ZAGREB, Apr 20 (Hina) - The main hearing in the trial of Dinko Sakic, war crimes suspect and one time commander of a Croatian World War Two concentration camp in Jasenovac, resumed at the Zagreb County Court on Tuesday with the
testimony of Ivo Senjanovic, aged 82. Senjanovic was arrested in mid-February 1941 for his trade union activity in Split, southern Croatia. He was not given any court ruling. After the arrest, the witness was taken to a penitentiary in Lepoglava, northern Croatia, where he was detained until July 1941. He was then transferred to Gospic, central Croatia, and after a month to Jastrebarsko, then to the Danica camp near Koprivnica, where he was detained until the end of November 1941, when he was taken to the Jasenovac camp. In January 1942 he was transferred to the camp in Stara Gradiska. In May of that year he was taken to Belgrade, with some 200 other inmates, and then to Vienna.
ZAGREB, Apr 20 (Hina) - The main hearing in the trial of Dinko Sakic,
war crimes suspect and one time commander of a Croatian World War
Two concentration camp in Jasenovac, resumed at the Zagreb County
Court on Tuesday with the testimony of Ivo Senjanovic, aged 82.
Senjanovic was arrested in mid-February 1941 for his trade union
activity in Split, southern Croatia. He was not given any court
ruling.
After the arrest, the witness was taken to a penitentiary in
Lepoglava, northern Croatia, where he was detained until July 1941.
He was then transferred to Gospic, central Croatia, and after a
month to Jastrebarsko, then to the Danica camp near Koprivnica,
where he was detained until the end of November 1941, when he was
taken to the Jasenovac camp. In January 1942 he was transferred to
the camp in Stara Gradiska. In May of that year he was taken to
Belgrade, with some 200 other inmates, and then to Vienna.
Recalling his days at the Jasenovac and Stara Gradiska camps,
Senjanovic said he witnessed a "horrific sight" immediately upon
his arrival at Jasenovac. He saw a group of starved Jew inmates
attempt to push a carriage.
"They were just skeletons," the witness said, adding soon after he
saw the Ustashi "stab and beat some 100 Serbs." The Ustashi wanted
to beat up his group as well, but a camp command order prevented them
from doing so.
Up to his transfer from the camp in January 1942, Senjanovic was
stationed at barrack "K" which, he said, was most probably called so
because the inmates inside were Catholics.
Living conditions were very difficult, the food poor and scarce,
and there were cases of death due to starvation. Inmates were not
allowed to receive packages from home.
The witness believes the most numerous at Jasenovac were Serb
inmates, followed by Jews. He did not see any Romany there.
Senjanovic recalled Christmas Eve 1941, when logornik Matijevic,
an inmate supervising other inmates, ordered that no was allowed to
go out of the barrack. "It was rumoured around the camp that the
Ustashi had been executing inmates that day, mainly Serbs. It was
being said that they had killed more than 100."
The witness had not personally seen that, but an inmate told him
between 20 and 30 corpses were brought by gravediggers to a
storehouse. The next day, he saw an Ustashi guard beat up a
gravedigger with a lath and then shoot him dead.
Senjanovic also recalled an event from January 1942, when he saw the
Ustashi force a group of Serbs to sing. "When I got closer, I saw
they had been beaten. At the end of the file I saw a sleigh with four
or five bodies thrown atop. The sleigh was dragging an inmate's
body. An Ustashi forced a horse to trample the body down."
Upon arriving at the Stara Gradiska camp in January 1942, the
witness was placed in solitary confinement. Hygienic conditions
were extremely poor, he said, and dysentery and typhoid raged. "I
had typhus," Senjanovic said.
A particularly traumatic event took place in April 1942, when
Ustashi Captain Gadzic selected some 20 inmates during a muster and
took them into one single cell, ordering that they be not given food
or drink. "The people were gradually dying. It was horrible to hear
them cry for help," the witness said.
He stressed Stara Gradiska gave him a decade of "nightmares" after
the war.
Senjanovic said the inmates at Stara Gradiska moved about freely,
while at Jasenovac they could move only around the barracks they
lived in.
He did not know the total number of inmates at the camps, nor the
camp commanders' names. The only Ustashi official he remembered was
Maks Luburic, who told them in Zagreb on one occasion that the
prisoners from the "old Yugoslavia" would not be executed, but sent
to labour camps. He also remembered Ljubo Milos, whom he saw at
Stara Gradiska just prior to being transferred to Belgrade.
Senjanovic commended the organisation of his arrival at and
departure from the Zagreb County Court, adding he had not
experienced any unpleasantness because of his testimony. He
considered the court summons and the testimony a duty, not a
disturbance.
The trial continues on Wednesday.
(hina) ha