IVANOVIĆ: I CAME HOME, FREEDNOM CAME TO ME AT LAST, BUT MY SCHOOLMATES ARE GONE - LIQUIDATED IN THE CAMP

BANJA LUKA, APRIL 30 /SRNA/ - Ilija Ivanović, a 16-year-old camp inmate, lost the orientation while running away in the breakthrough of the Jasenovac camp and left towards Psunj in Croatia, instead of walking towards the Sava River, Prosara and Kozara.

In his book "Witness to Jasenovac's Hell," excerpts from which about the events surrounding the camp's breakout on April 21 and 22, 1945 are published by the srpskanational.com portal, Ivanović stated that after a long run, he came to some meadows, completely wet from the rain and from swimming through the Strug River, and realized that it is neither Kozara nor Prosara, but Psunj.

"Now I have to cross the railway and go to the village. I go out onto the railway, with a wagon on it, when someone grabs my hand. I look - it's a home guard. When I came home in 1945, I was 16 and had 45 kilograms of weight. Therefore, I was so weak that I couldn't get away from him. He asked me where I was going. I manage to think for a moment and said that I was running from the Partisans.

When he asked me for my name, and for the names of my father and mother, I said I'm Stipe Franić.

Holding me by hand, he brought me to the Ustasha bunker and said that I escaped from the Partisans. They were playing cards, not paying much attention on me. They asked me where I was coming from, let me dry my clothes and gave me something to eat - marmalade and white coffee. Sweet mother, I haven't seen marmalade and white coffee for three years - nothing. I ate and sat down. They lined up my things next to the brick stove, where they cooked,” Ivanović testified.

The next day, they handed him over to certain "grandpa Pavle" and a grandma, where I spent almost six days with false name and surname. From Sunday to Saturday.

"The Ustashas and Germans have withdrawn from the village, and I am waiting for the Partisans. They are gone. Sometime in the evening I could no longer wait for the Partisans, I could not stand it any longer and I told grandmother that I was not Stipe. She gasped in surprise, straightened up and looked. She just asked: `Well, Stipe, how?` I told her that I was Ilija Ivanović and that I did not run away from the Partisans but from the Ustashas from Jasenovac. When I said that, she knelt down from that small table, folded her hands and began to pray to God. Dear God and Jesus Christ sent you to us, you are our savior. The Partisans did not appear until one o'clock after midnight.

The next morning, I set off on foot for Okučani, I said goodbye to my grandfather and grandmother. Somewhere after a few kilometers, a truck with Partisans arrived. They were going to Nova Gradiška. They took me with them. And from there I set off on foot for Gradiška. When I arrived, there was a group of boys, my school friends, from Podgradci. Suddenly they shouted: Here is Ilija! Two of them, neighbors, are setting off with me for Podgradci. Night has already caught us. We reached the old house. I told them to hide, so that I can surprise my family.

There are no lamps or lights in the house, nothing, I just see the stove and the light from it. My late mother walks around the room, I'm under the window. I try to open the door, it won't open. My mother notices someone pushing the door and comes out. She's on one side of the door; I'm on the other.

When I said, "Open up, mother," there was a scream in the house. My sisters, my younger brother, all gathered around me and all screamed loudly. I stood among them and watched. That's how I came to freedom, while many of my friends, the boys from the neighborhood, my school friends never returned. They are gone; they were liquidated in the camp long ago.