The Brotnja massacre was the massacre of Croat civilians in the village of Brotnja, committed by Serb rebels on 27 July 1941, during the

Srb Srb ( sr-Cyrl, Срб) is a village located in the southeastern part of Lika, in Croatia, till 2011 administratively divided into Donji Srb (population 255, census 2001) and Gornji Srb (population 79, census 2001). Srb lies in the Una River va ...

and

Drvar Drvar (, ) is a town and the seat of the Municipality of Drvar in Canton 10 of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, an entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is situated in western Bosnia and Herzegovina, on the road between Bosansko Grahovo an ...

uprisings.

Prelude

In the weeks prior to the

Srb Uprising The Srb uprising ( sh-Cyrl-Latn, Устанак у Србу, Ustanak u Srbu) was a rebellion against the Independent State of Croatia (, NDH) that began on 27 July 1941 in Srb, a village in the region of Lika. The uprising was started by the lo ...

, local Serb civilians had been the victims of Ustaše atrocities. Throughout July 1941,

Ustaše The Ustaše (), also known by anglicised versions Ustasha or Ustashe, was a Croats, Croatian fascist and ultranationalist organization active, as one organization, between 1929 and 1945, formally known as the Ustaša – Croatian Revolutionar ...

general,

Vjekoslav Luburić Vjekoslav Luburić (6 March 1914 – 20 April 1969) was a Independent State of Croatia, Croatian Ustaše official who headed the system of concentration camps in the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) during much of World War II. Luburić al ...

, ordered the "cleansing" of Serbs from the

Donji Lapac Donji Lapac ( sr-Cyrl, Доњи Лапац) is a settlement and a municipality in Lika, Croatia. Geography Donji Lapac is located a region of eastern Lika called ''Ličko Pounje'', by the river Una (Sava), Una that flows near the town in the val ...

area in

Lika Lika () is a traditional region of Croatia proper, roughly bound by the Velebit mountain from the southwest and the Plješevica mountain from the northeast. On the north-west end Lika is bounded by Ogulin-Plaški basin, and on the south-east by t ...

and the bordering regions of

Bosanska Krajina Bosanska Krajina ( sr-Cyrl, Босанска Крајина, , ) is a geographical region, a subregion of Bosnia, in western Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is enclosed by several rivers, namely the Sava (north), Glina (northwest), Vrbanja and Vrba ...

. A number of local Croat peasants from the area joined the Ustaše movement and actively took part in massacres against local Serb civilians, including the massacre of almost 300 Serbs in the nearby village of Suvaja, at the start of July 1941. It is known that at least two people from Brotnja joined the Ustaše and took part in crimes against Serbs. However, the majority of Croats did not take part in such crimes, many moderate Croats were opposed to them and actively tried to help their Serb neighbours. On 27 July 1941, local Serbs launched an uprising against Ustaše authorities. Throughout July, August and September 1941, Croat and

Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

villages across Lika and Western Bosnia were attacked and massacred by Serb insurgents, such killings were said to have been acts of retaliation for earlier Ustaše massacres against Serbs.

Incident

On July 27, 1941,

Chetniks The Chetniks,, ; formally the Chetnik Detachments of the Yugoslav Army, and also the Yugoslav Army in the Homeland; and informally colloquially the Ravna Gora Movement, was a Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Yugoslav royalist and Serbian nationalist m ...

and other Serb rebels under Chetnik leadership, entered Brotnja, gathering and killing the remaining 37 Croat civilians left in the village, their bodies were thrown into a deep, vertical cave, some were thrown into the pit alive. The village was then subsequently destroyed. 24 of the victims were members of the Ivezić family, while 12 of the victims were children, the youngest being just three years old.

Aftermath

Massacres against Croats by Chetniks and other Serb insurgents continued throughout July and August 1941, culminating in further massacres throughout the area of eastern Lika and western Bosnia, such as in Trubar,

Bosansko Grahovo Bosansko Grahovo ( sr-cyr, Босанско Грахово) is a town and the seat of the Municipality of Bosansko Grahovo in Canton 10 of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, an entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is situated in western ...

Boričevac Boričevac is a village in Croatia. History Throughout July, August and September 1941, Boričevac was one of several Croat and Muslim villages across Lika and Western Bosnia that were attacked and massacred by Serb Communist insurgents and Chetn ...

, Vrtoče and Krnjeuša. In 2014, a mass grave containing 19 victims of the massacre were exhumed and reburied elsewhere.

References

Books

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Websites

* {{coord missing, Croatia Massacres of Croats Chetnik war crimes in World War II Massacres in 1941 July 1941 in Europe