ZAGREB, June 3 (Hina) - The trial of Dinko Sakic, a commander of the Ustashi concentration camp Jasenovac, continued before the Zagreb County Court with the testimony of Jelka Smreka, head of the Jasenovac Memorial Area. The witness
said she had come across Sakic's name in the written testimonies of three survivors. Two of them, Arsa Aleksic and Dragutin Skrgatic, accused Sakic of the murder of Mile Boskovic, whereas the third inmate, Jakob Danon, accused him of the murder of two Jewish men. In his testimony Danon described a muster of prisoners during which Sakic killed two 17-year-old Jews, Avram Montillo and Leon Perera. Dannon said the Ustashi had taken the camp's accordion player Ivo Wollner to a "party" in Bosanska Dubica, only to return him dead to the camp the next day. Sakic then ordered a muster and demanded that inmates who worked with Wollner in the writing-room, played in the orchestra with him
ZAGREB, June 3 (Hina) - The trial of Dinko Sakic, a commander of the
Ustashi concentration camp Jasenovac, continued before the Zagreb
County Court with the testimony of Jelka Smreka, head of the
Jasenovac Memorial Area.
The witness said she had come across Sakic's name in the written
testimonies of three survivors. Two of them, Arsa Aleksic and
Dragutin Skrgatic, accused Sakic of the murder of Mile Boskovic,
whereas the third inmate, Jakob Danon, accused him of the murder of
two Jewish men.
In his testimony Danon described a muster of prisoners during which
Sakic killed two 17-year-old Jews, Avram Montillo and Leon Perera.
Dannon said the Ustashi had taken the camp's accordion player Ivo
Wollner to a "party" in Bosanska Dubica, only to return him dead to
the camp the next day. Sakic then ordered a muster and demanded that
inmates who worked with Wollner in the writing-room, played in the
orchestra with him and slept in the same dormitory come forward.
However, no one came forward and an Ustashi officer Mihaljevic told
Sakic that two inmates were snickering. Upon hearing that, Sakic
ordered the two inmates to come forward and shot them dead with his
pistol, Smreka said quoting Danon's testimony.
She believed Sakic did not have any major influence on the camp's
administration and security service. Although the camp commander
was formally superior to the commanders of the working and security
services, the person in charge was the commander of the working
service, Smreka said. She described the time of Sakic's service in
the camp as "a peaceful period during which there were no mass
executions".
Smreka stressed that apart from the data on Maks Luburic and the
number of victims in the camp, Sakic's name was also mentioned in a
report of the German military attache in the Independent State of
Croatia (NDH), Siegfried Kasche.
According to the witness, the first museum exhibition at the
Jasenovac Memorial Area was staged in 1968. The exhibits included
numerous documents and photos found in the then Museum of People's
Revolution, testimonies by Jasenovac inmates, objects found during
the reconstruction of the brickworks, and a list of victims of the
camp, compiled by the commission of the then Republic of Croatia for
establishing crimes committed by the occupying forces and their
collaborators.
Some other items were added to the exhibition in 1989, including
prisoners' personal items, jewellery, parts of dentures and
objects used by the Ustashi during the executions - mallets,
knives, iron bars and hammers, and railway tracks to which the
Ustashi used to tie the prisoners at Granik so that they would sink
in the Sava.
After the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) occupied Jasenovac, all
documents were taken away from the memorial area. The then director
of the Memorial Area told the Republika Srpska television the
museum documentation had first been taken to Bosanska Dubica, then
to Banja Luka and finally to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
Until 1991, there were about 2,000 original documents in the
museum, including prisoners' postcards, documents on imprisonment
and release, diaries of individual prisoner working groups and
letters of the camp's party organisation. According to the witness,
there are only 150 documents in the museum in which there is no new
information on Sakic.
Smreka also recalled the testimony given by Ljubo Milos at his trial
after the war, in which he said Maks Luburic had called him and Dinko
Sakic in early April 1945 to return to Jasenovac and with the then
camp commander Hinko Dominik Picili locate the mass graves at
Gradina. "They were supposed to cover up the crimes, that is,
unearth and burn the bodies. But, since Sakic did not know where the
graves were located, the task had to be carried out by Milos and
Picili", Smreka said.
Sakic's attorney Branko Seric objected to the way the witness was
being questioned by the prosecution, because, he said, Smreka had
no direct knowledge of the crimes, but knew only what she had read in
documents and books.
"Hundreds of people who have read the documents could testify like
this, including Lordan Zafranovic who made a film about Jasenovac",
Seric said. The president of the panel of judges Drazen Tripalo
overruled the objection.
The trial will resume on June 8.
(hina) jn rml