MEMORIES.E32 - Neel Sheth's Questions
Zvonko Springer (zzspri@COSY.SBG.AC.AT)
Sat, 1 Mar 1997 16:11:20 +0100
Hello Neel,
during the time of composing answers to your questions sent out on FRI
21 Feb 1997. I have read Kees Vanderheyden's 'The War In My Back Yard'.
Kees has responded with a rather touchy and interesting 'Memories of
Dutch schoolboy in the summer of 1944' which bear as a subtitle 'War
Games for Young and Old'. Well, 'the war as a big game brilliantly
conducted by the adults' <underline>was not as simple and benign
game</underline> for me at all. I was 16 years old when WWII ominous
shadows reached Yugoslavia.
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My answers may be rather different from what you would receive from other
</paraindent>Panel's Elders. I have already answered many questions,
similar to yours, during the past two years since starting to write to
MEMORIES. You may find some info about my life history in MEMORIES'
archive too. Also, it is important for you to realize that the 'CROATIAN
SOLDIER' (my Panel's code name) has been fighting on the 'wrong' side of
the front lines which was the Allies' enemies side. Thus, accept my
answers to be sometimes opposing or even seemingly cynic from the point
of view of 'romanticizing the war games'. Now, let me answer some of your
20 questions in the order you have asked them.
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******
</paraindent> Q1: Where did you live during the war or where were you
stationed?
A1: I was born in Osijek 1925 a major town in Eastern Slavonia, Republic
of Croatia. Osijek is some 15 km from the confluence
of river Drava in Danube
or some 30 km of Vukovar - the martyr City in recent war in Croatia
of 1991.
I have graduated with 'matura' at Osijek's Real Gymnasium (Secondary
School)
in summer 1943. In October 1943 we have been called to the Army
Service of
Croatia which was an Independent State aligned with Nazi's regime.
[Note:
Poglavnik Ante Pavelic was State's ruler commanding his political
forces
named 'Ustasha'.] Early November 1943 I was seconded to officers'
training
camp in Stockerau, near Vienna. I finished the training for an
artillery
officer in October 1944 and got my junior officer's patent soon
after. For
Christmas 1944, I got my order in a howitzer battery stationed in
Osijek at
the fighting front.
Q2: What were your duties?
A2: As the junior officer I was on duty either as front observer or in
command
of cannons in their stand. The battery had 4 Tschech-made howitzer
of 100 mm
bore. The horse-drawn battery had some 120 horses for pulling the
cannons
and other for the transport needed carts.
Q3: How was the morale in your unit?
A3: How to answer this question? How was my morale considering a
teenager's
expectations and experiences? Well, I have learned a lot of
dictatorship's
oppression and involved dangers before entering the Army. My family
was in
great danger too (mother's Jewish origin in a mixed marriage) and
many rela-
tives and acquaintances have been abducted. We could anticipating
not see
them alive when this horrible confrontation ends - God knew only
when! I
have expected that the Nazi's regimes would loose the war they have
started.
I knew I had to fight that war at and for the 'wrong' side too. At
other
hand, Tito's partisans propagating communist's regime advantages
were cer-
tainly not the better choice either. Thus, the only choice we have
had was
staying alive hopping for a better future which the victors - the
Allies -
might provide or at least guarantee.
Q4: How was the food and the living quarters?
A4: I suppose you ask about how was it during my military duties. Well,
it
certainly was better than the majority of the civilian population
had. Not
to speak about how millions of displaced or dispersed persons had it
or
those in prisons or forced working camps.
In times of our military training we got one main meal at lunch time
and some kind of soup meal after duties' end at 18 hours. We ate at
soldiers'
canteen meals which contained potatoes, cabbage, lentils, beans, sour
turnip and porridge (barley corn) in different combination of
mixtures. Some times there were 'traces' of meat as the better parts
went to officers' canteen and for kitchen's staff. We received
once-a-day bread made of mixed (corn, rye, maize etc.) flours which we
had enough of. We drank 'coffee' made of roasted rye & barley
(chicory?) and supplied in large jugs (10 lt) mornings and evenings.
Yes, there was some kind of margarine made of bone fat or lard tasted
awfully!). Some mixed marmalade in brick-form also was our daily ration
too. Later, at the front line, the food depended largely what our
cooks 'organized' or could buy at a reasonable price 'bargaining' by
force of arms. Any officer had it better depending on his personal
position in the unit.
