Franjo Podolsak

Story

The Last Victim of the Bleirburg Massacre – Part 1 (Yugoslavia)

As a young lad, I always have a dream – to be an army officer. My fascination with a military life was perpetrated by many real life stories of the past.

By the age of 16, I enrolled into Home Guard officer’s school in Zagreb (Domobranska Zastavnička Škola). By that time, in 1942 the Kingdom of Yugoslavia had already been occupied by the Third Reich forces.

At our military school, I received a broad military and civilian education. As my proficiency grew from strength to strength , I was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant at 19 of age. Shortly, after the end of the Second World War put us in a precarious position.

However, we received the orders to retreat to Austria where we would give up ourselves to the nearest outpost of the British High Command. Consequently I found myself in a huge military formation. It took us two weeks to reach the border, adorned by a huge river, an ice cold Drava.

Unfortunately we were confronted by a huge obstacle on the Austrian side Ð a sole bridge guarded by Russian artillery travelling on a makeshift train rails, in order to achieve a quick change of its fireing position. Being unable to cross that bridge, which was already under heavy bombardment from Russian artillery, we made the enquiries with our command and were told that from now on, we are on our own.

The Partisans, who were coming from behind forced my fellow officer to assemble a small group of soldiers so we travelled on foot further west in search of another bridge, which we found on our military topographic map.

It took us a few days to reach it. On our arrival we were flabbergasted. This bridge was guarded by a larger Partisans outfit, so we were outnumbered. Naturally we deployed a military tactic,by shifting our positions so we give them an impression that a size of our formation was far larger than theirs. Soon after we outgunned them and secured a pass over that bridge.

Once in Bleirburg, Austria,we were urged to lay down our arms not only by the British High Command, but by the Partisan’s political commissars disguised in the civilian clothes. Their popular saying was:’ Brothers our struggle for freedom is over. Lay down your arms and everything should be all right.’

At that time I was armed with a machine gun, a dozen of hand-grenades and two pistols. All visible armament I laid down on a huge pile. To insure that no one would be able to use my machine gun or a hand-grenades, I ‘doctored’ them all. A long range pistol , I concealed in my uniform.

Having been ‘disarmed’ by the British High Command in Bleirburg, we were handed over to the partisans and uncertain future, including death. That atrocity instigated by Marshal Tito entered into modern history as The Bleirburg Massacre. It was documented by the numerous books, especially, Operation Slaughterhouse by Ivan Prcela (USA) and many decades later by the BBC TV documentary, A Betrayal.

In 1980, it was officially acknowledged by a former Vice-President of Yugoslavia, Milovan Djilas, a western ‘darling’. He was invited to London on the eve of the release of the official documentation, protected in 1945, by Home Office, which imposed a 35-year moratorium under the Secrets Official Act.

The Partisans divided us into the groups of two thousand. Among them were many civilians, especially men of my age. All groups were marching in a special formation – four abreast and we were guarded by Partisans on a horseback. They would urge us to march faster. Those who were lagging behind because they were exhausted, hungry and thirsty were shot on the spot as well as those who tried to escape. At one point we were assembled on a paddock between the road and Drava river in the background.

The twelve mobile machine guns of a larger gauge were positioned Ð three on each end of our group and six on the road. Their indiscriminate fire power killed the majority of us, but I and my fellow officer took an opportunity to run for our lives. Before I reached Drava bank, I noticed that my fellow officer was seriously wounded. To allow him to reach the Drava river bank, I fired from my pistol several shots and probably killed a few horses. Then I threw my pistol and jumped into the ice-cold Drava.

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