That the cruelty of the Ustaše regime against the Serbian people during World War II exceeded all boundaries of human savagery is confirmed by documents in which even Italians were shocked by the crime committed in the village of Prebilovci. One such testimony is preserved in a letter from Italian General Alessandro Luzano, addressed to Benito Mussolini, in which he does not hide his horror at the atrocities committed by Pavelić’s “Aryans.”
In this photo, Italian General Alessandro Luzano is seen standing over the throat-slit body of a Serbian child in front of the school in Prebilovci. The letter he sent to Mussolini after this crime has been preserved in military archives, and we present it in full:
“Dear Duce,
My boundless loyalty to You, I hope, gives me the right to deviate, in some respect, from strict military protocol. That is why I hasten to describe to You an event I personally witnessed three weeks ago.
While visiting the district towns of Stolac, Čapljina, and Ljubinje (between 60 and 130 km north of Dubrovnik) — I learned from our intelligence officers that Pavelić’s Ustaše had, the previous day, committed a crime in a village (Prebilovci), and that, once it becomes known, the surrounding Serbs would again become agitated.
I lack the words to describe what I found there. In a large school classroom, I found a slaughtered female teacher and 120 of her pupils! Not a single child was older than 12! “Crime” is an inadequate and naïve word. It exceeded all madness!
Many had their heads cut off and lined up on school desks. From slashed abdomens, the Ustaše pulled intestines and, like New Year’s streamers, stretched them under the ceiling and nailed them to the walls! A swarm of flies and an unbearable stench made it impossible to stay there long. I noticed an opened sack of salt in the corner and, horrified, realized they had been slowly slaughtered, with their necks being salted! And just as we were leaving, a child’s gurgling was heard from the last bench. I sent two soldiers to check. They brought out one pupil — he was still alive, breathing with a half-severed windpipe!
I took that poor child in my own car to our military hospital, brought him back to consciousness, and from him we learned the full truth of the tragedy.
The criminals had first, in turns, raped the Serbian teacher (her name was Stana Arnautović) and then killed her in front of the children. They raped girls as young as eight. All the while, a forcibly brought Roma orchestra played music and beat tambourines!
To the eternal shame of our Roman Church, even a man of God, a parish priest, participated in all of this!
The boy we saved recovered quickly. As soon as the wound healed, due to our carelessness, he escaped from the hospital and went to his village in search of relatives. We sent a patrol after him, but in vain; they found him slaughtered on the doorstep of his house! Of over a thousand souls in the village, no one remains!
That same day, as we later discovered, when the school massacre occurred, the Ustaše captured another 800 residents of Prebilovci and threw them into a pit or killed them like animals on the way. Only about 300 men survived. They were the only ones who managed to break through the Ustaše encirclement and flee to the mountains!
FIND OUT MORE IN ENGLISH:
Those 300 survivors are stronger than the most elite division of Pavelić. They have lost everything there was to lose — children, wives, mothers, sisters, homes, property. They are even freed from the fear of death. The meaning of their lives is only in revenge — in terrible revenge — and, in a way, they are ashamed that they survived!
And villages like Prebilovci are found all across Herzegovina, Bosnia, Lika, Dalmatia.
The massacres of Serbs have reached such proportions that even many water sources in those regions have been contaminated. From one spring in Popovo Polje, not far from the pit where 4,000 Serbs were thrown, reddish water was flowing — I personally witnessed it!
A permanent stain will fall on the conscience of Italy and our culture if we do not, while there is still time, distance ourselves from the Ustaše and prevent the impression that we are supporting madness!”
MORE TOPICS:
Source: Italijanski vojni arhiv Foto: Wikipedia