During the retreat westwards from Osijek, which started on 14 April
1945, food was not an important issue at all - just the survival. After
my surrender to Tito's Army at far West in Slovenia on 15th May 1945
there was not ANY food
for a P.o.W. This is another rather tragic and dramatic story:
<underline>Death Marches or
</underline> <underline>the Croatian Ways of Cross</underline> which
started at Bleiburg in May of 1945.
We, the twenty recruits, had large room as living quarters during
military in an old massive barrack (18th century). The brick walls were
good 1 m thick but the room has been bitter cold. The only stove would
be heated up after 18h and cleaned out - no ashes at all - by 22 h.
Later, at the front line in Osijek, soldiers had quarters in some odd
buildings whereas officers we allocated rooms
in private houses. During the retreat we had slept anywhere available
and when possible. For P.o.Ws nobody really cared for, believe me. We
didn't have any 'living quarter' at all. During the forced 'death'
marches and when we were allowed to rest - we just dropped down for a
while: on a gravel road, in a
drainage trench, on railway slippers, on any dusty floor or grassy plain
some-
times soaked by rain. That is the hard way of survival, Neel.
Q5: Were there any experiences that seemed boring at all?
A5: I just asked myself how old are you, Neel? Do you expect that the
military training, particularly during war-times, would or
could boring? Ask anybody who passed such a training whether
the sergeant-major allowed any time for boring experiences.
Yes, there were many hurting and difficult experiences
gathered in 10 months of training. The 'only' boring were when standing
guard during wee-hours in cold windy nights in front of barracks -
far from the front. Later, at the front or during the
retreat there has not been any-
thing boring. What we all went through had been <underline>very hard
way of difficult
</underline> <underline>and dangerous collecting of life survival
experiences.</underline>
Q6: What did the soldiers do for entertainment?
A6: Oh, did we have any time for entertainment at all? On Sundays we
went to a
church service in Stockerau unless the American bombers didn't
disturb it. In the later case, we rushed to stables to
ride out fast horses into near-by
woods for safety. After two months of training, we were allowed
taking max. 36 hours of leave starting at noon on
Saturdays. One would 'change' rationed
cigarettes or some food staff (saved from a parcels received from
home) for
money to buy ticket or entry to several entertainment places in
Vienna. It
had taken about 30 minutes by train only . I had relatives in
Vienna and
could stay with them overnight too. They lost their home during a
bombarding
late 1944 saving their bare life only. Thus, I was lucky visiting
many per-
formances in Vienna's Opera House and Burg theater, visits to
Ronacher or
Hagenbeck's Circus or Prater - at all places with rather restrictive
stage's decoration (fire hazard) and subdued public lights.
We had other 'kind' of entertainment too. In the room for night
watchers we
had put a helmet upside down next to a candle-light. Attracted by the
heat a
bed-bug came out of watcher's bed and crawled up-wall and ceiling to
plunge in the helmet or on and in flame. What a smell when bed-bug
burned! Thus, one got
rid off some of bugs which are real plague in old buildings. By the way,
this
barracks' building still exists being converted for habitations now. [I
have
visited this place few years ago but could not get in any of those rooms
we have
been in some 50 year ago.] Another entertainment has been for us when
the German
superiors discovered that we had louses. Germans were particular about
this bug
and ordered us to pack all our belongings in blanket and emptied
mattresses. We
had to fill with new straw after the return from 'Entlausung' (=
debugging) at
NW-railway station in Vienna. By entering a nearly full waggon at Stock.
station
with our large bundles people asked where are we going. "We are going
for debug-
ging" were our answers. After that we had the waggon for ourselves only.
*** End of answers part 1 ***
This is too long answering already and I better stop leaving the
remaining questions Q7 through Q20. The later ones are somehow different
and would require some contemplating about my answers. My problem consist
when answering questions by younger generations - most probably being my
grandchildren's one - how to be objective as much as possible. You are
asking questions from grand-parents' generation to be answered so that
they answers relate to times of some 55 years ago. This is not easy or
simple at all considering that our memories are fadding or most of it we
either cannot or do not want remembering at all.
Well, try to digests the above answers first and let me know whether
I should continue with the rest of them. Have a good and long reading in
good time with many regards from
Zvonko of the Oak Hill alias (old now) CROATIAN
SOLDIER