Brotnja massacre
Locations of massacres in summer 1941
LocationBrotnja
DateJuly 27, 1941 (1941-07-27)
TargetCroat civilians
Attack type
war crime, mass killing
Deaths37
PerpetratorsSerb rebels, Chetniks[1]

The Brotnja massacre was the massacre of Croat civilians in the village of Brotnja, committed by Serb rebels on 27 July 1941, during the Srb and Drvar uprisings.[2]

Prelude

In the weeks prior to the Srb Uprising, local Serb civilians had been the victims of Ustaše atrocities.

Throughout July 1941, Ustaše general, Vjekoslav Luburić, ordered the "cleansing" of Serbs from the Donji Lapac area in Lika and the bordering regions of Bosanska Krajina.[3][4]

A number of local Croat peasants from the area joined the Ustaše movement and actively took part in massacres against local Serb civilians, including the massacre of almost 300 Serbs in the nearby village of Suvaja, at the start of July 1941.[5][6] It is known that at least two people from Brotnja joined the Ustaše and took part in crimes against Serbs.[5] However, the majority of Croats did not take part in such crimes, many moderate Croats were opposed to them and actively tried to help their Serb neighbours.[7]

On 27 July 1941, local Serbs launched an uprising against Ustaše authorities.[8] Throughout July, August and September 1941, Croat and Muslim villages across Lika and Western Bosnia were attacked and massacred by Serb insurgents, such killings were said to have been acts of retaliation for earlier Ustaše massacres against Serbs.[9]

Incident

On July 27, 1941, Chetniks and other Serb rebels under Chetnik leadership,[1] entered Brotnja, gathering and killing the remaining 37 Croat civilians left in the village, their bodies were thrown into a deep, vertical cave, some were thrown into the pit alive.[10] The village was then subsequently destroyed.

24 of the victims were members of the Ivezić family, while 12 of the victims were children, the youngest being just three years old.[11]

Aftermath

Massacres against Croats by Chetniks and other Serb insurgents continued throughout July and August 1941, culminating in further massacres throughout the area of eastern Lika and western Bosnia, such as in Trubar, Bosansko Grahovo, Boričevac, Vrtoče and Krnjeuša.[12]

In 2014, a mass grave containing 19 victims of the massacre were exhumed and reburied elsewhere.[13]

References

  1. ^ a b Goldstein, Slavko (2013). 1941: The Year That Keeps Returning. New York Review of Books. p. 158. ISBN 978-1-59017-700-6. Archived from the original on 2021-03-23. Retrieved 2022-07-17.
  2. ^ Dizdar & Sobolevski 1999, p. 122.
  3. ^ Goldstein 2013.
  4. ^ Goldstein, Slavko (27 July 2011). "Ustanak u Srbu: Ratovanje na pravoj strani". Nacional (in Croatian). Archived from the original on 8 August 2016. Retrieved 5 September 2017.
  5. ^ a b Bergholz, Max (2016). Violence as a Generative Force: Identity, Nationalism, and Memory in a Balkan Community. Cornell University Press. p. 161. ISBN 978-1-501-70643-1. Archived from the original on 2022-03-23. Retrieved 2022-07-17.
  6. ^ "SNV postavio spomenik žrtvama ustaškog zločina u Donjoj Suvaji (+video)". 4 July 2021. Archived from the original on 29 June 2022. Retrieved 17 July 2022.
  7. ^ Bergholz, Max (2012). "None of us Dared Say Anything: Mass Killing in a Bosnian Community during World War Two and the Postwar Culture of Silence" (PDF). University of Toronto. pp. 80–81. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2020-05-23. Retrieved 2022-07-17.
  8. ^ Tomasevich 2001, p. 506.
  9. ^ "WWII Massacres in Bosnia: How Violence Transforms Communities". 16 January 2019. Archived from the original on 16 July 2022. Retrieved 17 July 2022.
  10. ^ Bergholz, Max (2012). "None of us Dared Say Anything: Mass Killing in a Bosnian Community during World War Two and the Postwar Culture of Silence" (PDF). University of Toronto. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2020-05-23. Retrieved 2022-07-17.
  11. ^ "Posljednji ispraćaj i spomen-obilježje za 24 civilne žrtve roda Ivezić". Archived from the original on 12 June 2020. Retrieved 17 July 2022.
  12. ^ Dizdar 1996.
  13. ^ "Croatia Finds 19 Bodies in WWII Mass Grave". 7 May 2014. Archived from the original on 17 July 2022. Retrieved 17 July 2022.

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