Dinko Sakic's Portfolio
From the Press
Srpska Mreza

ZAGREB - Memories of the Holocaust have come back to haunt Jakov Finci, one of the few Jewish survivors of Croatia's Jasenovac concentration camp, since he saw former commandant Dinko Sakic on television.

Sakic, 76, who has lived in Argentina since 1947, admitted in an Argentine television interview broadcast last week that he had headed the camp, southeast of Zagreb, but denied that there had been any killings there under his regime.

Finci, now 75 and suffering from heart problems, remembers differently.

He was 18 when he was deported from Sarajevo with 300 other Jews on March 5, 1942 by the Ustasha militia -- the forces of the pro-Nazi puppet regime which ran Croatia and Bosnia during World War II. He spent three years in Jasenovac.

"I had a real shock when I saw Sakic on television, I thought that he was dead. What hurt me most was that he didn't show the slightest regret for what he had done," Finci said in an interview with AFP.

"Sakic thinks that the world has forgotten what happened at Jasenovac. He says that it was a work camp, that no one was killed there, but he can go and tell such stories to children, not to me, a former prisoner," he said.

Finci, who said that he still had fears for his safety, said that he had witnessed the hangings of Serb prisoners in Sakic's presence and had heard the cries of those who were "liquidated in huge numbers" in the camp.

"This happened at the end of October 1944, and I worked at the time as a shoe repairer in one of the camp's six barracks. They (the Ustasha soldiers) came to tell us that we had to go outside and stand in rows," Finci said, his voice scarcely audible over the ticking of a clock.

"Then they led out three Serb prisoners with their hands tied. Sakic, who was marching in front of them, was followed by his officers," he said.

"We were standing in line, Sakic placed himself next to us and the three prisoners were hanged one by one. Sakic did not hang them personally but it was he who organised their execution," he said.

Finci said that had been the closest "eye-to-eye" contact he had had with Sakic.

"They then told us - 'You see, by trying to escape, these three prisoners did not respect Ustasha law. Everyone must know that no one can escape from Jasenovac, that not even a bird can fly out, because the camp is hermetically sealed'," he said.

"Sakic had lots of style, he was very young, he must have been about 22 or 23 years old at the time," Jakov said.

"Very arrogant, Sakic was always well dressed, his uniform was ironed impeccably and he always wore scent, but, as for us, we fled from him like the devil, it was better not to catch his eye," said Finci, who lost 74 members of his family in the Holocaust.

Overcome, he stopped his story for an instant and cast a tender glance at his black and white wedding photograph -- his wife has recently died. Then he launched into his tale again.

Towards the end of 1944, "the camp went through its darkest hours," Finci said.

"The Ustasha soldiers came in the night to our barracks with lists -- we knew what that meant. They did not allow the prisoners they called to take their clothes or shoes," he said.

These prisoners "were then gathered in a shed in the centre of the camp where they were tied up and led to the bank of the River Sava. We heard their cries throughout the night, the cries of people who were being killed."

On April 22, 1945, Finci fled the camp with 1,200 other prisoners. Only 70 of them survived the escape.