CASTLE
CASTLE
It's night. I can't sleep. Hunger gnaws at my stomach, thirst parches my throat. Many other children aren't sleeping either.
We are in the basement of a castle, in a place they call Jastrebarsko. Hundreds of us... Next to me, an eight-year-old boy moans, breathes heavily, chokes. He won't make it until morning when the nuns, our caretakers, come for us. Many of my friends are picked up from the cold floor in the morning and taken who knows where. There's no life left in them.
The nuns ordered us to forget our names and surnames, our mothers and fathers. They say we never had a family until we came to this place. Anyone who speaks their name, or disobeys them, is taken away and never returns. Someone tries to run and escape from here... Immediately, a pickaxe to the head!
I would take off the cap they put on my head, but I must not. Maybe they don't sleep. Maybe they're watching from somewhere even now, waiting for us to make a mistake...
My hair itches terribly... I'm cold, I only have a coat with a big "U" on it. I am lucky. Many have nothing on them. Naked and barefoot...
Only if dawn wouldn't break, if it wouldn't break... I'm afraid of the dawn. They come for us then and beat us, forcing us into the yard where they line us up, count us, and order us to march like soldiers, raising our arms upright and repeating after them: "Long live the Independent State of Croatia! Long live our father and leader, Ante Pavelić! Ready for the homeland!", and many other sentences I don't understand.
Maybe it would be better if I fell asleep like my friends who sleep soundly every morning, so soundly that the nuns and black-clad guards take them away to never return to this darkness.
A foul smell... The smell of feces, the smell of urine and dampness. My back hurts, they beat me on it because I didn't have the strength to march as before. There's less and less strength in me.
I'm afraid to close my eyes... I'm scared of the rats, big rats that crawl over us. I'm scared of the dawn that must come. With it, they will come for us. Mother, father, where are you? Grandma, where are you? Grandpa, with your strong voice and strong hands, you would scare away these wicked women, I know you would!
The creak of the door, they enter and shout. And I don't have the strength to get up...
Igor Tintor
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INTRODUCTION
This work is dedicated to all the victims of the fascist entity, the Independent State of Croatia, with a special focus on the mass crimes against the Serbian population during the first two years of the existence of this criminal regime. During this time, hundreds of thousands of children, women, and men were forcibly displaced and brutally killed in camps throughout that fascist entity, and the survivors were forcibly converted to Catholicism.
The work is based on the testimonies of survivors, confirmed historical facts, seen from the perspectives of the victims and perpetrators, including the final moments of those who perished in pits, camps, their villages, cities, homes, and fields, killed by their former neighbors of Croatian nationality.
While reading documentation about atrocities committed against Serbs, Jews, Roma, and a few Croats who refused to serve the fascist regime, along with testimonies from surviving members of my family and many others, I can say that I am fully aware of the unprecedented extent of the crimes in the history of humanity against my Serbian people in the territory of today's Republic of Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and parts of Vojvodina under the occupation of the Croatian fascist regime.
One historical fact is most terrifying. In the territory of the Independent State of Croatia at that time, there were camps for the extermination of children, and there was a plan, partially realized, to exterminate and kill thirty thousand children. Fifteen thousand boys and girls were killed by knives, hunger, torture...
Why did I write this work? My people have a short memory. I hope that this work will also help Serbs remember, respect our victims, and prevent such atrocities from ever happening again. Yet, we allowed crimes and the largest ethnic cleansing of our people after World War II in "Operation Flash" and "Storm," carried out by Croats in 1995.
I have only one message for you, readers. We never seek revenge, but we remember forever.
Igor Tintor
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