other instruments, and were so bru
tal that 50 detainees were dead from the consequences within 14
days.
4

Following the Kozara offensive (June-July 1942) the Us

tasha Commander Vjekoslav Maks Luburic personally ordered
that the whole Serbian population from the northern part of the
Bosnian Krajina be deported to the region of Western Slavonia.
Of the 53,500 people deported then, 16,500 never returned. Ac-

 - 40 , .)
1942. , ,
,
.

14. . ,
, 105 . 95
. Tpeher , ,

. '
: , , , ,
, , , , , , , , , ,
, , , , , ,
, , , .

. 1.368 ,
. 5 5
: 2 3 . ,
.

.
7. 22. 1947.

. , 44 ,
559 ; , 25 , 118
; . , 20 , 257
; . , 25 , 160
. , 30 , 2 .
1.096 . , 1942.
, 16 114 ,
1.368 .

,
1960. .

18% .
, 6. 1942.
.
66 34 5 .
1942.
86 . : , ,
.
130 , 53 ,
.
.
,
, 13. 1942.

, .
227, 90 .
.

cording to Katie, Head of the Administrative District, 155 rail

way wagons carrying 10,000 women, children, and the elderly
were brought then to the Pozega valley. (The author has found
document No. 7319/42 of July 31,1942, according to which the
Ustasha Defence, Headquarters of the Concentration Camps in
Jasenovac, had sent 40 railway wagons carrying Partisans - for
that read "women and children" - to the Pozega Administrative
District, asking the authorities to whom the document was ad
dressed to issue an appropriate certificate to the above head
quarters, confirming the receipt of the 40 railway wagons with
detainees and stamping it with their seal.
In mid-August 1942, the 1,000 strong Ustasha punitive ex
pedition under the command of the notorious cut-throat Maks
Luburic carried out a real pogrom of the Serbian population in
the valley of the Orljava. they first made a makeshift concen
tration camp at the elementary school in Pavlovci where they
brought several hundred women and children. That same day
before evening, they massacred 105 people from the surround
ing villages in Gorjanski Dolovi. The following day, they burnt
95 women and children in a house in Pasikovci. The third day, in
the village of Slabostina the Ustasha committed a crime so hor
rendous that no one in the region of Slavonia remembers any
thing like it. That day, the Ustasha drove off with them all the
children from the villages of Zavrsje, Brestovac, Oblakovac, Cecavac, Simlije, Vucjak, Snjegavic, Koprivna, Rasna, Skenderovci, Vilic Selo, Dzigerovci, Dezevci, Pasikovci, Kujnik,
Crljenci, Podsrece, Vranic, Klisa, Njezic, Oljasi, Bratulji, Lucinci, Perenci, and several others. They were joined by the pris
oners the Ustasha had detained before that, at the school in the
village of Pavlovci. They constituted a column of 1.368 women,
children, and a dozen elderly people. They were arranged in 5
groups and taken to 5 wells: 2 parish wells and 3 village ones.
Before plunging them down into the wells, the Ustasha dealt
each victim a blow on the head with a heavy iron tool. The ones
who did not die from the blow died in pain and agony from the
quicklime that the Ustasha spilt over them.
Exhumation of the victims from these wells was carried out
from February 7 till March 22,1947. Five hundred and fifty-nine
bodies were taken out from the parish well which was 44 m
deep, and 118 bodies from the other parish well which was 25 m
deep. Two hundred and fifty-seven bodies were taken out of the
20 m deep well belonging to P. Stankovic, 160 bodies from the
25 m deep well of N. Kupresanin, and 2 bodies from the 30 m
deep well of Dj. Milanovic. The total number of exhumed bod
ies was 1,096. The number of victims discovered in several com
mon graves that were made in mid-August, 1942, was between
16 and 114, making a total of 1,368 Serbs killed.
How brutal and extreme the suffering of the Serbs was in
the Administrative District of Pakrac can be seen from the fact
that after the war, it was as late as 1960 that the first recruit
from the valley of the River Pakra reached the age required for
being drafted into the army.
Of the whole Serbian population living in the territory of
the Administrative District of Pakrac, 18% were killed in the di
rect Ustasha genocide.
On the Orthodox Christmas Eve, January 6,1942, the Us
tasha burnt every single house in the village of Sazije. Among
the 66 people killed then were 34 women and 5 children.
The Ustasha punitive expedition spearheaded by Maks
Luburic on August 13,1942, left deep traces of its crimes on the
Serbian population in the villages of Sumetlica, Dragovic, and
Kusonje and the surrounding areas. Two hundred and twentyseven people were killed in Dragovic, and 90 in Sumetlice. On
that day the village of Kusonje became the scene of an unprece
dented drama. The Ustasha singled out from among the inhabi
tants of Kusonje and the surrounding hamlets the men who were
healthy and in good shape, to be sent off to work in Germany.
The other group was driven off to the concentration camps of

 . . ,
, ,
,
, , ,
. 300 . 160
. , .

, 1942. , -

. 10. 11.
, .
660 ,
194 .
210 .
,
.,
440 , .
4. 1942. 421
.
.
, 13. 1942.

