Rescuing the ‘Sava victims’ from oblivion and denial: History and memory of the last Ustasha crime in Sisak

Članak istražuje istorijat i sećanje na poslednji ustaški zločin u Sisku – masakr počinjen na obali Save 4. maja 1945. godine, uoči povlačenja ustaša iz grada. Iako su žrtve masakra, u lokalnom kontekstu poznatije kao “savske žrtve”, postale vidljivi objekat javnog sećanja u Sisku nakon rata, do sada nije objavljen nijedan istraživački rad o samom događaju, a memorijalizacija je bila praćena i upečatljivim nedostatkom zainteresovanosti za identitete žrtava, kao i za činjenice o tome kako su nastradale. Ovaj članak predstavlja pokušaj da se, prvi put, odgovori na ključna pitanja o tome ko su bile žrtve, koliko ih je bilo i zbog čega su stradale, time se opirući dugotrajnoj tradiciji izbegavanja odgovara na ta pitanja ili negiranja tih događaja. Istraživanje masakra u Sisku je važno i zbog toga što su još od sedamdesetih godina 20. veka prisutne spekulacije da tela pronađena na obali Save ne pripadaju žrtvama ustaškog masakra, već žrtvama partizanskih osvetničkih ubistava počinjenih nakon oslobođenja Siska. Ta revizionistička interpretacija je dobila na snazi u Hrvatskoj od devedesetih godina prošlog veka, pa su čak i neki hrvatski “mejnstrim” istoričari sugerisali da, usled nedostataka istorijskih dokaza o samom zločinu, tvrdnje revizionista ne smeju biti momentalno odbačene. Rad kritički preispituje tu tvrdnju, ukazujući na činjenice u vezi s tim događajem, u želji da pruži preko potrebna objašnjenja. Takođe, mapiranjem događaja u Sisku tokom poslednjih nedelja rata, ovaj članak nastoji da pokaže kako masakr na obali Save u Sisku nije bio izolovan slučaj. Postojali su i drugi zločini počinjeni u Sisku i okolini u poslednjim nedeljama rata, koji su u velikoj meri deo priče o savskim žrtvama, ali koji su do sada bili potpuno nepoznati. Među njima je i jedan od poslednjih masakra Srba koje su počinile ustaše, kao i verovatno i poslednji akt Holokausta u Nezavisnoj Državi Hrvatskoj. Ovaj članak nastoji da osvetli te ranije nepoznate događaje i da otkrije identitet stradalih žrtava.This article explores the history and memory of the last Ustasha crime in Sisak: the massacre perpetrated on the banks of the River Sava on 4 May 1945, on the eve of the Ustasha withdrawal from the city. Although the victims of this massacre – known locally as “Sava victims” – became a visible object of public remembrance in Sisak after the war, no scholarly works have ever been published on the event, and memorialisation was accompanied by a striking lack of interest in the identities of the victims, or the facts of what happened to them. This article is an attempt to explain and counter this longstanding tradition of neglect by addressing, for the first time, key questions about who the victims were, how many were killed and why. Examining the story of the Sisak massacre is important because, since the 1970s, there has been speculation that bodies discovered on the banks of the Sava were victims not of an Ustasha massacre, but of Partisan revenge killings perpetrated after the liberation of Sisak. This revisionist interpretation has gained traction in Croatia since the 1990s, and even some mainstream Croatian historians have suggested that, due to the paucity of historical evidence about the crime, the revisionists\u27 views cannot be dismissed outright. The paper critically examines this argument, and by illuminating the facts of the case, hopes to provide some much-needed clarity. Also, in mapping the events in Sisak in the final weeks of the war, the article reveals that the massacre on the banks of the Sava in Sisak was not an isolated event. There were other crimes committed in and around Sisak in the final weeks of the war, crimes which are very much part of the story of the “Sava victims”, yet which were until now completely unknown. Among them are one of the last massacres of Serbs by the Ustasha, and what is probably the final act of the Holocaust in the Independent State of Croatia. The article brings to light these previously unknown crimes and reveals the identities of some of the victims