[Extract]
. Report No. 5
of the Jugoslav State Commission for Ascertaining the Crimes of the Occupiers and their Accomplices.
* * * We submit here the wording of "Report No. 3" (No.
49/944 of the 30 September 1944) of the Croatian Commission for Ascertaining the Crimes of the Occupiers and their Accomplices, in which this Commission, among other things reports this crime, also on the basis of the original report of the Domobran Lieutenant-Colonel Potocnik, garrison commandant of Linj, that miserable accomplice of the same 118th German Division, who reported about this crime to Pavelic's Ministry for War in the following terms :
"In accordance with the order of the commander of the 118th German division, an SS battalion of the "Prinz Eugen" division and a battalion of the Teufels-Division (Devils Division) under the command of the German Lieut. Col. Dietsche, carried out on the 27. 3. 1944 and on the following days a purge action from Sinj in the direction of the villages of Otok-Ruda-Udovieie-Krivo-dol-Vostane-Grab.
On the 28 March this SS battalion overran the villages of Otok Cornji, Ruda and Dolac Dolnji one After the other and carried out horrible massacres, destructions by fire and looting. These beasts murdered on a single day in the three above named Dalmatian villages 834 people—a part from grown-up men, also women and children—set on fire 500 houses and looted everything there was to be looted. They removed rings, watches and other valuables from the dead bodies. The mass slaughter was carried out in all the villages in the same horrible manner. The German soldiers gathered women, children and men in one place and then opened fire on the crowd with machineguns, threw bombs at them, looted their property and set them on fire. In the House Milanovic-Trapo 45 burned bodies were found. In another house in the same
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village of Otok 22 unburned corpses were found in a pile. In the village of Ruda they collected all the people in one place and killed all of them. Those who happened not to be collected were killed where they were found. Not even the smallest babies at their mothers' breasts were spared. In some places the victims were soaked in petrol and set on fire. They also killed those who offered them hospitality out of fear. They also killed those peoplt who were forced to follow them to carry their ammunition and other things. According to the evidence of reliable witnesses, the massacres were prepared beforehand, and this all the more so as the above mentioned villages gave no reason whatsoever previous to the purge action for any kind of reprisals. Neither then nor ever previously was a single shot fired at German soldiers, nor was any hostile action undertaken against the same in the area of these villages * *
Secretary: -Dr. Ivan Grgic President of the State Commission
Dr. Dusan Nedeljkovic University professor.
Extract from a report on atrocities committed by SS forces in Croatia in 1944
Authors
Dusan Nedeljkovic (Prof., president of Yugoslav State Commission (on war crimes))
Dusan Nedeljkovic
philosopher
- Born: 1899-05-18 (Isakovo) (country: Kingdom of Serbia)
- Died: 1984-06-29 (Belgrade) (country: Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia)
- Occupation: philosopher; university teacher
- Member of: Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts; Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts
- Employer: Ss. Cyril and Methodius University of Skopje; University of Belgrade
- Educated at: Faculty of Arts of Paris (academic degree: Doctorate in France; academic major: philosophy; until: 1922-01-01)
- VIAF ID: https://viaf.org/viaf/3491389
- ISNI: https://isni.org/isni/0000000103740889
Ivan Grgic (Dr., secretary, Yugoslav State Commission (on war crimes))
Ivan Grgic
- Additional details not yet available.
Albert Vaja (Dr., Yugoslav delegate to IMT (1946))
Albert Vaja
- Additional details not yet available.
Yugoslav State Commission for Investigating the Crimes of the Occupying Power
Date: 10 June 1946
Literal Title: Extract. Report No. 5 of the Jugoslav State Commission for Ascertaining the Crimes of the Occupiers and their Accomplices.
Total Pages: 1
Language of Text: English
Source of Text: Nazi conspiracy and aggression (Office of United States Chief of Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality. Washington, D.C. : U.S. Government Printing Office, 1946.)
Evidence Code: D-945
HLSL Item No.: 451498
Notes:D 945 (not necessarily this copy) was entered as UK exhibit 554 in the trial.