275
.
1942. ,
,
.
,
, ,
.
: - 71 , 26
, 180, 93, 46,
96, 144, 65,
117, 74, 55 . , , :
! !
8.500 ,
,
3.650, 1.018 14 .
, 1.126 ,
15. ,
, , . 60%
.
,
.
, ,
, -,
. he no
11. 1942. .
833
. , a

.
19. 20. 1941. : , , , , ,
, , , :

Gradiska and Jasenovac. The third group made up of women,

children, and the elderly, was ordered by the Ustasha to move
towards the Orthodox church with everyone requested to take
an armful of straw along, as they would need it to spend the
night in the church. The Ustasha took 300 people from that
group and plunged them into two deep village wells. The re
maining 160 were killed and slaughtered in the church. The
straw the victims had brought with them for their beds served
the Ustasha as material to set the church on fire with, together
with the women, children, and the old people they had slain
there.
Revenge for the military defeat of the well-known Ustasha
stronghold of Spanovica, in early October 1942, was taken sev
eral days later on the people of the Serbian village of Kukunjevac, by the Ustasha commander and cut-throat Maks Luburic.
He surrounded the village with three companies in the night be
tween October 10 and 11, driving all the Serbian inhabitants to
the Orthodox church just before dawn. That day the village was
left forever without 660 of its inhabitants, among whom were
194 children. Driven to the grave together with the natives of
the village were also 210 women and children deported from
the Bosnian Krajina.
In the small Pakrac municipality of Caglic populated pre
dominantly by the Serbs, the Ustasha sent to their eternal rest
440 men, women, and children.
Four hundred and twenty-one people from the village of
Derez were slaughtered on August 4,1942. Their mutilated bod
ies were plunged into two deep village wells.
On the day of the Orthodox New Year, January 13,1942,
the Ustasha from Podravska Slatina surrounded the Serbian vil
lage of Kometnik near Vodn killing and massacring 275 people
in an outrageously bestial way.
In the month of July 1942, the Ustasha burnt the village of
Pakrani to the ground, killing 86 of its inhabitants. Apart from
Pakran, suffering befell the Serbs in the following villages, as
well: Markovac, Bijela, Gomji Borki and Donji Borki and Zaile.
The village of Sumetlica was left without 130 of its inhabitants,
while the number of people killed in the Zoric, Sueur, and Borcic families in the village of Uskoci was 53 of their members. No
one was left to bear the names of these families.
The brutal action of converting the remaining Serbs in the
territory of the parish of Podravska Slatina was inaugurated on
the orders of the Parish Priest Birger, in January 1942. Anyone
who refused to be converted to Catholicism was robbed and sent
off to one of the concentration camps from where no one ever
returned, at least as far as the Serbs were concerned. The Serbs
from the villages listed down below paid for their devotion to
the creed of their forefathers: Ceralije with 71 victims, Medinci
with 26, Vocin with 180, Donje Bazije with 93, Dobrici with 46,
Lisicine with 96, Podravska Slatina with 144, Popovac Vodnski
with 65, Cadjavica with 117, Hum with 74, Kuzma with 55, etc.
Before they were killed, the Serbs from the village of Ceralije
were forced to shout: "Long live Ante Pavelie! Long live Croa
tia!"
Of the approximately 8,500 Serbs who lived in the territory
of the Administrative District of Novska before the war, the Us
tasha killed 3,650 among whom there were 1,018 children up to
the age of 14. Of the 1,126 inhabitants in the Serbian village of
Mlaka, only 15 survived the war. No better was the fate of the
villages of Jablanac, Vrbovljani, Covac, Gredjani... In Jablanac,
60% of the Serbian population were killed. In the territory of
the Administrative District of Novska, not a single village with
Serbian population was spared the killing, slaughter, or removal
to concentration camps.
The Serbian villages of Veliko Nabrdje, Paucje, Cenkovo,
and Borovik on the north-eastern slopes of mountain Dilj-plan-

 , 3.654 .

. 31. 1941.
15 , a 25
. -,
19. 26, , 18 .

, ,
.
, ,
- .
,
18. 1941. . 0
:
.

, ,
,
, . ,
.
,
, ,
.
.
4.000 ,
.
1942.
:
,
, .
(10.
1942. ) .
.
,
.
1945.
455 .

,

.

2.450 .
507 14 . 440
134 , 408 31 ,
152 27 , 88 131 .

25 ,
.

