SUVAJA, A CRIME SCENE THAT WE MUST NOT FORGET

Srpski

The Ustasha massacre on 1 July, 1941 of the population of the village of Donja Suvaja, located between Srb and Donji Lapac (today’s Croatia) is the largest Ustasha crime over the population of Donji Lapac County before the uprising of the Serbian people in their struggle for survival^[1]

Data on the total number of victims also speak about the magnitude of this crime, but also about the crimes closely related to this event, i.e. the slaughter in the villages of Lički Osredci and Bubanj. According to historian Dr Đuro Zatezalo from Karlovac, on that day Ustashas “killed and murdered with knives 243 Serbian civilians, 118 of them were children, 75 women and 50 men“.

^[2] According to some other sources, i.e. lists of victims’ names, in these villages, Suvaja, Osredci and Bubanj, there 279 people were murdered in the first three days, mostly women, children and old men, and barely a dozen of men fit for military service.^[3]

Donji Lapac County (villages Bubanj, Nebljusi, Meljinovac, Lički Osredci…) in that short time, in several months after the NDH had been established, had lost around 1000 residents of Serbian ethnicity. .^[4]

The report of the commander of 3 Ustasha Company, 1 Infantry Battalion reads: “Today I was in the village of Osredci Lički which has been burnt. There are corpses of people all over the place. Terrible stench was coming from the people killed on 2 and 3 July. Dogs and pigs chew on the corpses, and Ustashas were not allowing them to be buried. Those who escaped their homes are now dying of starvation. “

^[5]

These crimes are a typical example of genocide over the Serbian population all over the NDH in the first months since it had been formed. During the slaughter of the population of Suvaja, two families suffered the most: the Keča family who lost 45 of its members, and the Ćopić family with 22 members killed.

For the sake of researching the context of genocide and the role of the perpetrator it is important to stress that the slaughters were led by Maks Luburić personally.  Around 300 Ustasha and Home Defence Guards, who came from Gospić, participated in this mass destruction of the Serbian people in Suvaja. The Ustashas justified this mass crime with the appearance of Chetniks. The statement of the Ustasha police chief in Velika Župa for Gacka and Lika reads: “The bandits fired several rifle rounds at cars with Home Defence Guards from Gospić and the auxiliary Ustasha detachment from Bihać“^[6] Besides these units, there is a mention of the involvement of Muslim units from Kulen Vakuf in this crime.^[7]

On Luburić’s involvement in this and other crimes, Slavko Goldstein writes: “In the night between 9 and 10 May, 1941, he personally committed murders over a pit in Hrvatski Blagaj, where around 400 Serbs from neighbouring villages were killed; leading the “cleansing operation” in the southeast Lika on 1, 2 and 3 July, 1941, under his leadership in the villages of Suvaja, Bubanj and Osredak there were first mass killings of old men, women and children, with the total number not being less than 279 identified people, which directly resulted in a general uprising in that part of Lika on 27 July, 1941.^[8]

The story of the martyr death of Rector Spaso Lavrnja and his family is connected to the village of Suvaja.

“Lavrnja was born in 1912 in Pritoka near Bihać. He finished four grades of a grammar school in Bihać, and a six-year Seminary in 1935 in Cetinje. He was ordained a priest on 18 May, 1936. He served in parishes in Velika Kladuša and Suvaja.

In early June 1941, father Spaso was coming back from Bihać in a bus. Ustashas detained him in Donji Lapac. They kept him there for several days. They forced him to sweep the streets, and in the jail they plucked his beard and put salt onto his wounds. On 19 June, 1941 he was taken with a group of priests to Gospić. Later on, they were then taken to Velebit. He was murdered on Velebit and thrown into one of the pits. (According to the data we have today, the Complex of NDH Death Camps, Gospić-Jadovno-Pag had, along with collection sites, at least 33 karst pits which were used for the killings – note by P.L.) On 1 July, 1941, after the arrest of father Spaso, the Ustashas arrived to Suvaju and immediately started with the arrests. In the parish home they found father Spaso’s wife – Ljubica, who was pregnant and close to her due date. They cut open Ljubica’s belly and took the unborn child out. They shot and wounded the other child, a small boy of four, and then cut his throat.

Italian Carabinieri left a written testimony on this Ustasha crime. It reads: “… On 18 June, Ustashas forced priest Spaso Lavrnja from Suvaja to get off a post office car, and then they took him into woods and killed him… …On 1 July, the Ustashas set on fire the village of Suvaja and burned 25 houses. In the village they murdered women, children and men in the total number of 300 persons, out of which 170 were buried in three pits, and the rest of them were burned. Also, the following occurred in Suvaja: Ustashas took the wife of priest Spaso Lavrnja, who had been killed earlier, and cut open her belly, taking out the living baby, whom they then killed.“ ^[9]

There is also a statement about the martyr death of the Lavrnja priest family in Suvaja by Dane Kosić in his book Donji Lapac County in People’s Liberation War 1941-1945, which, inter alia, reads:

It looked very sad, says Dane Kosić: “As soon as I got into the village, I heard a child’s voice. A child called me: Uncle Dane, uncle Dane! The child knew me and I replied. Soon after, the child approached me, it was covered with blood and you could see a wound around its neck where it was struck by a knife or shot, so the wound was bleeding heavily, so its little shirt was soaked with blood. It was Boško, the son of priest Spaso Lavrnja. I asked him where his mother was. The boy told me she was in the house. I took Boško by the hand and led him home, but his mother Ljubica was lying dead in the house, with her belly cut open. Ljubica was few days close to her due date. The baby was lying next to its mother, taken out of her and then stabbed with a knife. Walking further on, I found my brother’s daughter, Jeka, who hid under a manger.

Only several steps later I met several gendarmes and Ustashas. They asked me whose child it was. I told him it was priest Spaso’s. They took the boy from my hands and killed him as well not far away from there. I could not save him. “I was lucky to stay alive”, says Dane. I was saved by gendarme Marko Čuljat, who called to me and got me away from the Ustashas. That is how I escaped certain death. “

Thanks to Mr Petar Bogunović from Leicester (UK) and his many years of research, the Jadovno 1941 Citizens Association brings you the list of names of 256 victims from the village of Suvaja killed in the slaughter in 1941.

Pozivamo sve one koji imaju dodatne informacije, dokumente i sl. vezano za ovaj događaj,  da nas kontaktiraju putem e-maila: udruzenje@jadovno.com, telefonom: 051/333-588,  +387/65/511-130, ili na adresi Udruženje Jadovno 1941.  Kralja Alfonsa XIII 49a, Banja Luka, Republika Srpska.