European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

Just before reaching Kumrovec, there were these wooden houses with people living in them.

I came up to one of those houses and there was a woman inside. I asked if I could sleep there.

Why? Because I’m on my way to Zagreb. She asked when I would be leaving. I said early in the morning.

She said I could stay.

She made a bed for me; it was so puffed with feathers that I was covered in them.

She asked again when I’d be leaving and I said at dawn.

When I woke up, perhaps it was five in the morning of the 17th May.

There was a huge plate of fried eggs waiting for me.

I ate, we said farewell and I continued on to Zagreb.

But when I arrived in Zagreb, the brigade was no longer there in Maksimir. I was still on that bicycle.

I left the bicycle in front of Maksimir and I went inside to the doorman.

When I came back outside, the bicycle was gone. Someone else had stolen it.

Easy come, easy go.

Of course I had a message. Mali, you must report to general headquarters in Belgrade.

I traveled on to Belgrade; it must have been 10 or 12 days. Sometimes I was on a train, sometimes I traveled by foot.

The routes were in ruins. I came to Belgrade; I think it was already the end of May.

I reported to general headquarters in Belgrade and I spent some time there, a week or two, or even a month.

Then I was sent to the headquarters of the 1st regiment in Nis.

I arrived there and was in the 'personnel department'.

My job was to question those who joined the Partisans and became noncommissioned officers.