STARA GRADISKA STARA GRADISKA
Vjekoslav Zugaj
"The camp management discovered an underground canal in the central part of the prison courtyard leading outside the walls. The management wanted to close this passage and decided to engage several prisoner to built iron cross-bars in the canal. The commander of the camp guards, Djuro Atalić, assigned this job to the bricklayer, Dučak, and two other prisoners to help him. Dučak carried out the job but he built the screen in such a way that it could be removed because he knew that this was a chance to get out of prison and this was the wish of every prisoner. He then found an iron lid that hid the entrance into the underground canal. He waited for the right chance, together with seven other prisoners, and at the end of September they did it. We do not have reliable evidence at our disposal of what happened next. The only thing we know for sure is that six of them were caught and we know nothing about the rest of them. We do not know whether they had been betrayed or whether some additional guards were set by the management, that the escapees knew nothing of. After they had been caught nobody could contact them but it is known that they were placed in solitary confinement for several days in the prison cellar. Many prisoners watched them going to the hearing and then coming back to their cells. In the middle of October they were all killed and their bodies were taken through the prison premises in a wagon. This was done deliberately and the bodies were shown to other prisoners to discourage them from planning any more escapes. The bodies of the dead prisoners were then unloaded in a corn field and for a short time they were covered with branches and corn husks waiting to be buried. They were buried in this field situated in the triangle between the Sava dike and the Okučani - Bosanska Gradiška road.

Shortly after the execution of the six prisoners, the management of the Institution communicated to the other prisoners their version of the event. They organised a meeting where Cvetko Krajina spoke on behalf of the management. He told us that the prisoners had been killed while being transported to Lepoglava prison. He mentioned that the same fate was waiting for all of us if we tried to escape because, as he said, nobody "could run away from the national authority".

We did not believe his words because we knew the difference between tne truth and their lies. Unfortunately, we did not know where they had been killed and who had committed this crime. Several prisoners were appointed to bury the dead. One of them was Jozo Milas, born in Humac near Ljubuško. Marko Luetić, Josip Kozarić and a German prisoner Hans Knabe were in the same group together with him. After his speech, Atalić ordered them to take picks and shovels and he took them to the place of burial accompanied by the guards. When they had dug the grave, he ordered them to bring the corpses and throw them into the pit. All the dead were dressed in their civilian clothes so that traces of torture could not be seen but Milas saw the wound of a prisoner who had been shot through above his left ear. The guards and their commander Atalić tried to persuade the prisoners to take off the shoes from the dead, but under such circumstances nobody wished to take anything from these unfortunate people. This mass grave was unintentionally opened several years later when the foundations were dug for a new house. Although the guards came quickly to supervise the work Zvonimir Zukanović, a student from Slavonski Brod, managed to take from the grave a cigarette-case with the monogram of one of the dead prisoners. The cigarette-case belonged to Mate Bašić and Zukanović hid it and sent it secretly to Bašić's mother. Having closed the grave, the building continued and the whole area was covered with waste building materials and earth so that the search for the graves was made almost impossible. Finally, here are the names of the prisoners killed in October I946: Mate Bašić, a student from Zagreb, Djuro Dučak, a bricklayer from Srijemski Karlovci, Josip Miškić, an officer of the Croatian army from Vinkovci, Frane Skelin, a Croatin soldier from Miljevci - Promina, Juraj Šoštarić, a clerk from Zagreb and Josiš Trnković, a military musician from Bijeljina.

I am writing this from my own memory and the memories of other former prisoners and people who knew these innocent victims. Escape from prison is something that all prisoners around the world try to do but it is never treated as a crime unless arms or physical. force are used. Even then, the court and not the prison guards, decide about any additional punishment. Our prisoners used no force. They just wanted to reach freedom by taking the opportunity given. There was absolutely no excuse for killing them. Under continuous physical and spiritual torture, it was impossible not to think about freedom even by escape. This was the only motive of the people who tried to find a way out of this post-war hell. Unfortunately, this escape ended tragically".

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