ZAGREB, May 27 (Hina) - The trial of Dinko Sakic, a commander of the World War II concentration camp of Jasenovac, continued on Thursday before the Zagreb County Court with the hearing of Milan Pojic, aged 42, an archivist, history
and archaeology professor, and head of the Croatian State Archives' (HDA) Military Funds Department. During 1993, Pojic organised the archive material on the activities of the Independent State of Croatia's (NDH) Interior Ministry between 1941 and 1945. According to Pojic, in 1968 the Secretariat of Interior Affairs of the Socialist Republic of Croatia (SRH) sent a truck with the material to the HDA, while the rest was delivered after the Institute for the History of the Labour Movement (today the Croatian Institute of History) had been closed down. Pojic said he did not know how the SRH Interior Ministry had obtained the documentation. In late 1993, 865 archive boxes were collected. The organisation of the documentation was aimed at studying the history of its authors, Pojic said, adding he had tried to reconstruct the activities of the then Interior Ministry on the basis of documents and regulations published at the time of the NDH. More than half of the documents referred to the personal files of NDH interior affairs officials. The rest referred to the interior
ZAGREB, May 27 (Hina) - The trial of Dinko Sakic, a commander of the
World War II concentration camp of Jasenovac, continued on Thursday
before the Zagreb County Court with the hearing of Milan Pojic, aged
42, an archivist, history and archaeology professor, and head of
the Croatian State Archives' (HDA) Military Funds Department.
During 1993, Pojic organised the archive material on the activities
of the Independent State of Croatia's (NDH) Interior Ministry
between 1941 and 1945. According to Pojic, in 1968 the Secretariat
of Interior Affairs of the Socialist Republic of Croatia (SRH) sent
a truck with the material to the HDA, while the rest was delivered
after the Institute for the History of the Labour Movement (today
the Croatian Institute of History) had been closed down.
Pojic said he did not know how the SRH Interior Ministry had
obtained the documentation.
In late 1993, 865 archive boxes were collected. The organisation of
the documentation was aimed at studying the history of its authors,
Pojic said, adding he had tried to reconstruct the activities of the
then Interior Ministry on the basis of documents and regulations
published at the time of the NDH.
More than half of the documents referred to the personal files of
NDH interior affairs officials. The rest referred to the interior
ministry's administrative department, whereas about 0.5 percent of
the material referred to the Main Directorate for Public Order and
Security.
Pojic said the documents he had been working on did not contain any
data which could be interesting for the trial, because it contained
no information on the camps. He said he had not come across Sakic's
file. "I did not look for it, and I did not find it", Pojic said,
adding the documentation contained mostly the personal files of
administration staff and not of Ustashi officials.
Asked by Deputy County State Attorney Janjko Grlic about relations
between the Ustashi Surveillance Service (UNS) and the central
Ustashi organisation - the Main Ustashi Headquarters - Pojic said
he had dealt only "with the formal structure of Ustashi services and
organisations, rather than their relations".
He offered similar answers to other inquiries by Grlic.
According to Pojic, the UNS, whose task was to protect the honour
and safety of the Croatian people, was headed by Eugen Kvaternik.
The service operated independently from August 1941, when it was
established, to January 1943, when it was formally closed. It had
four departments: Protection Police, Intelligence and Security
Services, and Department III, which was later re-named into the
Ustashi Defence, and then into the Defence Service, which was in
charge of concentration and labour camps.
In October 1942, after Slavko and Eugen Kvaternik were replaced,
the Protection Police and Intelligence Service became part of NDH's
Interior Ministry's Main Directorate for Public Order and
Security, which in January 1943 was joined by the Ustashi Defence.
Sakic's attorney Ivan Kern wanted to know who was the author of the
outline of the UNS structure, which the prosecution submitted to
the court to be included into the file. Grlic explained the outlines
came from the HDA and that they had been made by the Interior
Ministry in 1966.
According to Pojic, in May 1943, an order on the internal
organisation of the Interior Ministry was adopted. According to the
order, the ministry was to include a department on camp
administration. Since then, the adjective "Ustashi" was left out
from the names of services.
Asked by Janjko Grlic which unit had secured the Jasenovac camp,
Pojic said he did not know it, nor was he acquainted with
information on the First Home Guard Regiment.
Speaking about the First Ustashi Defence Corps, Pojic said members
of the corps did have ranks, but the corps was not part of the
Ustashi armed forces, but of the UNS, i.e. the Interior Ministry.
"Not even after Home Guard and Ustashi units were joined into 16 so-
called Croatian divisions was the corps mentioned as part of some of
those divisions", he added.
Asked by the president of the panel of judges, Drazen Tripalo, where
the documentation on labour and concentration camps could be, Pojic
said it was probably at the Department for the New Archive Material,
headed by Slavica Plese.
The panel of judges accepted a proposal by the prosecution for Plese
to be summonsed and judge about the authenticity of copies of the
documentation which is kept in the HDA and its origins.
Asked about the availability of the material, Pojic said that,
according to the law, material older than 50 years was available to
any citizen.
The trial continues on May 31.
(hina) rml