ina, were raided by the Ustasha several times. Their incursion of

August 11,1942 will be remembered for its unspeakable evil.,
Eigjht hundred and thirty-three people from the four villages
were killed that day or driven off to concentration camps. The
village of Veliko Nabrdje has never been repopulated, and six
teen Serbian families from there have been made extinct.
Shouting the slogan: "Go across the Drina you Serbian
dogs" the Ustasha exiled 3,654 people of Serbian nationality
from the Vukovar villages of Lipovaca, Klisa, Ludvinci, Silas,
Palaca, Ada, Dalj, Divos, and Paulin Dvor.
The expulsion was followed by the liquidations of promi
nent Serbs. Thus, on August 31, they killed 15 Serbs and de
ported 25 to Jasenovac in reprisal for the wounding of one of the
Ustasha. Accusing them of being sympathizers of the National
Liberation War, the Ustasha liquidated a group of 26 Serbs on
October 19, and very soon after that another group of 18.
To provide some sort of an excuse to the Germans for kill
ing the Serbs, the Ustasha set up a Mobile Court Martial which
was in session in Osijek and Vukovar, alternatively. The pro
ceedings of that court were a farce, since anyone tried by that
court could expect no other verdict but - death. How "objective"
these trials were can be seen from the case of Timotije Stankovic who was tried on October 18,1941. Referring to that after
the war, lawyer Adam Sverer stated: "At his arrest Timotije was
severely wounded in the head. The trial of the wounded man
was conducted at the hospital in the presence of his defence law
yer Dr. Bogoljub Stengl, and according to the statement of the
latter, the accused was unconscious all the time and could nei
ther utter a word nor state anything in his defence." Then, they
pronounced the death penalty on Timotijes father, Jovan, be
cause he had brought food to his son. After Timotije was
brought on a stretcher to the place where he was to be executed,
his father had to hold him so he would not fall down, as he could
not stand and was not conscious of where he was or what was
going on around him.
The judges of that court were Ivan Vignjevic and Viktor
Mihelcic. The State Commission for the Establishment of
Crimes Committed by the Occupying Powers and Their Col
laborators established that they had pronounced 4,000 death
penalties, the greatest number of them having been pronounced
in Eastern Slavonia and Srem.
In January 1942, a high-ranking German official wrote
from Zagreb to Berlin: "Despite the several hours-long meeting
of the Extraordinary Mobile Court in Velika zupa Vuka and
despite the numerous executions, the jails in Mitrovica, Vuk
ovar, and others keep being crammed with people."
The real pogrom of the Serbs began with the arrival in that
region of the Ustasha criminal Viktor Tomic (August 10,1942)
and his nomination as chief of the newly-established "Senior Po
lice Commissariat". That is when massive executions started and
when new places of execution were set up. One of the most no
torious was Dudik situated at a distance of a kilometre and a
half from the last Vukovar houses in the direction of the village
ofCakovci.
In late April and early May 1945, four hundred and fiftyfive bodies were exhumed from nine mass Dudik graves. An ex
pert panel took evidence of the manner in which the victims had
been killed, and it was established that the majority of the vic
tims had been killed by having their heads broken with a blunt
instrument or by a shot to the back of the head.
Twenty-four hundred and fifty Serbs were killed in the Ad
ministrative District of Vukovar in the direct Ustasha genocide.
Among the victims were 507 children up to the age of 14. In
Markusica there were 440 adults and 134 children killed, in
Bobota 408 adults and 31 children, in Tenja 152 adults and 27
children, in Trpinje 88 adults and 131 children.
The Ustasha genocide inflicted suffering on twenty-five vil
lages from the region of the Administrative District of Vukovar
irrespective of whether the Serbs were a majority or a minority
there.

SREM

CPEM

1941. , ,
.

. ,
,
.


,
, 2.
1941. , , :

, ,
.
: 1 '
,
: .'

, , .

,
.

6. 1941. .
398/941, :
,
, ,
,
, .
1941.
,
, , , .

npcwbehe 1941.
, XVI ,
- ,
, 300
.
1941. ,
.

.
.
30. 1941.
43 ,
.
15 , 15
.
, 3
.
, 9. , .
1941.
28 ,
.

n April 1941, while the army of the Kingdom of Yu

goslavia was still offering resistance to the Axis Pow
ers, the Ustasha set out on their hunt for Serbs. The
first to bear the brunt of such Ustasha politics were
the Serbian volunteers from World War I. Their eviction, on the
occasion of which they were allowed to take only the most in
dispensable things with them, started immediately after the es
tablishment of the Independent State of Croatia.
An explanation for this kind of treatment of the Serbian
people by the Ustasha can be found in the statement of the
senior Ustasha functionary Milovan Zanic, Minister of Educa
tion and Divinity, who said, among other things, at a rally in
Nova Gradiska, on June 2,1941: "...We Ustasha know that as
long as the issue of the Serbs remains unresolved, our country
will be disturbed. We know we are right in demanding: Away
with you across the Drina. In doing so we are referring to our
vital interests and our vital force, our vital needs and that is why
we are sending them the message: Away with you across the
Drina."
The first victims were taken to the notorious jails of
Mitrovica, Vukovar, Vinkovci, and Osijek. In late July and early
August, the Ustasha began their large-scale arrests with a large
number of the arrested dying from being beaten during interro
gation.
The order No: R 398/941 issued by the Vukovar Office for
Security and Order dated August 6,1941, reads: "It is in the in
terest of public security that all the Jews and Serbs, whether
they have been converted to Catholicism or not, should be de
tained under the suspicion of being communists, even though
there is no evidence against them, so that they might be brought
before a court-martial and deported to a concentration camp."
Already in the late spring and early summer of 1941, bodies
of Serbs had started floating down the Sava from Srem, joining
those coming from Bosanska Krajina, Kordun, Banija, Bosnia,
and Slavonia.
One of the most atrocious and large-scale Ustasha crimes
in the area of Srem took place in the spring of 1941 when the
Ustasha of the 16th Ustasha Battalion under the command of
Antun Ilik, killed 300 Serbs from Semberija on a dike by the
Sava, near Bosut, on the charge that they had cut off the tele
phone line to Bijeljina.
On June 12,1941, they arrested six Serbs from Sid, whose
fate has remained unknown.
In late June the Ustasha arrested five Serbs from Beocin
and nine from Cerevic. They killed them all in a forest near
Tovamik.
In liok, at an improvised trial on July 30,1941, they pro
nounced the death penalty on 43 Serbs, justifying that action
by stating that they had not prevented the murder of two gen
darmes from Susek. The trial took 15 minutes, which was also
the time it took the court to decide on their acquittal. All of
them were executed at a place called Lovka situated 3 km. from
Ilok towards Sarengrad.
The bodies of the nine Serbs from Sid who were executed
near Lovka on August 9, were thrown into the Danube and sent
to Serbia with appropriate notice boards accompanying them.
In September 1941, on the Sava bridge near Sremska
Mitrovica, the Ustasha killed 27 male Serbs and one Serbian
woman with them.
Forty-two Serbs from Krcedin who were volunteers in
World War I were arrested on the charge of having killed a
woman who had been a supporter of the Ustasha. They were de
ported to Jasenovac, after which no trace of them was ever
found.

