On 4 August 1942, Carabinieri surrounded our house and ordered us onto a truck bound for Herceg Novi. My mother, being 61 years old, was left at home, but they shoved me and my sister into the truck, taking us first to Zelenika and later to prison in Herceg Novi. The next day, our relatives arrived, bringing necessary items and asking where our elderly mother and my sister's three orphaned children were. We were beside ourselves, not knowing where they had taken Mother and the children. We broke down in tears, fearing the worst. The following morning, two armed Carabinieri brought Mother and the children to the prison. The sight was laughable – an old woman with three small children under guard. Such courage! I’m surprised they didn’t bring a machine gun along with them.
On 8 August, eight Carabinieri escorted us, along with several other women and 17 children, to Prevlaka. You can imagine our feelings. Just two days after the July uprising, one of my brothers had been taken from our house, and for three full months, we heard nothing of his fate. Finally, after three months, he sent word from Albania, but before he could return home, our own traitors had him sent from camp to camp, ending up in Italy. Another brother had been jailed a month before us in Kotor, awaiting trial every day, facing either death or a life sentence. My niece was sentenced to ten years in prison the same day we were detained, leaving our house empty and locked for a full year—except for the tenants.
When those traitors would pass by the house, they’d spit and shout, “Why hasn’t this house burned yet? It shouldn’t exist. Those criminals don’t deserve a place to live. It should be torched, and they should all be killed; they’re bandits and communists.” Naturally, we had no reason to expect any better treatment from the Italians, especially with our own people speaking this way about us. Still, we didn’t lose heart; we consoled ourselves, thinking it better to be in the camp with a clear conscience than to sell ourselves to the occupier for pasta, a loaf of bread, or logs. We knew that later our comrades would hold no ill opinion of us.
In the camp, we endured hard days among a hundred other women, waiting for the miserable ration of five pastas and a bite of cheese. We comrades from Boka managed because on the 1st and 15th of each month, we would receive packages from home, helping us get by. But as for those in the Croatian camp (so-called because it housed detainees from Dalmatia and other regions), they were far from home, without packages or anything except their meagre five pastas. Those poor souls, exhausted and desperate, resorted to pulling up grass and roots to eat, unknowingly poisoning themselves. It was painful for us; we couldn’t even look their way, let alone share something from our own packages to sustain them. How many times, while they were taking us from Boka to bathe, did we pass by where they held the Croatian internees. We would see them, bedraggled, with a straw mat thrown over their shoulders, being led to a small hut to lie down and await death. Many of them left their bones under the olive trees of Prevlaka. In our camp, a brigadier or lieutenant, whom we called “Žutko,” would inspect us several times daily, shouting insults and telling us Russia was defeated and that we’d see no sun until Rome conquered us. We would huddle from the cold, lighting fires outside and bringing hot coals inside to warm up, always on guard in case a Carabinieri came by, as being caught meant a trip to the “dark room” as punishment. Threats of the dark room were constant. One day, 26 of us women were beaten and locked up there. We spent seven hours in that stinking, damp cell, with water dripping from the walls. Mail from home came every two months, and they’d lure us outside to receive it, only to herd us off to gather firewood for the kitchen and command post before handing over the letters. When we received packages, to make sure no note from our loved ones was accidentally inside, everything would be emptied out onto blankets, no matter what it was. There were often salted sardines, sugar, salt, homemade goods, and so on. They would mix it all together, then laugh and say we’d have a good feast. If we asked for a little more water, they’d turn the butt of their rifles and strike us on the back, saying, “Here’s your water.”
Žutko would beat us and throw us into the boat as if we were mere logs, not living beings. Somehow, we barely made it to Mamula. Once we arrived, they crammed us into cells filled with all sorts of filth and vermin, which were not easy to get rid of. We begged the commander and brigadier to let us clean the cell, and finally, they grudgingly allowed it. One group was permitted to clean the cells, while another had to wash 1,000 blankets and dirty straw mattresses from storage in the sea. We were allowed out of the miserable cells only an hour or two a day. Every Tuesday, a priest came to serve mass, and we’d all eagerly go, not out of piety but for a breath of fresh air and to catch a glimpse of our comrades in other cells.
But the pleasure was short-lived as we could only see each other through the bars, and if we smiled at each other, they would withhold food for two days, so eventually, we stopped going to mass altogether. Three times a week, around 6 p.m., they would take us to bathe, but to prevent us from swimming across, they stationed a machine gun above us.
Day by day, we began falling ill from the lack of air, and on 17 July, they moved us back to Prevlaka. The day we left Mamula, they covered the men’s windows with boards and blankets so they couldn’t see us depart, but we still managed to bid them farewell with a song:
Farewell, comrades, stay with God,
You, our brave eagles proud
The crimson dawn will soon appear
The sun of freedom shining clear
It’s not the leaving that pains us so
From Mamula we must go.
Despite all the guards, the men threw their blankets aside and waved at us with towels and handkerchiefs, and perhaps today the walls of those cells still bear the messages we left for comrades who came after us, awaiting their freedom.
On the third day after our return to Prevlaka, my mother and I were released to go home (my sister and her children had been sent home six months earlier). Although exhausted by the internment and under constant surveillance from the Chetniks and occupiers, we immediately resumed our work, aiding our comrades in the field.
Gjenovic, 7 March 1945 Marica Janković, m.p.
