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For the Record:How I Escaped A Serb Firing Squad in Brcko

Aida Alic, Brcko

Dzafer Deronjic

19 March 2010  Thanks to an unknown camp guard, Dzafer Deronjic was not executed in Luka camp in May 1992 – but while lucky to be alive, he still bears the mental scars.

Dzafer Deronjic was taken from hospital in May 1992 to the Luka camp in Brcko, where he says he was beaten regularly and at one point put in front of a firing squad.

With the help of one of the men in charge of interrogation at the camp he managed to get out of Luka but only 20 days later he was re-arrested and taken to the Batkovic camp, near Bijeljina, from where he was exchanged that October. Fifteen years on, he still bears the mental scars from his months in detention.

Deronjic says the Bosnian Serbs took over the hospital where he had been hospitalized on May 3, 1992 “and maybe six days after they said that we would be released, as soon as we were better.”

That did not happen. Instead, “they threw us in a van and drove us in front of the police station in Brcko and the driver went in to see where we were to be taken.”

After 10 or 15 minutes, their destination became clear. It was the camp at Luka. “Many of us didn’t know what was there but when I saw the huge number of civilians I realized we were in captivity,” he said.

On arrival, Deronjic told BIRN Justice Report, he was investigated along with the others and his watch and personal documents were seized. The camp personnel gave him a deadline of 2pm the following day to find and hand over 2,000 German Marks, or possibly be killed.

“I was brought there in my slippers and pajamas. They demanded 2,000 marks, which I did not have even in my dreams, and then they took me to the hangar, where I recognised a lot of my friends.”

When the Bosnian Serb guards came back, he continued, “we were lined up and they asked for me. However, it was my luck, and the misfortune of another, that they found a man just like me, took him outside and we did not see him anymore. I don’t know what happened to him because we never heard a shot.”

Deronjic saw the interrogator in the camp, whom he knew from before, who promised to have him transferred to another part of the camp, which he did. “I immediately realized that the first part of the hangar was a scaffold where people are taken and killed, and so it was,” he recalled.

“The next night, Goran Jelisic entered and brought Stjepan Itric whom I barely recognized because he’d been beaten. Jelisic said he had raped a seven-year-old Serbian girl. I found the courage to ask Stjepan what had happened, and he said he went to buy cigarettes for his father when he was arrested.”

Later, Deronjic went on, “Jelisic killed Stjepan in front of the hangar”. In 2001, after Jelisic pleaded guilty to grave crimes in Brcko, the Hague Tribunal sentenced him to 40 years’ jail.

Brcko

Deronjic said Bosnian Serb soldiers came to Luka camp each night and took people away. Those people never returned. On May 13 or 14, 1992, he said, Jelisic came with a group of soldiers and took out the number of people and killed them.

“Jelisic called out people not by name but by number,” Deronjic recalled. “On that occasion, he called out only odd numbers and then took them out. After a few minutes he took out two strong men who later told us that all those who’d been taken out had been executed, and that they’d thrown the bodies into the Sava. The following, evening, Jelisic took out even numbers,” Deronjic said.

On May 18, he went on, “I was taken in front of a firing squad. They took me in front of the camp and set up a machine gun and vehicle on which I saw written ‘Seselj’s Chetniks.’ [Vojislav Seselj was leader of the far-right Serbian Radical Party. He is now on trial in The Hague].

“Then, one man with the cap on his head passed by and asked them [the guards] what they were going to do with me and they replied that they’d been ordered to kill me. I don’t know who this man was but he saved me because he said: ‘Not him, we still need him. Take a man older than 50.’”

On May 27, 1992, Deronjic left Luka with the help of the inspector after receiving a pass to leave. He was then in hiding in different locations until July 12, 1992, when he was rearrested and taken to Batkovic camp near Bijeljina.

“There were no killings there but they beat people,” he recalled. “It was hard to find someone who was not beaten. I don’t know how many times I was beaten, both in the first and the second camp.”

There were more than 1,600 detainees in the camp, and they were “physically abused daily”, said Deronjic. Many were sent to work in the fields for locals from the area.

Detainees from Luka, and those rearrested after being released in July 1992 and who were transferred to Batkovic, were mostly exchanged in October 1992. Deronjic himself was exchanged on October 5, 1992, after which he lived with his family in various villages in the Brcko area until 2002. Today he lives in Brcko.
 
Although 15 years have passed, Deronjic is still struggling with the physical and mental legacy of those months spent in the two camps. “Though I survived all that happened in the camps, unfortunately, I have severe mental problems now,” he said.

“Many who were detained in Luka with me are no longer alive. We, the others, are lucky that we stayed alive,” said Deronjic, adding that “now I walk with my head high and I’m not afraid”.

Regarding the question of justice, the former detainee says he still believes “it is attainable, but it’s been a long wait for us”.
 
Together with Jelisic, the Tribunal sentenced Ranko Cesic, a former policeman, to 18 years’ prison after he pleaded guilty in 2004 for crimes committed in camp Luka. Konstantin Simonovic, called “Kole”, former manager of Luka, pleaded guilty before the Basic Court in Brcko and was sentenced to six years’ jail in 2005.

Courts in Bosnia sentenced in 2006 Fikret Smajlovic to four-and-a-half years, Drago Ilic in 1998 to seven and Dzemal Zahirovic in 1997 to eight years in prison for crimes committed at Batkovic.

Aida Alić is BIRN – Justice Report journalist. aida@birn.eu.com. Justice Report is an online BIRN weekly publication.

“For the Record” is a special appendix to Justice Report in which we record the life stories of people who survived horrific events in the war in Bosnia.

The Balkan Investigative Reporting Network invites you to send us your own memories of the war, which we will consider for publication. Write to us at: urednik@birn.eu.com