The Forgotten Genocide of World War II - the Serbs

Editor’s Note: This is a response from a Serbian reader in Belgrade to statements made by a Croatian reader from Canada who insisted that it was the Serbs and their leader Mihailovich in World War II that were “monsters” and to a reader that identified himself as a “Christian” in Kosovo who claimed the Serbs burned down their own churches.

I can verify, since I own a 1966 copy of the Britannica Encyclopedia, that at one time Britannica did state that “In Bosnia..the Croatian Fascists began a massacre of Serbs which, in the whole annals of World War II, was surpassed for savagery only by the mass extermination of Polish Jews.” I also called the Holocaust Museum in the mid-1990s when none of the media seemed to even know what happened to the Serbs at the hands of Croatians in World War II about the numbers that had died. It was well over 1 million Serbs who were slaughtered. In fact – it was more than 9% of the Serbian population who lost their lives when they supported the Allies and the rest of the Croatians and Albanians and Bosnian Muslims supported Adolph Hitler.

WHO ARE THE REAL MONSTERS IN THE BALKANS?

Introduction by Alex from Belgrade
The rest of the text with thanks to Serbian Network (srpska mreza)

On the one side we have had Serbs fighting on the allied side in both world wars. As a result of that, in one day of July 1918 the Serbian flag was in honor and remembrance placed on the White House. Also, the US Legion of Merit, the highest medal America can give to a foreigner, was given to a Serbian WW 2 general. So, on the one side we have an enormous sacrifice of Serbia and its people who have bled for the allied cause both times and suffered greatly.

On the other side, we have had those who always chose the loosing side. On that other side, we have the Austro-Hungarian and Nazi-Italian servants - the Croats, the Bosnian Muslims and the Kosovo Albanians.

The world has heard of Nazi concentration (death) camps such as Auschwitz and Treblinka in Poland or Dahau in Norway. But, few people in the West know that the Croatian Nazis, known as Ustashi or Ustashe, have committed crimes of genocide that are far worse in cruelty than any other crimes committed on European soil, probably since the beginning of time. Few have heard about the Jasenovac concentration camp in which SEVERAL HUNDRED THOUSAND SERBS, JEWS AND ROMA were executed in the most brutal ways imaginable. Most of the victims were Serbs and the methods of execution were so severe that even the Nazis were shocked that such brutality was possible...

These testimonies are a documentation so that the truth is never forgotten.

Warning: The texts below may be shocking and not suitable for everyone. Please read with caution.

Here we go... ---

The Ustashi regime as quoted by foreign sources

REFERENCE #1:

For decades Encyclopedia Britannica had the following sentence when talking about WWII in Yugoslavia (Quote):

"...IN BOSNIA...THE CROATIAN FASCISTS BEGAN A MASSACRE OF SERBS WHICH, IN THE WHOLE ANNALS OF WORLD WAR II, WAS SURPASSED FOR SAVAGERY ONLY BY THE MASS EXTERMINATION OF POLISH JEWS"!!!!!!!! (End quote)

One can find the sentence in the versions of Britannica from 1971 to 1986 (entry: Yugoslavia, World War II). Probably at later editions too...

REFERENCE #2:

The New Encyclopedia Britannica, Volume 27, Macropedia (Knowledge in Depth), edition 1986, page 467, entry: Fascism in the Balkans (1930's) Quote:

RADICAL FASCIST movements developed in some Balkan countries - MOST PROMINENTLY IN CROATIA,... they were OBSESSED by an extremist spirit of terroristic violence in a strange union with RELIGIOUS FANATICISM. As result of German victory the Croatian USTASHE, a party under the leadership of Ante Pavelic (1889-1959), turned Croatia into a state on the model of the MOST EXTREMIST NATIONAL Socialist Party formation, the SS, or Schutzstaffel,...

The Ustashe persecuted and killed hundreds of thousands of Orthodox Serbs and Jews. Catholic monks and other priests are alledged to have taken an active part in this STRUGGLE FOR THE "PURITY" OF THE CROATIAN LAND... (End quote).

