CASE UNRECORDED IN WORLD'S HISTORY: THE DEAD WERE KILLED TWICE

BELGRADE, AUGUST 6 /SRNA/ – The crime committed against Serbs in Prebilovci is unprecedented in world's history because the victims were first brutally murdered by the Ustasha in August 1941, and then, five decades later in 1992, their remains were blown up by their descendants in an attempt to forever erase the traces of their atrocities and an act of pure genocide, Milenko Jahura, founder of the Belgrade-based Serb National Society Prebilovci, cited in his SRNA statement.

"As horrific as the murdering the helpless - women, children, and the elderly - was, the fact that their earthly remains were blown up during the recent war is equally horrifying. It has been established that about 90% of the remains were destroyed. Experts believe plastic explosives were used, which destroy bones," Jahura said. He noted that after this cowardly act of "killing the dead," the site of the demolished crypt and unfinished church became a garbage dump, and a road, which had never existed before, was constructed over Serb land parcels. "They desecrated the place. The words of General Janko Bobetko, who commanded Operation Čagalj, are still remembered: `Prebilovci, a notorious village, now wild pigs graze over it,`" Jahura said. He stressed, however, that God's justice prevails and that the Serb people today celebrate their Holy Martyrs of Prebilovci and Herzegovina, who watch over their village and the region from heaven. "By a twist of fate, I authored the initiative that led the Holy Assembly of Bishops to decide that the Holy Martyrs of Prebilovci would be commemorated on August 6, the day when most were killed in the pit. Not all were murdered there; some were killed at various other sites in the village," Jahura noted. ONLY TWO FAMILIES HAD NO VICTIMS He shared that his mother, Joka /née Ekmečić/, narrowly escaped death as a girl, but her entire family was murdered, just as almost every other family in the village was devastated. "Only two families in the entire village had no victims. All the others suffered losses," Jahura emphasized. One of the most tragic stories, he said, was that of Tripko Ćirić, known as Ćiro, who had nine daughters and, after years of waiting, finally had a son in 1938. "All nine daughters and their mother were thrown into the pit. Tripko was later caught during a sweep of the area, had his child slaughtered in his arms, and was then killed himself," Jahura testified. TORTURE OF TEACHER STANA ARNAUT REMEMBERED There was no mercy or quick death for the people of Prebilovci, Jahura said, but the torture of schoolteacher Stana Arnaut and her 120 pupils is especially remembered. Even fascist General Alessandro Luzano was horrified by what he saw in the village school and reported it to Benito Mussolini. "Also remembered is the killing of Milena Medan. When the massacre and escape began, she was giving birth. They pulled the baby from her womb, slaughtered it, placed it back inside her, sewed her up, and then buried her behind the village. It was her first child," Jahura said. In nearby villages, the Ustasha primarily killed men, but in Prebilovci, they murdered everything that was alive. "Many elderly, children, young men, and women remained. There was no mercy," he said. Aware of what happened in neighbouring villages, many mature men from Prebilovci fled before the Ustasha arrived, thus survived. "They married soon after. Determined to rebuild their families, they mostly married widows from nearby villages where all the men had been killed. Some took in stepchildren and thus continued their lineage. They armed themselves and celebrated St. Nicholas Day that very year. Around 90% of families in Prebilovci celebrate St. Nicholas. They put candles in gun barrels. They formed a rebel unit and started fighting the executioners," Jahura recounted. ON THE TOMBSTONES – WARNINGS FOR THE FUTURE Jahura mentioned that some tombstones of the August 1941 victims bear ominous and cautionary epitaphs. "One reads: `The living must stay awake,` and another: `Don't trust the silence that follows - it could be the dead Ustasha coming to drink our health,` which actually came true. Our graves were opened, and the dead were burned in 1992. Still, some of us survived it all, and the village has been rebuilt to some extent," he said. CANONIZATION – GOD'S JUSTICE Jahura concluded that the canonization of the Prebilovci martyrs and the construction of a church where divine liturgy is now served is divine justice and a great victory. The Prebilovci crime gave this Herzegovinian village a fate comparable only to that of the Czech village of Lidice during World War II. In the verdict against Ustaše war criminal and commander of the attack on Prebilovci, Ivan Jovanović Crni, the District Court Mostar stated that 33 households were completely extinguished, and a total of 830 people were killed or thrown into the Šurmanci pit. On the feast day of Blaga Marija, August 4, 1991, the remains of around 4,000 Serbs from Prebilovci and other massacre sites in southern Herzegovina were placed in the crypt of the Memorial Church, then under construction, with a funeral service led by the late Patriarch Pavle after more than 50 years of waiting. During the war in June 1992, all houses in Prebilovci were burned and destroyed, and the Croatian forces blew up and razed the memorial ossuary, turning the entire site into a garbage dump. The Church of Christ's Resurrection in Prebilovci was completed and consecrated in 2015, and that same year, the martyrs of Prebilovci were officially canonized. Ivan Jovanović Crni's name is listed among some 1,600 Ustaha "killed for Croatian freedom" on a monument erected in Čapljina in 2002.