- They gathered us in centre of our village, and we got some guns and ammo from partisans. There wasnt guns for everyone. We been told that we are partisans now. And we have to storm Derventa (little town in northern Bosnia). We been marching few days, and many of us fleed before we arrived. I didnt had 16 yet, but i wasnt youngest one. They took whoever they could find. Kids were not fleeing, but older ones did.
After arrival, we had meeting with communist officers. Our unit, 60 of us, was ordered to storm the bridge at the town entrance. Destroy bunker and capture bridgehead.
Germans and Ustashe were heavily entrenched. Ad we didnt had clue what are we doing. They told us go, we got up and started running toward bridge. Officer remained back, yelling uraaaa.. but not leaving shelter. Bunker was silent, and they let us come almost at the bridge, and then we got mowed with 2 sarac (MG42).
They killed most of us in the first few minutes. Out of 60 of us, only 3 of us survived. Ive heard orders to not stop, to get up and push forward. I got bullet in forearm, and fell behind pile of bodies. Stojan (neighbor from his old village) was lying in some hole, he got many bullets, but survived, and 3rd one was Huso Zrnic, who saved us. He was incredibly tall man,way over 2 m. When they started shooting, he fell into the water, and managed to hide under the bridge. We seen him showing up across that little river, making his way to the bunker and he just raised hand and put grenades into bunker, like he was leaving something on top of the shelve.
He succeeded, MG fire stopped, and just then we realised only 3 of us survived. My friend and first neighbor, Nikola was dead. I carried his body 15km, then i couldnt walk anymore. I had to bury him, and i never took him home.
i never figured out why they sent us to death. as i later found out, there was no need to attack that bridge. they would retreat, like they did from all checkpoints.
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image sources: Radioderventa, Znaci.com