REFERENCE #3:

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th Edition (1991 - i.e. still before Western anti-Serb propaganda campaign started) Macropaedia, Vol. 29, page 1111 Quote:

In Croatia [in 1941] the indigenous fascist regime set about a policy of "racial purification" that went beyond even Nazi practices. Minority groups such as Jews and Gypsies were to be eliminated as were the Serbs: it was declared that one-third of the Serbian population would be deported, one-third converted to Roman Catholicism, and one third liquidated. ... Ustasha bands terrorized the countryside. The partial [sic!] collaboration of the Catholic clergy in these practices continues to be a component of Serb-Croat suspicion. (End quote).

REFERENCE #4:

1945 Britannica book of the year, page 216, entry: Croatia Quote:

Few regimes under German control had committed SO MANY CRUEL ACTS AS CROATIA DID. Serbs and Jews were persecuted and many of them murdered. (End quote).

REFERENCE #5:

Worldmark Encyclopedia of the Nations, Europe, edition 1995, page 91, entry: Croatia Quote:

Slavko Kvaternik (the second in command to the Croatian WWII fuehrer, Dr Ante Pavelic) explained (on the day of formation of the WWII "Independent State of Croatia", on April 10, 1941) HOW PURE CROATIA SHOULD BE BUILT - by forcing one third of the Serbs to leave Croatia, one third to convert to Catholicism, and one third to be EXTERMINATED. Soon Ustasha bands initiated a BLOODY ORGY of mass murder of Serbs unfortunate enough not to have converted or left Croatia on time. THE ENORMITY OF SUCH CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR SHOCKED EVEN THE CONSCIENCE OF GERMAN COMMANDERS, but Pavelic had Hitler's personal support for such actions which resulted in the loss of the lives of hundreds of thousands of Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. In addition, the Ustasha regime organized extermination camps, the most notorious one at JASENOVAC where Serbs, Jews, Gypsies, and other opponents were massacred in large numbers. (End quote)

REFERENCE #6:

Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, Vol 1, page 323, entry: Croatia Quote:

CROATIA (Nazavisna Drzava Hrvatska or Independent State of Croatia, NDH) ... established during WWII, that was in existence from April 1941 to May 1945. Its area... CONSISTED OF WHAT ARE TODAY THE FEDERATIVE REPUBLIC OF CROATIA AND THE FEDERATIVE REPUBLIC OF BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA... Its capital was Zagreb. It had population of 6.3 million, of whom 3.3 million were Catholic Croats, 1.9 million Serbs, 700,000 Muslim..., 40,000 Jews, 30,000 Gypsies...

... Shortly after taking control, the Ustasha, WITH THE SUPPORT OF MANY CROATS, EMBARKED UPON WHAT IT CALLED "THE PURGE OF CROATIA FROM FOREIGN ELEMENTS," which had as its main purpose the ELIMINATION OF THE SERB MINORITY.

In a BRUTAL TERROR CAMPAIGN, more than half a million Serbs were killed, a quarter of million expelled, and 200,000 forced to convert to Catholicism.

THE USTASHA REGIME IN CROATIA, AND PARTICULARLY THIS DRIVE IN THE SUMMER OF 1941 TO EXTERMINATE AND DISPOSSESS THE SERBS, WAS ONE OF THE MOST HORRENDOUS EPISODES OF WORLD WAR II !!!!!!!!!!

THE MURDER METHODS APPLIED BY THE USTASHA WERE EXTRAORDINARILY PRIMITIVE AND SADISTIC: thousands were hurled from mountain tops, other were beaten to death or their throats cut, entire villages were burned down, WOMEN RAPED, people sent to death marches in the middle of winter, and still others starved to death.

(End quote)

REFERENCE #7:

The New Encyclopedia Britannica, edition 1986, Macropedia (Knowledge in Depth), Volume 27, page 467, entry: 'Fascism in the Balkans (1930's).' Quote:

Catholic monks and other priests are alleged to have taken an active part in this struggle for the 'purity' of the Croatian land. (End quote)

REFERENCE #8:

Professor Helen Fein, "Accounting for Genocide - Victims and Survivors of the Holocaust," The Free Press, New York, Edition 1979, page 103 Quote:

Nonpartisan sources agree that mass genocide was authorized by the state of Croatia. They concur that the state instigated, planned, and executed massacres against the Serbian Orthodox minority... and that the Catholic clergy approved, led, or failed to denounce these massacres. The Croats' collective hatred of the Orthodox Serbs was explicit in folk sayings such as ["Srbe o vrbe" -] "Serbs to the willows [hang the Serbs]." ...