 , 42 - . ,
.

In November, the Ustasha arrested 5 Serbs from Susek, un

der the pretence that they had been hiding revolvers. After a
"detailed" investigation they were all killed.
On November 26 and 27,1941, the Ustasha arrested 16
Serbs in Stari Banovci on the charge that they were communists.
5 They detained them in the the Serbian Sisters Organization
, . - centre where they were interrogated by the notorious criminal
.
Stjepan Blazekovic. The Mobile Court-Martial condemned
them to death, with the verdict based on the testimony of their
26. 27. 1941.
inquisition interrogator.
16 That court which was the arbiter of Serbian lives, was in
. ,
session mostly in Vukovar and Mitrovica but, when necessary, it
.
also moved to Ruma, Stara Pazova, and Irig. It started its work
,
in
the early summer of 1941, trying mostly groups of people. In
.
the first group it condemned 30 Serbs, in the second 35, in the
, , third 25, in the fourth 25, etc. How efficient the court was in per
, ce
forming
its duties and in how big a hurry it was can be seen
, .
from
its
reply
to a complaint filed in connection with a certain
1941.
. 30 verdict. The reply was brief: "Renewal of the proceedings has
not been approved as the convicts have been administered capi
, 35, 25, 25, .
tal punishment by shooting."
, , ce
In order to hinder communications between the Serbian
.
, population and the Partisans and to provide an opportunity for
.
themselves to reap and gather in the harvest, the Ustasha de
, cided to arrest the whole "dangerous" Serbian population in

mid-1942. Ruma was designated as the centre of that action. In
, 1942. mid-July, they arrested 154 men and 11 young girls from the vil
lage of Jazak. After that, they drove away 70 young people from
.
the village of Stejanovci. In Dobrinci they arrested 12 Serbs. On
.
August 6, it was the turn of Pavlovd. A hundred and forty men
154 11 .
70 . 12 and one woman were arrested on that occasion. All of them
were deported to Ruma. At the same time, they arrested 40 peo
, a 6. .
ple in Ruma. The trials were held on August 3,7,8, and 10. At
140 .
the first trial which lasted from 8:30 to 10:30, death penalty was
. 40 .
pronounced on 30 Serbs from the village of Stejanovci. At the
3,7 , 8. 10. .
second trial the number of Serbs who were awarded the death
, 8.30 10.30 , penalty was 40. A majority of them were from the village of
30 . , Jazak and a smaller number came from Ruma and Stejanovd.
, 40 .
The shortest trial to be held was the one in Ruma on Au
, .
gust 10. A group of 25 Serbs was brought before the Ustasha
10. . court. They came from the villages of: Jazak, Stejanovd, and
Budjanovci. The defendants had only 2 minutes to speak in their
25 : ,
own defence. All of them were condemned to death. Three
. hours after the sentence was pronounced, they were all exe
. .
cuted.
.
8.
At the trial in Stara Pazova on August 8, eighteen people
were condemned to death. They were all executed in the after
18 . .
1942. noon that very day.
In early August 1942, a decision was taken in Zagreb that

Viktor Tomic, a person enjoying full Pavelics confidence, be
, .
9. sent to Srem as a spedal envoy. On the basis of an open order
1942. 1481/42, - issued by the Leaders Main Office, dated August 9,1942
No:1481/42, a Senior Police Commissariat for the District of
,
Velika zupa Vuka was established with headquarters in Vuk
, ovar and Viktor Tomic, a senior police officer, as its head.
.
After arriving in Vukovar on August 10, he stated that he
, 10. ,

. ,
,
.
, 8.
16. 1942. , ,

.

was dissatisfied with the activities and efficiency of the Ustasha

service in preventing violence in Srem. In accordance with that
he prohibited the use of telephones for all private purposes in
the territory of the District of Vuka, thus placing the entire
population in a kind of isolation.
The action of Viktor Tomic which lasted from August 8 un
til September 16,1942, the largest of its kind, comprised within
itself all the forms of criminal Ustasha action in Srem.
It was by his order that 146 people from Mitrovica (106
men and 40 women) were arrested and dispatched to the Vuk-

 , 11. 17.
146 (106 40 ) .
, 17 .
, 115
. ,
, , , 50
175 .
-, .
.
, 19. 20. 200 .
10
38 .

, . 60 20
,
.
,
.
, , ,
. , , .

, he ,
.
,
,

.
.
,
, , ,
: , .

.
, ,
, ,
, .
.

,

. , he ,
.

,
.
60
- .

9 ,
.

