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Šušnjar 1941 THE FIRST ROUND TABLE ŠUŠNJAR 1941 PROCEEDINGS - PAPERS, TESTIMONIES AND DOCUMENTS Publishers Municipality of Oštra Luka Association of Displaced Serbs from Sanski Most “The Hearths of Sanski Most” Banja Luka Publishing Agency “Slovo” Banja Luka For the publishers Drena Kuridža Čedo Majkić Milan Dašić Editorial Director Professor Vladimir Lukić Editorial Manager Gojko Čičić Editorial Board Professor Vladimir Lukić Ranko Pavlović Mihajlo Orlović Serbian-English translation Svetlana Mitić Dragana Ratković Photos Milan Dašić Čedo Majkić Vladimir Bibić Layout and Design Vanesa Kovač Printed For the Printing company Number of prints 2000 ŠUŠNJAR 1941 Proceedings - papers, testimonies and documents Oštra Luka 1 August 2008 CONTENTS INSTEAD OF FOREWORD .................................................................... 7 LIFE IN MEMORIES, Drena Kuridža .................................................... 8 ŠUŠNJAR HAS NOT BEEN FORGOTTEN, NOR WILL IT BE, Čedo Majkić ............................................................. 8 THE TRUTH, NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH, Professor Vladimir Lukić, PhD ............................. 9 BEFORE THE COURT OF JUSTICE AND TRUTH, Rabbi Jozef Atijas ......................................................... 11 THE IMPORTANCE OF COLLECTING MATERIALS, Dragan Davidović .......................................................... 12 NO RIGHT TO KEEP SILENT, Branislav Dukić ................................ 13 BEFORE THE COURT IN STRASBOURG, Gojko Knežević ............. 14 BUILDING A CHURCH ON ŠUŠNJAR, Milorad Janjetović ............. 15 THE SERBIAN WRITERS’ SAY, Zoran Kostić ................................... 16 MAY IT NOT BE FORGOTTEN, Dragan Divjak ................................ 18 A HISTORICAL DAY FOR OŠTRA LUKA, V. Rev. Petar Milovac ... 19 Papers, testimonies and documents THE 1941-1945 WAR CASUALTIES FROM SANSKI MOST MUNICIPALITY ACCORDING TO THE 1964 REGISTER AND ITS REVISION TO DATE, Jovan Mirković ............................... 23 THE INDEPENDENT STATE OF CROATIA – A STATE OF CRIMINALS, Petar Dodik .............................................. 57 GENOCIDE IN SANSKI MOST, Sofi ja Praća – Veljović .................... 69 WAR CRIMINALS’ TRIAL, Bokan, J. Branko ................................... 95 ŠUŠNJAR NEAR SANSKI MOST (1941 – 2004) Genocide over Serbs and Jews on Saint Elijah’s Day 1941, Dr Milan Bulajić ......................................... 101 MEMORIES of the suffering of Serbian and Jewish people in Sanski Most in 1941, Judita Albahari-Krivokuća .......................... 125 5 MEMORIES ON WAR DAYS IN 1941, Dr Nedeljko-Šule Miličević ..................................................................127 ABOUT CHILDHOOD AND ŠUŠNJAR, Miodrag – Mića Vezmar ....... 133 CRIMES IN SANSKI MOST, Milan Crnomarković .......................... 141 ŠUŠNJAR IN 1941, Drago Trninić ..................................................... 153 THROUGH FACTS TO THE TRUTH /Per argumenta ad veritatem/, Dušan Bogdanović .............................. 157 MEMORIES OF SANSKI MOST, Luna Albahari ............................. 165 PAINFUL MEMORIES THAT DO NOT FADE AWAY, Duško Radić ................................................. 169 THE NINE WAR ORPHANS OF DUŠAN AND DRAGA DELIĆ FROM KRUHARI, Zorka Delić-Skiba ............................................... 171 A CRIME OF HUMAN FREAKS, Stojanka Mijatović-Erceg ........... 197 IN MEMORY OF MURDERED FATHER MILAN AND UNCLES STEVAN AND DUŠAN, Vukašin M. Davidović ...... 225 ŠUŠNJAR, NARRATIVE MEMORY, Zdravko Kecman.................... 243 THE ŠUŠNJAR LITERARY FESTIVAL AND ŠUŠNJAR AS A LITERARY INSPIRATION, Dušan Praća .... 247 STORIES OF TERROR, Mihajlo Orlović ........................................... 251 PLENTY OF CORDAGE AND BULLETS FOR THE SERBS, Božo Raković ........................................................ 255 WE CALLED THE CRIME ON ŠUŠNJAR A SLAUGHTER, Milenko Bašić ....................................................................................... 257 THERE IS ALWAYS A SURVIVOR TO TELL THE TRUTH ABOUT AN ATROCITY, Pero Vukić ................................... 259 WHEN FATHER CRIED, Slavko Ačić ................................................ 261 BLOOD KEPT STREAMING FROM ŠUŠNJAR FOR A LONG TIME, Dušan Ačić ................................................................ 263 THEY BROKE THEIR WORD, Đuro Veselinović ............................. 265 THEY KILLED MY TWO BROTHERS, Zora Majkić ...................... 267 DOCUMENT TRANSCRIPTIONS .................................................. 269 CONCLUSIONS ................................................................................. 275 HUMAN AND MORAL DUTY, Professor Vladimir Lukić, PhD ..... 279 CONCLUDING REMARKS, Drena Kuridža ..................................... 