By June 1941, signs on public establishments read, 'NO SERBS, JEWS, NOMADS ['Gypsies'] AND DOGS ALLOWED.

(End quote)

REFERENCE #9:

"Partisans and Guerillas, W.W.II," Ronald H. Bailey, Time-Life Books, Edition 1978, page 87. Quote:

The real ruler [of W.W.II Croatia] was Ante Pavelich, a zealous Croatian nationalist and fanatical hater of Serbs... Pavelic lead a terrorist group called the Ustashi in a brutal campaign against Jews and Serbs in Croatia.

"A good Ustashi," he told his men, "is he who can use his knife to cut a child from the womb of its mother." According to an Italian correspondent, Pavelich once put a wicker basket on his desk - filled with 40 pounds of eyes gourged from victims of the Ustashi.

(End quote)

REFERENCE #10:

Professor Edmond Paris, "Genocide in Satellite Croatia, 1941- 1945," Chicago, 1961, The American Institute for Balkan Affairs, from the introduction of the book. Quote:

The greatest genocide during World War II, in proportion to a nation's population, took place, not in Nazi Germany but in the Nazi-created puppet state of Croatia. There, in the years 1941-1945, some 750,000 Serbs, 60,000 Jews and 26,000 Gypsies - men, women and children - perished in a gigantic holocaust. These are the figures used by most foreign authors, especially Germans, who were in the best position to know...

The magnitude and the bestial nature of these atrocities makes it difficult to believe that such a thing could have happened in an allegedly civilized part of the world.

(End quote)

REFERENCE #11:

Herman Naubacher, Hitler's personal assistant for the South-East Europe and the Balkan affairs, in his book "Sonderauftrag Sudosten 1940-1945. Bericht eines fliegenden Diplomate", Gottingen, 1956, on page 31, writes: Quote:

The Orthodox recipe of Ante Pavelic, Ustashi leader and Croatian Fuehrer, reminds one of the religious wars in the bloodest aspects: one-third must become Catholic, one-third must leave the country and one-third must die. The last item was executed. When the leading men of the Ustashi movement are stating that they have slaughtered ONE MILLION Serbs (including infants, children, women and aged) this in my opinion is a self-praising exaggeration. According to the reports that have reached me, my estimate is that the number of those defenseless slaughtered is some THREE QUARTER OF A MILLION. [=750,000] (End quote)

REFERENCE #12:

[Italian] Alfio Russo, in his book "Revoluzione in Jugoslavia", Roma 1944 Quote:

Even the most extraordinary massacres in the darkest era of history would not soil its name - Croatia... Kill, kill, scream the Ustashi against Serbs. And they cut their heads off and throw bodies away into the Sava river which flows slowly and gravely in the direction of Belgrade...

Go back to your motherland, go back to your motherland.

Neither Fascists nor Nazi have the remotests resemblance to the Ustashi, they are a fauna absolutely extraordinary and strange...

(End quote)

REFERENCE #13:

Baron Avro Manhattan, "The Vatican's Holocaust," Ozark Books, 1986, page 54 Quote:

The Nazis had records of massacres of their own second to none. Yet the horrors committed by Pavelic's Ustashi troops proved to be of such bestiality as to shock even them: a most crushing evidence that the Ustashi massacres had surpassed ANYTHING experienced even by the Germany of Hitler. The magnitude of the butchery can best be gauged by the fact that within the first three months, from April to June, 1941, 120,000 people perished thus. Proportionately to its duration and the smallness of the territory, it had been the greatest massacre to take place ANYWHERE in the West prior to, during, or after that greatest of cataclysms, the Second World War. (End quote)

REFERENCE #14:

Dr. Nora Levin, "The Holocaust - The destruction of European Jewry 1933 - 1945," Schocken Books, New York, Edition 1973, page 515 Quote:

The Ustashi murdered and tortured Jews and Serbs in indescribably bestial fashion. One of the most notorious camps in Hitler's Europe, Jasenovac, was in Croatia. Here the Ustashi used primitive implements in putting their victims to death - knives, axes, hammers and other iron tools. A characteristic method was binding pairs of prisoners, back to back, and then throwing them into the Sava River. One source estimates that 770,000 Serbs, 40,000 Gypsies and 20,000 Jews were done to death in the Jasenovac camp. (End quote)

REFERENCE #15:

Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, Vol 2, page 739

Quote:

JASENOVAC, the largest concentration camp in Croatia. Jasenovac was in fact a complex of several subcamps, in close proximity to each other, on the bank of Sava river... established in August 1941 and was dismantled only on April 1945...