ovar jail, from August 11 till 17. In Lacarak the number of the
arrested Serbs was 29. After passing through the Mitroviea
"Kustodija" jail they ended up in the Vukovar concentration
camp. The same path was traversed also by 17 Serbs from
Kuzmine.
On Tomics order, the Ustasha Major Turkovic arrested
115 Serbs from the village of Divos. As soon as he finished that
job, he lunged at the village of Calma and collaborating with the
local Ustasha arrested 50 Serbs and 175 Orthodox Gypsies. The
Serbs were deported to Vukovar and the Gypsies to Jasenovac.
The Ustasha also plundered all the Serbian homes.
On August 19 and 20, two hundred youths and young girls
from Zemun were arrested by men under the command of Ivan
Vrljan.
In the first 10 days after Viktor Tomic took office, arrests
were carried out in 38 towns and villages in Srem.
Since there was no room in the Vukovar jail for all the
prisoners, a makeshift jail was quickly set up in the granary of
Count Elc. That was a building 60 by 20 m consisting of a
ground floor, a first floor and an attic, with concrete floors. The
concentration camp was intended primarily for those who were
to meet their deaths there and so not even basic living condi
tions were provided. The prisoners slept on bare concrete, and
since they were so crammed together they even slept one on top
of the other. There was no water for washing, no toilet, no
dishes or other requisites. The reply that the Ustasha used to
give in response to the rare complaints of the arrested Serbs was
that they did not need anything as they would get everything in
heaven, since, anyhow, they were nothing but "oxen marked for
slaughter".
Eugen-Dido Kvatemik, Head of the Main Office for Public
Order and Security in the Independent State of Croatia came to
visit that concentration camp once. He ordered the Ustasha who
had come with him to kill the prisoners by muchine-gun fire.
The Ustasha inserted empty magazines into their machine-guns
and started aiming. The prisoners, in hysteria, started looking
for shelter one on top of the other, falling down to the floor,
while the giggling Ustasha kept calling to them: "Be patient, to
morrow they will be charged."
All the prisoners were interrogated before they were liqui
dated. On such occasion they were tortured by having their
temples clamped with special contrivances, wedges stubbed un
der their nails, their nails torn off, their bodies cut with razors,
weights hung on their scrotums, their moustaches torn out, etc.
A particular kind of torture was the frequent taking-out of the
prisoners for simulated executions.
The prisoners were taken in groups to watch real execu
tions so they could see on that very spot what would befall them
if they should refuse to cooperate at the interrogation. After
such torturing the unhappy people even told things they had no
idea about, without even dreaming that next day they were go
ing to be executed before the eyes of the next group who were
to be interrogated.
Tomics main fighters were the asker Ustasha borrowed
from the Leaders Guard Brigade, whose commander in Zagreb
was Viktor Tomic, himself. They were an evil company of 60
trained murderers and cut-throats, spearheaded by the notori
ous Lino Skalamera with his assistant, cut-throat Jozo Rukavina.
On that occasion, Vemer, the Mayor of Zagreb placed at
Tomics disposal 9 large city buses, which were used by the Us
tasha, day in and day out, to collect the Serbs and drive them
off to concentration camps or places of execution.
,
Of the numerous trials held by the Mobile Court-Martial,
the one that took place on August 22 ought to be singled out.

cy no

-.
Named after the ferocious
Turkish soldiers -askers.

53


22. , 47
,
.
3 , , , .
"
30-40 .. . 0
: ,
.

.
21. 136 .
. 23. 24.
50 .
, ,
.


. 86
.

,
.
111742 . 1942.
50 . 5. 111M 2
50 . To
,
1941. .
1125-42 6.
40 . 118142 7. 50
.
1182-42 8.
50.

, ,
.
, , 29
, .

20. 1942. 10
,
1942.

.

,
.
,
, 26. . , 20
, .
, ,
,
.

17 , 5 .
-
, .

On that occasion, 47 people were condemned to death on the

charge of having read communist leaflets, although there were
people among them who were even illiterate. The verdict was
carried out within the 'legal" requirement of 3 hours of its being
pronounced - in fact, the time needed for the graves to be dug.
One of the "defense attorneys" said that a trial of a group
of 3040 people took two hours at the most, and that he sat there
for a whole week without a break, defending one group after an
other. Their acquittal depended on the decision of the Ustasha
miscreants Tomic, Kvaternik, and Judge Vignjevic.
The village that was particularly to suffer in those raids was
the tame townlet of Irig on mountain Fruska Gora. On August
21, the Ustasha horde drove away from there 136 prominent
Serbian men and women. First of all, they were all interrogated
in accordance with Tomics methods. During the night between
August 23 and 24, the Mobile Court-Martial arrived and con
demned 50 of them to death by shooting. Before they were shot
at a place called Kasarna, the men were stripped and left only in
their drawers while the women were stripped down to their un
derwear. Vasilije Jakovljevic, a witness of that, says that he saw
with his own eyes the thin layer of earth with which the executed
were covered, move from the stirring of the victims. The re
maining 86 inhabitants of Irig were boarded onto buses and
taken to Vukovar as hostages.
Dissatisfied with the sa le of liquidation of the Serbs by the
Mobile Court-Martial, Tomic and Kvaternik decided to conduct
mass executions of hostages.
The Ustasha notice number 1117-42 of September 3, an
nounced the shooting of a group of 50 hostages. Notice number
1119-42 of September 5, announced the shooting of another
group of 50 hostages. That execution was carried out in retali
ation for the murder of Slunjski, a Home Guardsman, who was
killed in the first half of October 1941. Notice number 1125-42
of September 6,1942 announced the shooting of a group of 40
hostages. The wounding of Hilda Krasnik was the reason for the
Ustasha to publish their notice number 118142 of September 7,
announcing the shooting of 50 hostages. 'ITie attack on the rail
way near Martinci prompted the Ustasha to publish their notice
number 1182-42 of September 8, announcing the shooting of 50
hostages.
The physician who attended the executions stated after the
war that there was an old woman among the people executed.
Inquiring about her, he found out that she was Vera Tomic, a
29-year-old woman, whose hair had turned completely white
from the four-day-long torture.
In retaliation for the murder of one German, Tomic and
Kvaternik shot 10 Serbian hostages at Govedje brdo near Zemun on August 20,1942.
In the second half of August, Tomic and Kvaternik de
cided to move the Headquarters of the Mobile Court-Martial
from Vukovar to M itrovia. Since Doctor Jakov Eliker, Head of
Velika zupa Vuka disapproved of having large-scale executions
carried out in the centre of his district, the Ustasha deported
the majority of the hostages to the concentration camp of
Jasenovac. A first group of five railway wagons crammed with
women and children and one railway wagon with men was dis
patched on August 26. The following day, a special consignment
was prepared, consisting of 20 railway wagons crammed with
men, women, and children. These hostages are known to have
reached Jasenovac after two days and two nights of travelling
without water or food and after that, no trace of them has ever
been found.
In late August, the Ustasha caught 17 Serbs near the vil
lage of Grgeteg, killing 5 of them on the spot. They used the


