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"Even though I cannot say I have found the best community in Gornji Varoš, nor the best furnished nor as tidy and spacious as was the case in Otok, I still found many well-fed boys and children. I also collected more beautiful songs and enjoyed watching the wheel-dancing of the boys from the village. The wheel-dance was accompanied by a beautiful song:
"Wind, do not blow, do not sway above the town, Young Jurjevica is there,"
"The song tells the story of a girl who wished to visit her mother. She was choosing dresses, one by one, but nothing suited her except a black one. On her way, she met nobody - not a bird singing nor girls wheel-dancing. When she finally arrived, she found her mother dead. The wheel-dance that is continually going around accompanied by this song, sung demurely and mournfully with bowed heads, makes you weep. They sang more cheerful songs later, the piper played and the wheel-dance started to turn. around him. Apart from playing he made jokes. Fortunately, they were often covered by the sound of the pipe.
"When the church bell rang for the first time, the wheel-dance dispersed, we said our prayers and, trying to avoid the mud, we went on our way home."
The Destruction of Sacred Buildings
Unfortunately, the entire material and spiritual heritage of the Franciscans of Stara Gradiška; that had been collected for several centuries, was consciously dewroyed by the aggression (53) by the Serbian army in the autumm of 1991. The late Baroque chapels of sv. Rok (St. Rok) in Uskoci and sv. Jakob (St. Jacob) in Donji Varoš were plundered, set on fire and mined. The church inventory with its rich archives and library was devastated and plundered in the heavily damaged rectory in village of Uskoci. It should be noted that this building is used today for holding services for the population from the surrounding villages who came back to their homes after the liberation of this part of Slavonia in 1995. The houses and industrial buildings of these Croatian villages, with Stara Gradiška as their historical and cultural centre, were mostly demolished, plundered or severely damaged. Apart from the sacred buildings, the little, late-baroque, votive chapel of Christ's Transfiguration ("Kapela Preobraženja Isusova") in the village Novi Varoš was also damaged beyond repair. The surviving villagers, who watched the scene from the nearby Prašnik forest, testify that the chapel was fired on by Serbian tanks from the immediate vicinity for no apparent military reason. The newly built chapel of sv. Stjepan (St. Steven) in the centre of the village was also completely demolished as well as the kapela Marije Kraljice (Queen Mary chapel) in the village of Pivara.
The Baroque parish church of sv. Mihovil (St. Michael), which used to be part of the historical core of the fortress, was completely destroyed in 1948. The responsibility for this appalling cultural devastation lies with the communist authorities of the former Yugoslavia. When the Second World War was over, more than a dozen Catholic priests and Franciscans were imprisoned in Stara Gradiška following unfounded accusations. These first prisoners of conscience and religion were placed alongside the other convicts and forced to take part in pulling down the remains of the Franciscan monastery and parish church of sv. Mihovil (St. Michael).
Chronological Survey of Events in Stara Gradiška in 1991
The war in Stara Gradiška began iill 6 August 1991. The chronological sequence of events (54) reveals how the aggression started in this part of Croatia and gives evidence of the courage of the defenders at the beainning of the war.
Murders, Provocation, Decisions
On Tuesday, 6 August, about 8 p.m., the regular patrol of Nova Gradiška Police Station was fired on. The policeman, Slavko Došlić, was killed. Vlado Berić was seriously wounded and the third member of the patrol, Rober Klaić, escaped injury. According to the statement of Damir Parcen, the examining magistrate of the District Court of Slavonska Požega, who carried out the investigation, the police patrol was fired opn by machine guns from the nearby cemetery.
After the treacherous murder of Slavko Došlić, on Friday, 9 August, there was more provocation within the same district. Fifteen Yugoslav army soldiers, of the Banja Luka corps, under the command of two "officers" (a colonel and a lieutenant-colonel) came from Bosnia and Herzegovina and surrounded the police patrol which was performing its regular traffic control near Stara Gradiška. They wanted the anti- tank obstacles, set on the bridge which linked Stara Gradiška and Bosanska Gradiška, removed because, as they stated, they were irritated by them. After talks, the army withdrew and the police continued on their regular control.
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