SOME SIX HUNDRED THOUSAND PEOPLE WERE MURDERED AT JASENOVAC, MOSTLY SERBS JEWS, GYPSIES, AND OPPONENTS OF THE USTASHA REGIME... The living conditions in the camp were extremely severe... a particularly CRUEL regime, and UNBELIEVABLY CRUEL BEHAVIOR BY THE USTASHE GARDS.

(End quote)

A photograph that accompanies the text shows a smiling Ustasha in uniform with large "U" on its cap. The caption says (quote): "The former priest Miroslav Filipovic-Majstorovic, a member of the Jasenovac camp staff". In the text, later, it adds that this was one of the cruelest murderers, "who killed scores of prisoners with his own hands"... He was known as "Father Devil".

At different places in encyclopediae it is said how Croats participated EN MASSE in the slaughter. Actually, per capita, Croatia produced more soldiers then Nazi Germany. They tried, wery hard, to prove that CROATS ARE THE BEST NAZI OF THEM ALL! They were the best carriers of Hitler's New World Order.

CROATIA WAS THE FIRST NAZI STATE IN WORLD WAR II EUROPE TO DECLARE WAR ON THE U.S. While Nazi Germany did it in 1943, Croats did it as early as December 15, 1941.

REFERENCE #16:

And who joined Nazi Croats in slaughtering the Serbs? You've guessed it: The Muslims!

Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, Edition 1990, Volume 2, Pages 706 and 707, entry Husseini, Hajj Amin Al ; The main Hitler's supporter among Palestinian Arabs... Quote:

It so happened that Husseini made his contribution to the Axis war effort in his capacity as a Muslim, rather than as an Arab leader, by recruiting and organizing in RECORD TIME, during the spring of 1943, BOSNIAN MUSLIM BATTALIONS in Croatia comprising some TWENTY THOUSAND MEN, These MUSLIM VOLUNTEER units, called Hanjar (Sword), were put in WAFFEN-SS fought Yugoslav partisans in Bosnia, and carried out police and security duties in Hungary. THEY PARTICIPATED IN THE MASSACRE OF CIVILIANS IN BOSNIA and VOLUNTEERED TO JOIN IN THE HUNT FOR JEWS IN CROATIA... The Germans made a point of publicizing the fact that Husseini had flown from Berlin to Sarajevo for the sole purpose of giving his blessing to the Muslim army and inspecting its arms and training exercises. (End quote).

A photograph, on page 704, shows al-Husseini inspecting Muslim troops in Bosnia.

TWENTY THOUSAND (20,000) Muslim volunteers for the Nazi SS - out of total population of 700,000 - that's a HUGE response.

WHAT THE NAZIS AND FASCISTS SAID...

Countless books and encyclopediae talk about Ustashi atrocities. But if you think that the victorious side twisted the truth (as it often happens) here is what Ustashi allies of WWII (German Nazis and Italian Fascists) had to say about...

Ustashi beasts

NAZI GERMANS:

Herman Naubacher, Hitler's personal assistant for the South-East Europe and the Balkan affairs, in his book "Sonderauftrag Sudosten 1940-1945. Bericht eines fliegenden Diplomate", Gottingen, 1956, on page 31, writes the following:

[Quote]

The Orthodox recipe of Ante Pavelic, Ustashi leader and Croatian Fuehrer, reminds one of the religious wars in the bloodiest aspects: one-third must become Catholic, one-third must leave the country and one-third must die. The last item was executed. When the leading men of the Ustashi movement are stating that they have slaughtered ONE MILLION Serbs (including infants, children, women and aged) this in my opinion is a self-praising exaggeration. According to the reports that have reached me, my estimate is that the number of those defenseless slaughtered is some THREE QUARTER OF A MILLION. [=750,000]

[End quote]

Walter Gorlitz, a German military official, in his book "Der Zweite Weltkrieg 1939-1945", Stuttgart, 1952. Band 11. on page 125 writes the following:

[Quote]

Unfortunately, one of the first measures undertaken by the Catholic Ustashi regime was a terrible military venture of extermination of the Serbian Greek-Orthodox parts of population which has come under the Croatian rule. The horrors that had taken place at that time had thrown the young country into a predestined civil war.

