Mladen Lolić

"And then the headquarters of the Second Naval Coastal Sector sent me to the navy headquarters on Vis. And they sent me to the hospital of the Eighth Corps. And there they did all possible examinations, x-rays, here, there... And I even went to some... The American mission had... because they had a small garrison there. So a German... American officer, X-ray examined me. And they declared me unfit for the unit. Then I went to the naval headquarters. And I say: Where am I going now, I have to go somewhere? They say: "You are under military service. But we will put you at the disposal of the People's Liberation Committee, region Dalmatia." I also went, if you've ever heard, to Cvito Fisković. Never heard of him? This was a famous professor of those fine arts. Antiquity especially. By the way, he was down from Korčula. He headed the educational department of that Regional Committee. And he asks me, he says, because he heard from the navy headquarters that I can't go to their other courses. Because everything was already halfway there. And now that I... He can't. It can't be going to radiotelegraphy. Then they formed a unit for assistant teachers. Because many teachers died during the war, many teachers. So there was a shortage in Dalmatia, schools without teachers, nobody. I went to a course to become an assistant teacher. And finished it with success. And where are they going with me? Then they assigned me to choose wherever I wanted to go. I chose Zadar. And I also told him: "Send me to the worst places, to Bukovica, wherever you want me to bring enlightenment to those places." And then they sent me to Ljubač. And there I was, um... I even opened a course for the illiterate."

"Already in November, I think it was 1942. We, uh, several of these younger teachers at the school, of Croatian origin...we were included in the pioneers, so to speak. And we created a pioneer cell. And they even received literature on the cyclostyle. Just for the pioneers, printed in Gorski Kotar. There were orders to carry out sabotage. For the sake of illustration, let's say, we didn't have, how... we weren't in the factory to carry out sabotage. We were very small, young. But then what are we going to sabotage at school? We... We always needed chalk on the blackboard, for example. We used to send for someone and then steal that chalk from them. They believe that it is sabotage to the Italians. And then this, that professor of theirs would come and he would say to her: Mother of God, it was there now! The whole box, it's gone. I mean, funny, yes, when you think about it, but it was a revolt in our school. Then let's say we wanted to cut the telephone wires. Then I brought a saw from my father, because my father was this shipbuilder. I found some kind of saw, then some kind of scales. And then we went to an area in Baška, bare ... nothing ... only stones. And found the closest place to reach the telephone... telephone wire... And then we tore, tore, sawed and sawed, but the wire didn't break. Despite all our attempts. I mean, I'm giving an illustration of how we, my generation of schoolchildren, felt about the occupier. This one. We didn't want to sing their "Giovinezza". They slapped us. That director couldn't stand me. They chased us, but we were very strong."