European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

and we headed in one direction once and another direction another time … Slowly, slowly, we moved towards Slovenia.

It was 1945 already.

We spent the New Year on the Srem front,

but we continued heading north and we came to the Croatian – Slovenian border on 11 April.

We came to the Sotla River. Sedlarjevo was on the Slovenian side. I don’t remember the name, it was a small village.

Joining the Yugoslav Brigade

Then the order came, you’re going out.

I don’t know if there was any guard there at all; where would one escape to anyway?

Winter was perpetual, no not perpetual, but the snow…

They brought us to Moscow, or really it was Krasnogorsk.

There was a prisoner of war camp in Krasnogorsk. There were all sorts of nationalities represented there:

Slovenians, Croatians, Czechs, Polacks and even French.

They sort of trained us in Krasnogorsk.

That’s what I think and we also debated it among us - we were going to be sent in against Hitler, against Germany.

We all decided that we would do it. So in Krasnogrosk we were prepared, they changed us …

it’ll sound a bit wicked how I say it … from Fascism to Bolshevism, or from Nationalism to Bolshevism.

That’s how we imagined things were at the time, because there was no sentry or guard watching over us in Krasnogorsk.

I think we were there in Krasnogorsk perhaps about one month.

Once, Mesic came to visit; by rank he was a general.

He was the father of the current Croatian Mesic, the one who is now president or something.