[End quote]

Karlheinz Deschner, a German writer, Catholic and a doctor of philosophy, in his book "Mit Gott und den Faschisten", Stuttgart, October 1965 and "Abermalsrahen der Hahn", Stuttgart, December 1962, writes the following:

[Quote]

The Serbs have become slaughterhouse material. In accordance with this doctrine the Ustashi started actions against Serbs, the people of the highest cultural level in the Balkans but not of the Catholic faith...

Catholics were urged from the church pulpits to persecute Orthodox Serbs and especially arduous in this were the Franciscans whose monasteries have for a long time served as meeting grounds for the Ustashi.

Furthermore it is understood that from the total of two million Orthodox population, almost 600,000 was killed.

[End quote]

We would provide you, here with quotes of another five German authors and at least dozen of Italian ones... For now here are only these two:

FASCIST ITALIANS:

[Italian] Alfio Russo, in his book "Revoluzione in Jugoslavia", Roma 1944, says the following:

[Quote]

Even the most extraordinary massacres in the darkest era of history would not soil its name - Croatia... Kill, kill, scream the Ustashi against Serbs. And they cut their heads off and throw bodies away into the Sava river which flows slowly and gravely in the direction of Belgrade...

Go back to your motherland, go back to your motherland.

Neither Fascists nor Nazi have the remotests resemblance to the Ustashi, they are a fauna absolutely extraordinary and strange...

[End quote]

In 1953 Italian military authorities have made available to the press several documents from their archives, pertaining to the Ustashi crimes perpetrated over the Serbian people. Thus the daily "Il Tempo" of September 10, 1953, published the following excerpts from the report of the Commander of the Italian "Sasari" division:

[Quote]

Population in some places was completely exterminated, after having been tortured and tormented.

The horrors that the Ustashi have committed over the Serbian small girls is beyond all words. There are hundreds of photographs confirming these deeds because those of them who have survived the torture: bayonetted hits, pulling of tongues and teeth, nails and breast tips (all this having been done after they were raped), were taken in by our officers and transported to Italian hospitals where these documents and facts were gathered.

[End quote]

Curzio Malaparte, book title: "Kaputt".

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Witness to Jasenovac’s Hell -

By: Ilja Ivanovic

As Professor Dr. Edmond Paris says in the very first few sentences of the introduction of his book "Genocide in Satellite Croatia" (published by The American Institute for Balkan Affairs in 1961):

Quote:

The greatest genocide during World War II, in proportion to a nation's population, took place, not in Nazi Germany but in the Nazi-created puppet state of Croatia. There in the years 1941-1945, some 750,000 Serbs, 60,000 Jews and 26,000 Gypsies - men, women and children - perished in a gigantic holocaust...

...The magnitude and the bestial nature of these atrocities makes it difficult to believe that such a thing could have happened in an allegedly civilized part of the world. Yet even a book such as this can attempt to tell only a part of the story.

(End quote)

Curzio Malaparte, book title: "Kaputt", 10th edition (Rome, Milan, 1948) (Quote:)

[Fuehrer of Croatia, Dr. Ante Pavelic's] eyes shone with deep black fire in his pale, earthen-colored face. An undefinable air of stupidity was stamped on his face, perhaps steming from huge ears, that, seen closely, looked even more vast, ludicrous and monstrous than his portraits...When Ante Pavelic turned his face, offering profile to my eyes, those huge ears seemed to fit his head sideways, as if they were wings striving to soar into the air with that massive body... His hands were broad, thicky, hairy; and his knuckles knotty with muscles. One realized that his hands bothered him; he did not know where to put them... (End quote)

As Mr. Malaparte was listening to the Croatian fuhrer, their common acquaintance, Count Makeido, who was also present during the conversation, announced Mussolini's representative to the Independent State of Croatia Mr. Rafaelle Casertano. The conversation continued...

(Quote from the book, page 313, Italian edition):

While he [ Ante Pavelic ] spoke, I gazed at a wicker basket on the Poglavnik's (fuehrer's) desk. The lid was raised and the basket seem to be filled with mussels, or shelled oysters - as they are occasionally displayed in the window of Fortnum and Mason in Picadilly in London. Casertano looked at me and winked, "Would you like a nice oyster stew?"

