ZAGREB, March 23 (Hina) - The Zagreb County Court's Trial Chamber on Tuesday heard the testimony of Simo Klaic (born in 1925) in the trial of Dinko Sakic, a commander of the Jasenovac concentration camp during World War II. Klaic was
imprisoned in both Jasenovac and the Stara Gradiska concentration camps. After he had been arrested in his hometown of Stari Perkovac on December 25, 1941, Klaic was transferred to Slavonski Brod, where he was handed a decision on his deportation to Jasenovac. On January 20, 1942, he was transferred from Jasenovac to Stara Gradiska. "I don't know why I was arrested. I was 16 years old", he said. At Stara Gradiska, Klaic and another 13 prisoners were imprisoned in two concrete-floor cells, in the "K" unit. He remained there several days. After that, he had to cut and chop wood and in early April he was sent to the so-called economy building. Klaic remembered the destruction of an Orthodox church,
ZAGREB, March 23 (Hina) - The Zagreb County Court's Trial Chamber on
Tuesday heard the testimony of Simo Klaic (born in 1925) in the
trial of Dinko Sakic, a commander of the Jasenovac concentration
camp during World War II.
Klaic was imprisoned in both Jasenovac and the Stara Gradiska
concentration camps. After he had been arrested in his hometown of
Stari Perkovac on December 25, 1941, Klaic was transferred to
Slavonski Brod, where he was handed a decision on his deportation to
Jasenovac. On January 20, 1942, he was transferred from Jasenovac
to Stara Gradiska.
"I don't know why I was arrested. I was 16 years old", he said.
At Stara Gradiska, Klaic and another 13 prisoners were imprisoned
in two concrete-floor cells, in the "K" unit. He remained there
several days. After that, he had to cut and chop wood and in early
April he was sent to the so-called economy building. Klaic
remembered the destruction of an Orthodox church, located on the
camp premises.
According to Klaic, the most horrible event at the Stara Gradiska
camp was the execution of some 600-700 children. "As the children
were being led towards the "Kula" near the economy building, they
were crying terribly because they had been separated from their
mothers. They were all naked and had crosses painted on their
backs", Klaic said adding the children had been poisoned with
Zyklon-B by Ante Vrban in three turns at the small "Kula" building.
Speaking about musters at Stara Gradiska, Klaic said the first one
had taken place in late April 1942, when Ilko Bukovac and Gadzic
selected 20 prisoners and took them to cell "3", where they were
kept until they died of hunger and thirst. In June the same year,
another 36 prisoners were selected to be killed in the same way.
Four of them survived thanks to an Ustasha lieutenant Nemet, who was
hanged in Jasenovac in 1944, because he claimed that Germans and
Ustashi would lose the war.
"The worst time was in summer 1942, when they collected the sick and
took them to the so-called infirmary, from where they were
transferred to the Sava River and executed", Klaic said adding this
would happen once a week.
The witness said he had seen the arrival of a Croatian writer
Mihovil Pavlek Miskina to the camp. "Word went round that sometime
between January 5 and 10, he was killed by Gagro and Sakic. This was
confirmed by the Ustashi and the undertakers confirmed that he had
been buried in the graveyard", Klaic said.
The witness further said he had seen Sakic and his wife-to-be Nada
for the first time in late April 1942, in front of a church located
near the women's section of the camp.
Speaking about his meeting with Mato Sakic, Dinko Sakic's brother,
who brought him a package at the camp, Klaic said he had warned Mato
Sakic that Dinko must never learn about it or he would kill them
both.
The witness also described the killing of the Jewish women section
of the camp. Women and children were put in a police van called
"Green Thomas" - which had its exhaust pipe connected to the
interior with a hose - and driven around the camp until they were
suffocated.
Klaic further gave a detailed description of events which happened
on Christmas Eve 1942, when Miroslav Filipovic Majstorovic, after
mass was served, ordered a muster in front of the economy building,
after which he killed four prisoners and stabbed them with a knife.
He then ordered a Sarajevo Jew, Alkalaj, to sing for him old love
songs. When Alkalaj finished singing, Majstorovic told him to "come
closer so I could pay you", then grabbed him by the chest and slit
his throat. After that, Majstorovic went to the Bosnian section of
the camp and there had 56 Jews tied, who he then killed with an axe
and threw in a well.
Klaic said he learned about this shortly after the execution from
scared prisoners in the economy building. Majstorovic's bloody
orgies were finished at Stara Gradiska, where he shot dead 42
prisoners with firearms. "That was a form of intimidation", Klaic
said, adding the Ustashi used to kill ten prisoners for one escaped
prisoner.
Mass killings started after the events on Mount Kozara. "The camp
was full of men, women and children. They were sleeping in the
open", Klaic said, adding the Ustashi separated the sick for "plum
picking", but they never returned came back.
Speaking about the elimination of the Stara Gradiska camp, which
started on September 23, 1944, Klaic said that about 300 Serbs had
been executed early in the morning in the southern section of the
camp. After that, 1,000-1,200 prisoners were forced to march to the
Jasenovac camp.
The witness was not among those prisoners, because he was in a group
of 800 prisoners who had been sent to Lepoglava. They arrived there
on December 8, 1944. The day before the Ustashi had massacred 40
people in the "Lepa" factory. Klaic said he was in a group of
prisoners who loaded the corpses on trucks. "Lepoglava was
horrible, as if all evil from Stara Gradiska and Jasenovac had
concentrated there", he said, adding that after Lepoglava camp had
been eliminated, the prisoners were taken back to Jasenovac by
train.
The witness said he was in a wagon with some 80 prisoners, who
attempted to escape near Popovaca. Fifty-seven of them survived,
and the others were either killed by firearms or strayed into mine
fields. After the war Klaic learned that the Ustashi had burned down
the other four wagons in Jasenovac.
At the end of his testimony, Klaic said he would like to add a list of
187 people from Lipovljani, of whom nine had been released, one
escaped during the break-through, while the others were all killed
in Jasenovac on September 19 and 20, 1944. Klaic also handed a list
of Croats who died of thirst and hunger in solitary confinement. One
group had 20 prisoners and the other 36.
After this, Klaic described the event at the "Kula" at Stara
Gradiska when Maja Buzdon took a small child from a woman's breast
and, holding it by the legs, smashed it against a wall. The child was
killed instantly.
Following the testimony, president of the Trial Chamber Drazen
Tripalo warned the defendant not to interrupt and comment on the
course of the hearing, otherwise he would have to leave the
courtroom.
(hina) rml