281 Šušnjar 1941 - Proceedings - papers, testimonies and documents INSTEAD OF FOREWORD On 1st August 2008, Oštra Luka was the venue of the ‘Šušnjar 1941’ Round Table, exactly sixty-seven years after the terrible massacre at the hands of the Ustashi on St. Elijah’s Day, when between 7,000 and 10,000 Serbs and Jews of what was then the District of Sanski Most (the exact number has not been ascertained yet, but we should hope it will be within a reasonable period of time) were brutally killed only because they were members of a different religion and a different nation. The organisers of the Round Table were the Municipality of Oštra Luka and the Association of Displaced Serbs from Sanski Most ‘The Hearths of Sanski Most’, with the seat in Banja Luka, and members of the Organising Board were: Drena Kuridža (Chair), Čedo Majkić (Deputy Chair), Professor Vladimir Lukić, PhD, Dra- gan Davidović, MA, Milorad Janjetović, Radovan Krejić, Dujo Milanko, Mihajlo Orlović, Đuro Ćopić and Gojko Čičić. More than thirty papers and testimonies were heard in the Round Table, along with around forty historians, social and political workers, eyewitnesses to the persecution, writers, publicists, journalists and representatives of associations and institutions, who work hard to reveal the truth about the persecution of innocent people in World War II and other wars for liberation and to ensure the memory of them is preserved. The Round Table, facilitated by writer Ranko Pavlović, began with Boro Kapetanović, a writer, who recited a disturbing peom about the atrocity at Šušnjar, after which V. Rev. Petar Milovac and Rabbi Jozef Atijas said prayers for the victims of Šušnjar. At the same time, they blessed the attendees. After the guests welcomed the gathering and wished it success, the papers were read and testimonies given; in the end, after a discussion, the conclusions were adopted unanimously, among which one of the most important was that similar gatherings should continue to be held, because it is one of the best ways to fi nally retrieve the truth about these persecutions from obscurity, into which it was pushed for decades. Apart from the papers which were read in the Round Table and the testimonies of those who escaped the Ustasha knife and mallet, these Proceedings also contain the papers and testimonies of those who were not able to attend the gathering at Oštra Luka, because of illness or for other reasons. The deeply-moving accounts of those who survived the bloody Ustasha feast at Šušnjar by mere chance were written down by Mihajlo Orlović, a publicist and writer. These Proceedings are published in the Serbian and English language, as the organisers of the ‘Šušnjar 1941’ Round Table are convinced it is one of the ways to have the international public also learn the truth about the persecution against Serbian people. 7 Šušnjar 1941 - Proceedings - papers, testimonies and documents Drena Kuridža, prefect of Oštra Luka Municipality and Chair of the Orga- nising Board of the ‘Šušnjar 1941’ Round Table LIFE IN MEMORIES Ladies and gentlemen, dear participants in the ‘Šušnjar 1941’ Round Table, I would like to welcome you on behalf of the Organising Board, the Municipality of Oštra Luka, the Serbs displaced from Sanski Most and on my behalf, and to wish you a pleasant stay in the Municipality of Oštra Luka. It is good that today we speak about Šušnjar, although sixty-seven years have passed after the terrible massacre. It is necessary to speak about the persecution of the Serbs and Jews from Sanski Most, children, women, and old people. Every memory of them extends their lives, and today we also have to say here that such persecution must not happen again to anyone or anywhere. As I greet you one more time, I am convinced this Round Table will be a success, which is my sincere wish. Čedo Majkić, Chair of the Association of Displaced Serbs from Sanski Most ‘The Hearths of Sanski Most’ and Deputy Chair of the Organising Board ŠUŠNJAR HAS NOT BEEN FORGOTTEN, NOR WILL IT BE Dear ladies and gentlemen, dear partici- pants, I cannot conceal the fact I am pleased to see so many people at this gathering, which you joined to speak about the atrocities against the people of Sanski Most at Šušnjar. Thanks to a handful of written documents we know what happened at Šušnjar in 1941, but no one has spoken about it to date and to this day there have been no real efforts to hear the living witnesses, to write down 8 Šušnjar 1941 - Proceedings - papers, testimonies and documents and record it, and as the saying goes, if there are no records of an event, it is as if it had never happened. If a nation does not make records of what has happened to it, it can only expect the same to repeat. We know how many Serbs there were in Sanski Most in 1941, and we are aware of
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