88 3
. ,
, 60 , 30
. ,
15
. .
23. 40
, 9
3 , . he ,
. ,
26
.
240 ,
.
, 5
32 .
, >
.
160 , 16 60 ,
.
, 40
. 10
,
. 42 , .
76 ,
240, 40, 59
8 , 53 .
200 ,
62 .
400 . , 28. ,
140 ,
, ,
, .
. 3. 4.
70 .
, ,
24. , 25
, .

. 200

.

128 , 600
. .
, . 10.
16. 1942. , 67 ,
.

.
, 29. 30. ,
, .

100 .

other twelve as pack animals to carry ammunition for them to

Ledinci, where they were killed.
The Home Guardsmen Colonel Begic, arrested 88 men and
3 young girls in Banostor handing them over to Tomic in
Mitrovica. After his arrival in Cerevic, Colonel Begic arrested a
new group of 60 Serbs, and having singled out 30 of them sent
them to Mitrovica. No sooner had Begic departed from the vil
lage, than the Ustasha from Ilok arrived, arresting 15 farmers
who had fled from the surrounding villages. They were taken
down to the Danube and slain there.
On August 23, the Ustasha deported 40 Serbs from the vil
lage of Bukovac to the concentration camps of Vukovar and
Jasenovac. They killed 9 men and 3 women on the threshold of
their homes, slaying another five three days later. Realizing that
they were all going to be killed, the population of Bukovac fled
all together seeking shelter. The Ustasha intercepted them, sin
gling out 26 men and killing them before the eyes of the women
and the children.
In Karlovci, they arrested 240 men deporting them to
Mitrovica, while they assigned their wives to the homes of the
Germans and the Ustasha as auxiliary labour.
On their way through Lezimir, the Ustasha killed 5 Serbs
and burnt 32 Serbian houses just in passing. A great tragedy be
fell that village in late August when the Ustasha LieutenantColonel Ljudevit Eder came to the place with his unit. One
hundred and sixty men between the ages of 16 and 60 were ar
rested on that occasion and taken to the Mitrovica concentra
tion camp.
The local people there did not have time even to catch their
breath when the Home Guardsmen Captain Kovacevic, ordered
40 labour carts to be driven off to Ravne castle. When the first
group of 10 carts arrived there, the Ustasha of Senior Lieuten
ant Vlado Kocijan, seized them, slaying all of the ten coach
men. These same Ustasha surrounded Lezimir slaying another
42 people, among which were several babies.
Deported to Mitrovica were 76 Serbs from the village of
Jazak, a group of 240 people from Jamena followed by another
group of 40 from the same village, 59 men and 8 women from
Ruma, and 53 inhabitants of Krcedin. In the village of Budjanovci, the Ustasha Commander Velebit, arrested 200 men,
singling out 62 of them only to send them to Mitrovica. Ap
proximately 400 people were deported from the village of Grk.
On August 28, the Ustasha arrested 140 men in Sid. Six of them
died during Tomics first interrogation while the others, beaten
up and massacred, were sent to Mitrovica. One of that group
was the famous Serbian painter Sava Sumanovic. In Ilok, they
arrested 7 0 Serbs on September 3 and 4, and dispatched them
to Mitrovica.
The unbridled Ustasha, spearheaded by Stjepan Skrlina,
passed like a tempest through the village of Susek on August 24,
slaying 25 women, elders and children, and burning almost all
the Serbian houses. Hungry pigs without anyone to take care of
them roamed the streets eating the bodies of the slaughtered.
The 200 inhabitants of Susek who had escaped on that occasion
were caught by the Ustasha by a trick and either killed or de
ported to Mitrovica.
The Ustasha Municipal Commissar Lazar Rot, arrested 128
Serbs in Kamenica on two occasions, while Municipal Commis
sar Djuro Lackovic arrested 600 from Karlovac. All of them
were dispatched to Mitrovica.
That stage of the arrests, i.e. the period August 10-September 16,1942, brought suffering to the Serbs from 67 towns and
villages of Srem, while almost all the Gypsies from Srem were
killed or dispatched to concentration camps.
On August 27, Tomic with his escort and the Mobile CourtMartial moved over to Mitrovica. Between Saturday night and
Sunday morning of August 29 and 30, when families were usu-

 ,
15 55 .
, , . ,
15 , 11
.
5
,
.

10
.
, ,
1.500,
,
. , :
,
.

, .
2,7. 8. 176 ,
.
,
,
10 . 30.
200 .
,
,
.
,
,
2.800 ,
,

.

,
5.000.
200 300
, .
, ,
5.000.

