Milan Krbavac

"As soon as we arrived there, they shaved our hair. Not just head hair, but all body hair, everything. Then, we went to the other room with a big tub, desinfection tub, with chlorine and everything else, I don't know… We had to dip into the tub entirely. The ones who feared of getting drowned, they didn't wet their head. A German would call on those men and he made them turn their backs to the tub. Then, the German pushed them inside. They stayed inside, got wet, and went outside. We moved on to the third room where we got a shirt, a pair of pants, blue ones, and a number. It was on Television. My number was 330630 and off we went to the shack. We didn't have anything in there. Nobody gave us food. We just sat and did nothing. There were bunk beds which the Russians called the koikas, two by two by two, so six of those. That way they could put more people inside. On 15 August – on The Assumption of Mary holiday, the English men found out that the factory was connected to the camp, so they bombed it. They didn't damage the camp. Just some pieces of stone landed onto it due to big pressure. Those stones could pierce the devil himself. We stayed there until 5 September. Again, in front of the shack, there was the roll call, the men- count, every morning and evening."

"When liberation occured, my God, the Americans threw chocolate bars, Camel cigarettes, just everything. The Germans started running. The Americans were shooting at them on the fields. Oh, how they were running… We found the deserted ss-kitchen where they were cooking sourkraut. How we „cleaned“ the pots! The Americans arrived and didn't let us eat anymore because many people died from eating since we didn't have anything to eat for a long time, so their stomachs bursted. The Germans were leading us in front of the frontiers for three days. How did the last camp days look like? - The same, not better, not worse. There was an Italian man with us who used to say „Coraggio ragazzi“, just be brave boys, the cannons are shooting, we will be freed. So, there were Italian people as well? – All nations except Americans and English. There were Polish, Russian, Czech, Italian, Croatian, Greek people. Everyone. What was the relationship between the camp prisoners like? We were equally miserable. We used to gather and talk with Russians and Czechs. Their language sounds like a half of Croatian. Just the Hungarians were selfish, selfish, selfish. Ungar tudum tudum magyaro…"