"Are they Dalmatian oysters?" I asked the Poglavnik (Dr.Pavelic)

Ante Pavelic removed the lid from the basket and he revealed the mussels, that slimy and jelly-like mass, and he said SMILING, with that tired good-natured smile of his, "IT IS PRESENT FROM MY LOYAL Ustashis. (Croatian fascists). *FOURTY POUNDS OF HUMAN EYES*! "

(End quote)

Francesco Bassottti (in "Il Borghese magazine, Rome, 1960) said: (Quote:)

I wish to declare, having held during the war a high positionin Rijeka (Croatia) where I was in constant touch with the Army Commandand prefecture... What Malaparte wrote is THE LIVING TRUTH, because our soldiers and officers and I SAW HEAPS OF GOURGED OUT HUMAN EYES. Copies of all photographs of Croatian crimes were received by me, the Second Army, and the Prefecture... I never heard of the Serbs having engaged in such bestiality, toward our soldiers or toward anyone else... (end quote).

Miss Ruth Mitchell, sister of the famous American aviator, happened to be in Dubrovnik, in April 1941, when Yugoslavia fell to the Nazi occupation and Nazi Croats (Ustashi) declared independence. Miss Mitchell, a newspaperwoman, wrote a book "The Serbs choose war" (Doublesday, Doran, 1943). On page 148, independently but fully congruently with Malaparte's statements she writes:

(Quote:)

For now I began to get news from Croatia (proper) that told of slowly rising tide of murders, of UNREPEATABLE ATROCITIES, OF MASSACRES OF DEFENSLESS SERBS BY BESERK-MAD CROATIANS AND BY MOSLEMS IN BOSNIAN CROATIA. In the little back parlors of trusty men, the tales were whispered. I could not believe a quarter of them. Unfortunately, I was soon to know that they were a weak understatement of the truth. Men were to arrive in Dubrovnik itself, HUNG WITH STRINGS OF SERBIAN TONGUES AND WITH BOWLS OF SERBIAN EYES FOR SALE!

(End quote)

Glina Massacre!
BUTCHERY INSIDE THE CHURCH

In a small town of Glina, Krajina, more than two thousand Serbs were murdered, in a single night. That August night, 1941, most of the victims were butchered with knives -- right inside their own, Christian shrine. There was so much blood flowing that it spilled over the church's threshold out to the street. The appalling crime was done with full knowledge and approval of the Vatican.

No one was to survive. No one was to tell what happened. One Serbian peasant did survive. This is his story.

I was only a half-mile from home when I stumble on Ustashas coming on the same road. They stopped. "Where are you going?" I say, "To Bovic." They say "Sit on this carriage. We are going to Topusko." They were actually in a pillage spree.

When we got half-way to Topusko, their horses got tired so they stopped. They left the horses, and I had to go with them. At the entrance of Topusko, there is one large inn. Ustashas are singing inside. They are breaking glasses.

I say to one Ustasha, Marko Tonkovic, I know him so well before from the village of Vidosevac: "Let us get one plum brandy." "Oh, no" he says, "we have plum brandy for free as much as we want. We will not drink here." So, we get to Topusko crossroads. There a few Ustasha guards are waiting.

"What shall we do with him?" they [my captors] ask.

"Take him to the town house."

I think they will bring me to the church but Topusko church is also filled with people. They bring me to the town house.

There are a few of us in the town house and one hour later they start to bring more people from Kordun [Krajina]. They push thirty, forty people in those small rooms. The Ustashas then say: "Get out and form a queue." Okay. We do. Then they say that one by one everyone should get back to the town office. They severely beat everyone in there and then bring them back to the queue.

As the night is approaching, lorries come. They shove us, pack us in them. I ask Stanko Zuzic, who had some lands close to ours, what was happening. He just continues shoving us in. I ask Djuro Unkovic, but he took the hat from my head and hit me over the head twice with a whip. "I do not know anyone" he says. But he was at our house so many times -- ate with us...

Well the time came that you are not to know a Serb.

One, then two, three, four trucks come. They cram us in. I think they will murder us in the large forest that lies between Topusko and the Toplicka railroad station. They do not. They bring us to the railroad station and push us in the wagons. They are cattle wagons. They push, push, push us into those rail wagons —- some 150 or 160 of us into one. You cannot even breathe. We are pressed like that until the dawn. The dawn comes. Wagons are getting hooked together.