. , 319 ,
11.
. Tpeha ,
1.500 , , ,
, ,
17. .
,
1942. ,
, . 7,8. 9.
1943. 36 , , , , .
, 1944. 150
.

ally all together, Mitrovica suddenly found itself in dreadful de

spair. Headed by Municipal Commissar Mate Ciprijanovic, a
hundred Ustasha and Tomics "scouts" gathered together. Using
lists that had been prepared in advance, that night they arrested
almost all the Serbs between the ages of 15 and 55. A torrent of
arrested Serbs, not only from Mitrovica but also from the sur
rounding villages, overflowed the Mitrovica jail. The identifica
tion office, headed by Kreca, a police clerk, numbering 15
employees, worked for two whole weeks from morning till 11 in
the evening, barely managing to record the basic data about the
arrested.
Each morning, 5 large bunches of freshly-cut gnarled sticks
had to be brought to the concentration camp for Tomic and his
assistants to do the interrogation with. Witnesses from the vil
lage of Beska stated that the Ustasha used to bring groups of 10
people into the corridor of the youth building of the peniten
tiary, killing them on the spot by clubbing them on the head
with heavy cudgels.
Despite the fact that executions were carried out every day,
the prisoners who sometimes numbered more than 1,500 could
not fit into the building of the penitentiary and so a large num
ber of them had to sleep on bare ground in the part that was
fenced off next to the prison. Tomics reply to all the interven
tions on behalf of freeing certain of the Serbs was: "Pulling
even a single Serb out of here would be just like pulling a
healthy tooth out of my gums."
Only a small number of the arrested were tried by the Mo
bile Court-Martial, while a huge majority were shot without any
trial. One hundred and seventy-six Serbs were tried on Septem
ber 2,7, and 8, and were all executed within the "legal" term of
three hours.
Tying the hands of the arrested behind their backs, the Us
tasha used to drive them off by buses from the penitentiary to
the graveyard, at night, killing them there in groups of 10. Dur
ing the night of August 30 alone, they brought and killed there
200 Serbs.
Almost all the executions were attended by Tomic,
Kvaternik, and the Ustasha Administrative District Commissar
Krzmanovic, Municipal Commissar Mato Ciprijanovic, as well
as by Mato Kovacic and Mato Ambrozic.
On the basis of exhumations carried out at the Mitrovica
graveyard by the Investigating Commission for Srem, after the
war, it has been established that 2,800 people were killed by fire
arms, and weapons, both blunt and pointed, while many were
found to have died as a result of suffocation in common graves.
If the number of the victims killed in the penitentiary itself
is added to the figure above, the number of the Serbs killed
goes up to over 5,000. Backing this up is also the fact that the
Ustasha used to take groups of between 200 and 300 prisoners
and shoot them on various moorlands, while throwing a large
number into the Sava. Rudolf Retl, the Mitrovica penitentiary
supervisor, said in his statement after the war, that the number
must have been larger than 5,000.
The prisoners who were not shot, were sent to the Jasenovac concentration camp. Of the 319 people in the first consign
ment, only 11 survived. The second group was deported to
Gradina near Jasenovac with no one ever to return from there.
The third group of about 1,500 people from Karlovac,
Petrovaradin, Kamenica, Beska, Cortanovci, and some other
places was deported on September 17.
The Mobile Court-Martial continued workingafterTomics
action which ended in the second half of September 1942, but,
its scope of work was reduced. 'Illus, on February 7,8, and 9,
1943, it condemned to death 36 Serbs from Dobrinci, Popind,
Ledind, Besenovo, Prnjavor, and some other villages.

 6 . 28. 9 .
13. 1944.
, , , . .

18
. 6 ,
.
,
, 14. 1944.
53 . 1944. VI
15
.
,
1945. , 1941-1944.
21.597 .
1.185, 6.546, 338,
307, 318, 291,
190, 130.

9.683 : 6.103 , 685 , 2.895
.

130 , 112, 249 .
1.618 371
, 438, 68, a 741
.
, ,
24.000.
, 11.899 .

,

- 151
.
, 68
,
50 .
, 1942. , , , , ,
, , , ...
, ,
, , , ,
, .
.

During the retreat of the occupation forces, the Ustasha

liquidated the last group of 150 Serbs from the Mitrovica prison
in mid-October 1944. In passing through the village of Lacarak
they killed another 6 Serbs. On September 28, they slaughtered
the last 9 Serbs in the makeshift prison in Jakovo.
The dreadful slaughter committed in the village of Nestin
on October 13,1944, just before it was liberated, gives ample
evidence of the atrocious crimes committed by the Ustasha, i.e.
the regular army of the Independent State of Croatia. That day,
an Ustasha detachment from Ilok broke into the village, leaving
behind 18 slaughtered and mutilated bodies among which were
6 children with smashed heads. One of them was just over a year
old.
On October 14,1944, an Ustasha criminal, Ivan Tolj, head
of the notorious concentration camp in Vinkovci, assisted by his
Ustasha, killed 53 Serbs, natives of the village of Sremske Laze.
In November 1944, the Commander of the 6th Ustasha Battal
ion from Erdevik and his detachment, killed 15 Serbs on the
banks of the Bosut.
The first post-war investigations conducted in 1945 showed
that 21,597 people lost their lives in the area of Srem, in the pe
riod 1941-1944. Eleven hundred and eighty-five of them were
killed in bombings, 6,546 were executed, 338 hanged, 307
slaughtered, 318 died of torture, 291 were burnt, 190 died of
hunger, 130 were asphyxiated with gas.
Ninety-six hundred and eighty-three people lost their lives
in concentration camps at home and abroad, i.e.: 6,103 were
killed, 685 died, while 2,895 have been recorded as missing.
One hundred and thirty people were killed while doing
forced labour at home or abroad, with 112 who died there and
249 recorded as missing.
Of the 1,618 people mobilized by the occupation forces and
the quislings, 371 were murdered, 438 were killed, 68 of them
died, and 741 have been registered as missing.
According to the most recent investigations which are still
in process, the number of Serbs from Srem who were killed ex
ceeds the figure of 24,000. According to the data gathered up to
date, 11,899 Serbs were killed in the direct Ustasha genocide in
the territory of Srem.
According to the findings of the State Commission for the
Establishment of Crimes Committed by the Occupying Powers
and Their Collaborators, in the territory of Vojvodina there
were 151 notorious war criminals in the area of Srem in the first
stage of the creation of the Independent State of Croatia and
the operation of its state-legal system.
On the same criteria, 68 notorious war criminals have been
documented as having participated in the action conducted by
Viktor Tomic and in the proceedings of the Mobile Court-Mar
tial in Srem, while 50 war criminals have been documented as
having committed crimes during the retreat of the occupation
forces from Srem.
In addition to the thousands of Serbs killed and massacred
and those deported to concentration camps, the Ustasha crimes
committed in the area of Srem - the culmination of which was in
the summer of 1942 - involved also tens of thousands of people
beaten with poles, sticks, twisted wires, ropes, clubs, rifle butts...
Many of the people ended up with their bones broken, internal
organs injured, nails and moustaches torn out, swollen soles cut
up, noses, ears, and womens breasts cut off. Thousands of
women and young girls were used by the Ustasha to do the dirti
est jobs and sexually abused.

