Viktor Malinarić

"One day, it was an afternoon, the head of the hospital came to my room, he was often there and he was one of us, our boss was for the partisans and he used to be Ustaša always in a uniform. Then he came and said “Malinarić Viktor”, “That’s me”, it was my turn. Yes, and he was there, there were two of them, he was there the boss and there was this one officer domobran in his uniform. And he said he was outside, he was not in his room, he was alone in the hallway, outside, taking a walk on his crutch. And the officer told me “Where is your room?” and I said “There”. And he said “let’s go to the room” and the three of us went in. So we came in the room and he said “where is your bed?” and I said “That’s my bed”. And then the officer said “please stand there” and he said “you have to leave us”, he said to the ustaša. “Ok”, he said, “I will”. And he left. After he left he said to me “Vittorio, I am zerman. I am zerman, don’t be afraid. I know what is happening but nothing will happen to you” and then we talked for awhile. I asked him how could he be a zerman? And he said “I am Maruca’s son” Maruca is my mother’s sister. And then he said: “Victor, we will keep an eye on you. No person can come near you. You are under a strict control of the SS Germany. No person can come near you but I could because I am wearing the uniform, I can. I will come again”

"...In the hospital where the Ustaša worked. When we were sleeping at night...a wounded man sleeps day and night if he can. And every night the ustaša patrol would come and they would enter the rooms, they did that before and they would look at the charts, ask our names to speak to you and they’d come to you and ask: “where were you wounded?”. He could read it but he asked anyway. “In the leg, in the ribs”, “Oh, I see.” And then you’d ask him, now what? And he would take his gun and poke you right in the wound.” 2: “Those were really wounds?” “ yes. And when they amputated my leg, I had a few kilograms of sand on my skin, I don’t know much about medicine, it was used to tighten the skin and this sand pulled on my skin, you understand?to the end of the bed, that was glued like that and he would pick it up, and when he picked it up it hurt so bad.” 2: “They knew when it would hurt?” “He did it on purpose. Ustaše did that kind of thing. And he didn’t answer to anyone, Who? Yes, that’s the truth, yes. I: How did Stanko end up? Do you know? No. I never knew, never. I don’t know how anybody ended up. I tried looking for them, my daughter helped but I can’t. Where is he, is he alive, where...I don’t know, I don’t know. I don’t know where he ended up or where the Italian ended up. I don’t know, I don’t know. Because you can’t know everyone in the entire camp, there are always people who are closer to you than others. And I was close to those two."