I say, "They are taking us to Glina." "No," [says someone] "They are taking us to Lika [Krajina] to do some forced work."

But, I knew that area well as I lived close to Glina.

We get to Glina. They stop the train. There is a swarm of Ustasha — so many of them - like ants. They are waiting for us. "Out, out, out! Two and two. Hold hands!"

You are not allowed to look anywhere but straight ahead. Every pair of us is accompanied by two Ustashas - one standing on each side.

Some three people do not want to get out of the wagons. They shoot them there and leave them in the wagons.

They bring our large column to the [Serbian] church. We are standing there afraid to look anywhere aside. The two Ustashas that are guarding you each has a knife on his rifle.

One Ustasha (Vidakovic Nikica) tells another (Dezalic) to go to the Croat priest and get the key of the church so that these "corpses" can be locked in. He does it. How the Croatian priest had a key to the Serbian church, I do not know.

They throw us in the church. "Get in, get in. Get in." They push us in, as many of us as they can. They lock the church and leave.

We wonder - what will happen? Some say we will be brought to forced labor in Lika [Krajina]. The church is filled with people. We think - we are finished! Some people silently cry. Other people brought with them two loaves of bread. Some brought fried chicken, meat. There you are -- duped people! Around 9 o'clock a few of Ustashas get in and ask: "Are you thirsty?" One Ustasha is ordered to bring water. They bring two buckets of water and leave them close to the entrance. You cannot even drink that water you are so beaten up.

They came in two hours again. "Get up!" Someone can, some cannot. They take people's names. This because they are to be paid 100 dinars for every head they slaughter. They want to have a record of how many people they will slaughter.

They take first and last names, as many as they can and they leave again.

In the afternoon they return and ask: "Who of you is Pero Miljevic?"

"I am Pero Miljevic."

"Do you Pero know anything about Chetniks? We will let you go home."

"I know some Ratkovic, an accountant, the one from Glina who was killed. He was with Chetniks."

"Are you from that organization?"

"No, I am not."

The Ustashas cut some two yards of that heavy rope used for the church bell and beat him badly with it then leave.

Later in the afternoon they return. They rip and slice the church icons, beat people.

"Is any of you converted [to Catholicism]? We will let you go."

No one answers. Then some Pajo, notary from Topusko, and some Adam Korac answer, and they let them go. They leave again.

Then some ten of them get back and ask whether anyone has money. "We will buy you things. After that you will be sent to Lika to forced labor. Do not fear. Whoever wants to get out is free to do so."

Whoever volunteered is hit by an Ustasha riffle butt, in the spine - as hard as they can.

They get in with the night: "Light the candles!"

The candles cannot burn with so many people in the church. You light it - it folds over and falls. The Ustashas then start throwing the priest's candle sticks and start hitting people with it. They hit over the heads. You try to hide your head into other people. The Ustashas curse our Serbian mothers and step, just step, over people.

"Get up!" they shout. We are up. They bring more (live) people with their trucks. Shove in, shove in. Shove in as much as they can. No more can fit in.

You loose sense of time... It is night. Then: "Get everything off!" We take shoes off and all we can...

It is calm again. Then again: "Who of you is Pero Miljevic?"

"It's me." he says again.

"Tell us more of what you know about Chetniks. We will let you go home."

"I do not know anything else."

As he said that he was hit right then by a knife. He was as if cut in half.

Stojan Bajic, from Kordun says: "I know something about Chetniks. Will you let me go?... We were cutting telephone polls between Kameni Most and Kladusa."

"Are you listed as Chetnik?"

"No."

"Turn your neck."

He does. They cut his throat and say: "Sing!"

How could he sing? His blood is spraying two yards away. That Ustasha then curses the victim's Serbian mother and jumps to cut more of his neck. So it is. He is cut more. Finished.

The rest of us are watching this. But something inside of me tells me that I will stay alive.

Then, listen, when they slaughter those first two, they start slaughtering, slaughtering, slaughtering -- next and next and next -- and take them away. The blood is flowing through the church.

Only around ten of us are left. I somehow jump into the altar -- a few of us, and one lies there next to the wall. He hides. I jump behind some small cupboard and hide among the already slaughtered. So I was lying down -- lying. Blood is flowing underneath my lips and down all to the knees.

