European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

Before he got to see Mesic though, he was stripped naked and searched by our guards;

we had to make sure he wasn’t carrying any weapons before he was allowed to see our commanding officer Mesic.

He handed him a letter. It was written in the letter that on such and such a day our artillery was to fire

from such and such a position at particular locations where the Germans were best organized.

It also was written that the Tschetniks, the Serbs, would surrender to our unit.

Our commanders, Mesic fell for it;

and so our troops began with the preparations and then with the attack on those particular stated locations.

Well, there were no Germans there.

The Tschetniks attacked us from behind and they massacred the Partisans from behind.

We lost 700 men in one night and one day in that slaughter.

When it was all over, I wasn’t in the headquarter brigade at the time yet,

but I was still in the troop and we had a mobilization in Cacak.

Upon our arrival to Belgrade, well we were there for only a short while, we were at Topcinder.

We were split up in battle and some of us went to Bosnia, some of us went up towards Srem, towards Sid, and we went to Drvar.

Then we were on the Srem front, where there was plenty fighting

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.