“Say hello to the Partisans!” He expected crying and whining, but he didn’t get it. The internees died without moaning or pleading for life. On that occasion, three members of the illegal party leadership of the camp were also shot: Adil Grebo, Stančić Milan-Uča and Arsenov Mile.*

The most dramatic moment came when the SS could not force a group of comrades barricaded in one of the barracks, out to be shot. Machine gun bursts rattled along and across the building, but the comrades did not want to come out. Then Commander De Martini had the idea to play Nero. He ordered the shack to be doused with gasoline and set on fire. The flames, fanned by the wind, engulfed all the barracks. Living comrades burned together with the barracks, only to turn into ashes after a few hours.

From the statement of a Norwegian, who lived not far from the camp, one can get a picture of the crazy orgy of the drunken SS men, who enjoyed watching the living human flames trying to get out of the flames. But outside the barracks they would encounter SS men who shot them with machine guns “playing a hideous game of death.”

Today, a monument stands in Beisfjord, as a trace of one of the most brutal crimes committed by the SS against Yugoslav internees.

People without names

After the escape from Korgen, even more mass killing began, followed by a terrible pace of work. Exhausted physically and mentally, people could not last long. One by one they fell at work only to be killed immediately. SS men killed even when they were not satisfied with the pace of work. People fell under carts full of earth or stones because they were being chased to cover a distance of 50 or more meters from 6 in the morning to 6 in the afternoon. It was an unbearable pace.

They worked on breaking roads, building military facilities, building a railway across the Arctic Circle, etc. In the winter period, the Germans forced half of the internees to continue working in frozen quarries, at temperatures reaching minus 40 degrees, and the other half were transferred by trucks to remote forests where they cut wood for their bases and the army. It was even less terrifying to watch human skeletons stagger with their last strength and strain to move a stone with an iron rod. They were carrying logs from forests covered with two meters of frozen snow, into which they sank under the weight. Each fall was followed by a bullet. The internees were people without names, numbers and only numbers. Everything was taken from them. They were not called by their names. Every day, before leaving for work and after returning from work, numerous conditions of the camp were determined. The report was always heard: “Ten pieces died”, or fifteen, twenty. The code “died” covered everything. All murders and shootings were conducted under that name.

Even at night, when they were exhausted, in suits, lying on boards, covered with thin blankets, the SS did not leave them alone. The deep silence of the night was occasionally interrupted by machine gun shots, from which someone was always killed.

In addition to murderous work, the day brought other horrors. The “stick game” was a particular favorite among SS men. They would take a stick and throw it outside the perimeter of the work site, which was usually surrounded by barbed wire. Then they would select an internee and make him go to get the stick. Crossing the marked line of the construction site meant death. Disobeying a guard’s order also meant death. Many comrades tried to “explain” that they were forbidden to do so, but they had to obey the order and cross the marked line and never returned. Those who did not want to go get the cane were killed for “disobeying orders”.

“Gymnastics and hygiene”

In the Korgen camp, they marked the exhausted internees with red lines drawn along the entire length of their trousers and declared them “partisan generals”. The comrades marked in this way were placed in work groups, and each guard was ordered to specifically pursue and eventually kill them at work. They were condemned to death, which would befall them in a few hours. A game of “cat and mouse” was created at the work sites. Even some of the German guards were appalled of long-term torture of the convicted comrade, so individuals immediately killed the “marked” in order to shorten his suffering and report: “the order has been carried out.” Some were sadistic, forcing a “marked” comrade for a whole day only to kill him at the end of the work. Several “marked” tried to escape, but except for one, no one managed to escape. They made him do the hardest work for several days, demanded the impossible from him, and seeing the will with which he fought for his life, they left him alive.**

On Sundays, when there was no work, they forced the internees out of the barracks to stand still for hours, causing a large number of them to faint. They were then brutally beaten by the guards who controlled the “order”. They forced them to do “gymnastics”, which was running in a circle, through a double fence of guards, who beat them frantically with sticks and stocks. Such “gymnastics” was observed by the commandant through the camp gate and issued orders for the fastest possible pace of both “gymnastics” and beatings. Special attention was paid to “hygiene”. In the Osen and Botn camps, the SS forced internees to “swim” in a lake a kilometer away from the camp, even though the water temperature was below zero. In the late autumn days, the internees broke through the ice to get into the water. Whoever did not go into the “bath” would be killed on the spot. Exhausted comrades from the “ambulatory” in all the camps in the north were thrown out into the snow overnight, leaving them to end up like that. Usually, freezing and death would occur after a few hours. In order to speed up the freezing, they were poured with water, which turned into ice almost instantly.

“Ice Column”

January 1943 in Botn.

It snowed continuously for several days. The wind played with the tiny flakes, entwined and crossed them, so it looked as if the vast curtains were swaying across the width of the fjord, along the coast of which a column of internees was slowly moving…

We were going to the airport. The snow was already falling so much that it was almost impossible to approach the airport, and the runway had to be cleared.

The snow is firm, sticky and hard to move. Strong frost. It’s not easy to work… Everyone is standing…

(To be continued)

* Dimović and Miler managed to escape to Sweden, from where they later moved to England. Dimović later moved to Canada, from where he returned to his homeland with the 1st Overseas Brigade at the end of 1944. Miler remained in England.

* Adil Grebo was a member of the OK KPJ for Sarajevo, Milan Stančić aka Uča, a native of Kuman, was a member of the OK KPJ for Zrenjanin, Arsenov Mile was the secretary of the OK SKOJ

** This is Ljubisav Miletić from Kragujevac, now a bank employee.

Politics Thursday, January 17, 1963

Yugoslavians in Nazi Camps in Norway, Featured “Politics“