1.

2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

1,

81
731
202
483
545
485
116
2.643

Num

Teritory

1.

HERZEGOVINA

81

2.

EASTERN BOSNIA

731

3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

CENTRAL BOSNIA
BOSNIAN KRAJINA
LIKA, KORDUN AND BANIJA
SLAVONIA
SREM
Total:

202
483
545
485
116
2,643

58

Locality

9
28
18
18
5
84

Localities of
mass genocide
6
no investigation
made
9
28
18
18
5
84

27
6.916
4
16
50.000
1
18
11.374
1
3
.
77.200
5
1
55.547
33 ()
7
.
33.089
15
21
11.899
3
246.025
84
47
24

Number
Collection
Pits into which
centres and
Serbs were
concentration
thrown
camps
27
4

Wells into which

Serbs were
thrown

Serbs killed in
direct genocide

6,916

16

approx. 50,000

18
5
33 (Lika)

1
1
7
15
3
47

11,374
77,200
55,547
33,089
11,899
246,025

.
-

84

.
-

21
.

24

 1 * SOURCES AND LITERATURE

, 0 1941/1942 , , 1991. (
)
, , 1968.
, ( 193) 1945-1946.,

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62


23. 25. 1991. . :
II ,
:

The author used the following papers presented at the

International Sdent ificGathering held
October 23 - 25,1991 under the name
GENOCIDE OF THE SERBS IN WORLD WAR II:

:
:
: 1941.
:
:
: 1941.
:
: II
:
:
: ,
:
: 1941-1945.
:
:
:
: - - 1941.
: 0 1941.
:
:
: II
: II
: ()
: 1941.
: 6 .1.1942.
:
: ( )
:
: XIX

-
, G - 2;

TESTIMONIES GIVEN BY REFUGEES

The Archives of Serbia, G-2 Records the Commissariat
for Refugees and Migration; The Archives of the Patriarchate
of the Serbian Orthodox Churche, Belgrade

, , 15.9.1941.,
, , 31.3.1941.,
, 28.7.1941.,
, , 4.7.1942.,
, 16.4.1942.,
, , 23.3.1947.,
, ,
, ,
, , 15.1.1942.,
, , 20.11.1947.,
, 8.6.1942.,
, , 28.10.1941.,
, , , 3.10.1942.,
, 17.9.1942.,
, , 13.10.1942.,
, , 26.6.1942,

63

 , , , 3.6.1942,
, , 1.8.1942,
, 6.10.1941,
, , , 8.11.1942.,
, , 2.9.1941. ,
,
, , , 20.7.1941.,
, , 14.9.1941.,
, , , 30.7.1941.,
, , , 1.9.1941., ,
, , 9.5.1942.,
, , 16.6.1942.,
, , , 30.8.1941.,
, , 23.7.1942.,
, , 23.9.1942.,
,
, ,
, , , 20.8.1947.,
, , 10.8.1947.,
, , 12.5.1942.,
, , 11.9.1942.,
, , 14.7.1947.,
, , 10.1.1942.,
, , 15.12.1947.,
, , 22.2.1942.,
, , , 11.3.1942.,
, , , 16.5.1942.,
, , 27.11.1942.,
, 12.9.1942.,
, , 17.8.1942.,
, , 12.8.1974.,
, 16.8.1941.,
, , 14.10.1942.,
, 5.5.1942,
, , 6.8.1942.,
, , 12.5.1942.,
, ,
, , 22.8.1947.,
, , , 30.12.1941.,
, , 1.12.1947.,
, ,
, , , 11.8.1947.,
, , 29.4.1943.,

64


CONTENS

page
.
Foreword, Prof. Dr. Smilja Avramov

Herzegovina

Eastern Bosnia

Central Bosnia

Bosnian Krajina
1,
Lika, Kordun and Banija

Slavonia

Srem

Sources and literature

7
11
15
15
20
20
24
24
30
30
37
37
46
46
51
51
59
59

 ATJIAC
1941-1945.
cy :

ATLAS OF THE USTASHA GENOCIDE OF THE

SERBS 1941-1945 has reached the readers owing to
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C EN T U R Y

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A T JIA C

1941 -1945.
:

IX

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1917.

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1941 -1945.

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H R V A T SK A U ST A SK A D R ZA V A

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1941 -1945

ATLAS
OF THE USTASHA GENOCIDE
OF THE SERBS
S tra h in ja K u rd u lija