One Ustasha goes among the slaughtered and stabs the already slaughtered with his knife. He gets to me. He puts his foot on my back. Another Ustasha kicked me in the head: "Fuck their Serbian mothers. They are all slaughtered. Not one is alive."

Then they come closer to the hidden one.

"Ooooh, I am still alive."

"Get up!... How are you?"

"You see how I look."

"Get up... You two - hold him."

I lean my head a bit, and I see how they hold his arms. A third Ustasha holds a candle and burns the victim's mustache and eyes. He screams in pain. What will I do? What can I do as they burn his eyes and mustache?

One Ustasha yells: "Slaughter that corpse and throw him among the slaughtered."

It got quiet again. Two and two Ustashas carry the slaughtered bodies out. One takes your legs, the other your arms. They throw you into the truck.

Listen, a few of us are left. It is the fifth or sixth truck that leaves [the church]. My turn comes. One Ustasha grabs me by the legs and one by the arms. They carry me to throw me on the truck. And still something is telling me that I'll stay alive.

They hurl me on the truck. Somehow I landed on my back. Three or four other bodies fall on me. One of the bodies has slashed throat, and blood flows over me. I will not make a sound.

They order [the driver]: "Go. You know where you should drive it."

The other [Ustasha] cautions: "Don't just go. Be careful. Go back to church and check whether anyone is alive. Then do not come back to Glina. No one should ever know..."

The third one says: "Mother fucking Serbs - they will not all fit. Throw some to that other truck."

They get me by the legs and drag me off. As they do my head hits a rock. Here is where it was broken. They throw me in the other truck.

The trucks start to move, the one I was on, too. Two Ustashas are sitting above my head and one close to my legs.

The truck gets some 60, 70 yards off the main road. They come for us. Throw, throw, throw bodies. There are already large numbers of people in those pits. There are some 30 or 40 of them doing it.

One they take off me and throw him then another and third and fourth. They get me by the legs and threw me somehow into one corner [of the pit]. My legs land stretched. Another gets thrown over me. But still something in me says that when they throw dirt over us, I will lift that dirt and will run away.

They bring one live woman. What they didn't do to her there --. One of them then says: "Fuck her Serbian mother! Shoot her!" She falls. She falls down over my legs.

One says: "It would be good to get down there. She has golden rings."

They then bring some live people. They hit them with hammers and axes. They just bring him to the pit. He cries: "Oh, my children." or "Oh, my dear mother."

They bring three or four trucks of live people after mine. There must have been some 600 souls they brought. Those are the people who did not fit in the church and they left them in the town house.

Listen -- they murdered them all.

It was quiet again. You could not hear anything. One then said: "You know, not all will fit in this pit. We should step on them, pack them."

They get into the pit and step, step onto people.

Again, you cannot hear anything. You cannot hear anything. Nothing. Then someone goes toward me and asks: "Are you alive?" I am silent. I think it could be one of the Ustashas. He crawls back and lies again. He comes back and asks: "Are you alive? Are you alive?" I said: "Yes I am. Let us get out."

I go to one corner, he to another.

There are other pits around, some two yards deep.

I am looking carefully. Some 30 or 40 of them [Ustashas] are standing around, only five, six steps away. One of them is holding a peasant type of lamp.

They did not notice that both he and I escaped.

From there, listen, we run, run. Run over the road. I stumbled over someone in a corn field. He was lying there. He was startled. People were running away from their homes and were hiding in the fields of Majska Polja.

I say: "Hey, is that you Stojan?"

He says: "Yes, it's me, Ljuban, brother. What happened to you? We heard that they were beating people in Prekupa. What happened to you?"

"Well, I was in the church. You see what they did to me. They were slaughtering people in the church."

"How did it happen?"

"Don't ask. Do not ask anything now. I cannot describe it myself." I took the blood-soaked shirt off and continued half-naked. I said: "Stojan, where is my uncle Pavle Ovcar's house?"

"You already passed it" he says, directing me where to go.

It was already dawn when I arrived. I changed. My pants were all blood-soaked on me. Barely two hours passed - someone said: "Ustashas are coming!"

Luckily they did not stop at the house. They were just going through in a patrol.

I stayed there [in my uncle's house] the next three months. I was curing my wounds. You see, my entire back was scratched off as they dragged me across the metal bottom of the truck.

I somehow survived. ---