9
July.
Dubri Bridge successfully demolished.
Demolition of Stenos Bridge at Lidhorikion-Navpaktos road.
30 yards bridge blown.
Road and telephone communications between Arakhova and Levadia
cut.
Action in Aigion area, railway bridge between Diakogio and
Oahloron successfully attacked. 1,000 yards line demolished.
ANNEX F.
BRUTALITIES COMMITTED BY THE AXIS AND THEIR SATELLITES.
YUGOSLAVIA.
There is little doubt that our Liaison Officers in Yugoslavia
have seen and heard enough to bear ample testimony to the innumerable
brutalities perpetrated by the Germans and their satellites.
One of them now with the patriot forces in Western Croatia
has sent in a report based on evidence given by trustworthy officers
formerly serving in the forces of Pavelic, from which they deserted
when they discovered the full significance of his policy. This
report refers to the many bodies of murdered persons lying about
in mountain gorges and to the mutilated people still alive to
tell the tale of their sufferings. He instances such horrors
as the following :-
Men invited to meetings in churches arid then locked in and
burnt to death.
A captured Ustashi was found to have in his possession 2 kilog,
of human eyes intended as a gift for Pavelic.
Photographs have been seen of children dashed to death against
walls; of individuals with ears cut off and finger-nails pulled
out.
Pregnant women ripped open.
Children tied together round haystacks which were then set
alight.
A priest buried alive at Brinje.
Girls raped and made to dig their own graves.
Our Liaison Officer goes on to say that the systematic burning
of towns and villages trod of crops is a mere incidental to the
other widespread brutalities of which there is plentiful evidence.
From General Mihailovic countless reports have been received
over a period of %many months. These reveal the indescribable
brutality of the occupying and quisling forces. Reports received
since the 1st May, 1943, but covering the period since the beginning
of 1943 to the present day show that some 7,000 to 8,000 people,
including many women and children, have been put to death or
tortured. Countless instances are given of villages burnt and
plundered, crops seized, heavy fines imposed on villages and
settlements for what was considered insufficient surrender of
food-stuffs and other produce, cattle driven off, hostages shot,
thousands of people thrust into concentration camps, of the inhabitants
of entire districts being driven to take refuge in the inhospitable
mountains, where they have inevitably been overtaken by famine.
The following few instances chosen at random from the General's
reports illustrate the state of affairs which has existed ever
since the German invasion :-
In Eastern Srem German, Gestapo, Ustashi and other Croat troops
are said 'to have sent 5,000 people to Germany in sealed waggons
soon after Himmler's visit to Oagreb, in reprisal for sabotage
on the railways imputed to the Serbs, but in fact carried out
by the Ustashi themselves.
At Metchija two train-loads were filled, mainly with women
and children, and taken to the concentration camp at Oemun.
At Kraljevo 107 women, 3 three-year-old children and 30 fourteen-year-old
boys were shot by order of Josef Eckart, the local Gestapo chief.
At Kozevi 70 hostages shot in reprisal for the demolition
of a bridge.
At Belgrade 50 Serbs shot in reprisal for the sabotage of
Danube traffic in May.
In the Jablanica district, 2,000 people were taken to Germany
from 14 villages, which were burnt to the ground.
Quotations of the same character from this source could be multiplied
endlessly. Doubtless the reports do not err on the side of understatement.
Nevetheless, even if heavily discounted, they disclose a sufficiently
horrifying state of affairs.