Tag #120657 - Interview #88272 (Josip Papo)

In 1941, all people who were considered suspicious were captured. I was among the 40 communists. The Ustashe were in power and, because I was a Jew, they contemplated liquidating me. The Italians, however, did not allow it. They released me from prison last. In the summer of 1941, I was in prison and I remember that it was Ante Pavlevic’s birthday. The Red Berets came from Zagreb. That night they captured all the leftists, and I was among them. We were first taken to the Sokol dormitory. When they brought me to the room where the Ustashe were, there was a beaten-up man from the camp whom I knew. Since they had just ripped me from my bed, I was sleepy and confused when the Ustashe asked me what I was. I said I was a Croat. The prisoner heard that, but he did not say anything. Had he, I am sure they would have beaten me until I could no longer stand. Filip Torkar, the most prominent communist, and I were in prison the longest. They started to intervene on behalf of my release. My mother went to the head of the town, who said there was no one to get me out of prison. While there she met our friend Milan Kovic’s father, Kreme, a high-ranking official, who offered to get me out of prison. They let me out of prison, and a few days later I fled to Split. I was lucky that the Ustashe had not yet become well organized and that when permission was requested for someone to go to Split that person received it.

I was in a dangerous situation again, this time in Makarska in 1942. I was on a bench when I was approached by an anti-fascist with whom I had worked illegally. I sensed he was acting strangely. I left him and went toward the beach, and he followed me. I sat for a while on the beach, and then I changed clothes and went swimming. When I turned around, I saw him with two carabineers on the spot where I had been. I swam underwater as far as I could, and made it to the other side of the shore where they could not see me. I asked a friend to get my things and take them home, if there were no carabineers. I swam a little further and got out, and went to get my things from my friend. I immediately went to the village of Batinic, above Makarska, a little below Biokovo. When I arrived, I explained what had happened and said I could not return until the situation improved. I told a partisan that I thought the young man was an Ustashe agent. The partisan said they had been looking for this person. In the middle of the night, the partisan went to Makarska, where he found the agent in a café, but he could not get to him.