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Mladen Lolić (* 1928)

• born in 1928, in Baška, island of Krk

• 1943 he joined the partisans in Croatia

• becomes a courier

• seriously injured in the battle of Ogulin

• 1944, he came to the headquarter on Vis, where he received the status of disabled

• becomes a teacher of basic subjects for children in the liberated territories

• 1945 demobilized

• worked in maritime companies Jugoslobodna, Jugolinia, General Directorate of Merchant Navy and Jadroagent

• graduated from the economics department of the Higher Maritime School in Rijeka +went on internships in London and learns English

• In 1961 went to London to work at the AngloYugoslav Shipping Company

• In 1984, he returned to Jadroagent, where he became the general manager of the company

• 1986 retirement

• 1991 fled from Rijeka to Rovinj and twice to Slovenia due to death threats from the new police

• 90s successfully fought for his Serbian wife to obtain Croatian citizenship

Mladen Lolić was born in 1928 in Baska on the island of Krk. His parents were not rich, he is saying that - „Life wasn‘t easy.“. Mother came from a good local family, she was the daughter of a local plovidbe captain. The father of a family that came to Krk from Bosnia. Like his relatives and ancestors, his father was engaged in building and repairing boats. However, due to the fact that also fishermen often had no means of subsistence, happiness at home was brought about by a simple sack of flour. Mladen Lolić emphasizes that it was a vicious circle of credits, when some people were indebted to others, unable to repay the others who had nothing to live on without receiving payment for their work. In times of extreme poverty, his mother would send him out in the rain to collect snails. She was making stew out of them. Mladen had three siblings. Two brothers and a sister, but one brother and sister died in infancy. The witness from his childhood remembers his mother best, returning to her several times in his story, also worrying if he always helped enough.

Their financial situation was worsened by his father‘s chronic illness - asthma. He got it at the end of World War I while sailing on the warship „Vinitus Uribis“ under the Austro-Hungarian flag. The witness‘s father was one of those who rescued the crew after the Italian attack. Lolić tells the story of a ship that was sunk by the Italians, not knowing that it had passed that evening into the service of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.

Life in Baška was easy for few people, as emphasized by Mladen Lolić. However, the town was not deprived of, for example, a reading room or a hotel. Residents received news on a regular basis. Lolić remembers the newspaper vendor shouting, „Adis Ababa felt down!“ She emphasizes that they read a lot as teenagers. Until the Zagreb teachers became aware, their favorite books were the fascist, Falangist „Hereos of Alcazar“. Left-wing teachers had a great influence on him and his colleagues. It was because of them that they destroyed several things at school in protest against Yugoslavia‘s signing of the Tripartite Pact. Perhaps it is also because of them that Lolić mentions poverty in Baska so often. At the same time, however, the strongest party in the town was the HSS (Hrvatska Seljačka Stranka, eng. Croatian Peasent Party). Even the school in Baška, under the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, was not well equipped. With other students, he had classes on typewriters. Because although „the civic school in Baška was of a craft-commercial orientation.“, but there was only one machine for the whole class.

This changed, as Lolić emphasizes, after the arrival of the Italians - „Difference was huge“. Although the Italians left some teachers, those who were origin from Baška. The witness tells a lot about the time of the Italian occupation at the level of education. It was associated with the obligation to teach Italian and the pressure to change names and surnames to Italian-sounding ones. The former partisan emphasizes that all students in his class refused to comply with these orders. Anyway, as he notes, everyone believed in Yugoslavia and a long defense, but everything ended in a few days. The first Italians appeared in Baska right away. Fascists, „just a fascist legion. All in black ”, as the witness emphasizes. The Yugoslav garrison was already empty by then, the sailors had fled. The Italians took their place, placing their fire battery in the same place as their predecessors. The townspeople, however, mocked them more. Black clothes, small pistols, rather reminiscent of children‘s toys, meant that „How can this win the war?“. In addition, half of them spoke Croatian, according to Lolić, because they were from Rijeka. He even says that „half of them, were our Croats“ However, the inhabitants quickly rolled up the Yugoslav flags. In their place, the Italians gave away their own.

              At the same time, the large number of new books in the library made him learn Italian „by nature“ - “ Now, no matter how you take it, it was a valuable thing in that occupation that we learned another language.“ The Italians also equipped the local kindergarten. When he was ask if anyone supported them in this regard, Lolić indicates that there was no such person in the town. Apart from one informer who also reported to the Yugoslav police before the war. In 1943, after the departure of the Italians, he was put on trial.

Aversion to the Italian occupation manifested itself in various ways among the inhabitants. The witness points to the singing of nationalist songs, such as „Oj ti Vilo, Velebita“, for which the singing youths were arrested. After the intervention of the most important inhabitants of Basque, such as hoteliers, they were released, although they were in danger of being sent to Sardinia. The former director of Jadroagenta also adds that the students have never succumbed to persuasion to join, for example, the fascist organization „Giovanni Fascisti“, or have not succumbed to Italianization. However, according to him, this does not mean that they hated Italian culture or Italians, because even among the new teachers there were decent people.

In 1942, many students, encouraged by teachers of Croatian origin, joined the Pioneers. He says that “they got literature on ciklostilu. Just for pioneers, printed in Gorski Kotar”. They were also supposed to conduct sabotage. However, they mainly managed to hide the chalk from the Italian teachers. Other attempts, such as cutting the telegraph line, were either completely unsuccessful or half-successful. He and his colleagues marked the bunker where the Italians kept the cannon guarding the Senjska vrata, but no one ever blew it up. Lolić calls it “ youthful illusions“. However, the inhabitants were also involved in helping the partisans. Father was the head of the local NOB (Narodnooslobodilačka Borba, eng. National Liberation War). They helped in the simplest ways, like mending socks.

When the Italian surrender took place, Lolić was at the cinema. “ She besieged us“ says and emphasizes that no one cried after Italy. The father only rushed to take the money, lira, from the Italian head of the commune, which was for the payment of salaries and pensions. He tried to fight the Italian, but failed. The escaped man ran onto the ship on which all his countrymen were leaving Baška.

Young, only 14, then 15-year-old Lolić decided to join the partisans with his friends. They knew that ZAVNOH forces were stationed in Cirkvenica. The father agreed then, believing that the war would end in three months and nothing would happen to his son. Mladen, as he laughs today, had to stand on tiptoe to get into the army. After a very short training, together with the unit, he set off to Ogulin. The teenager remembered the hard way through the mountains, Gorski Kotar - „we went along goat tracks. These are big forests, very big”. They were thirsty all the time. They walked from Novi Vinodolski, through Mrkopolje to Ravna Gora. There, as the witness says, “ all alone. All.“, they learned to shoot and throw bombs. Eventually, through Lukovdol, they came to Ogulin. There partisan forces surrounded the Germans, domobrance and the Ustashas. Lolić then served in the „1st battalion was our. I was 1st battalion. Treća četa, 1. battalion 4. brigade, 13. Primorsko-Goranien division”. There he became a courier between the commander and the positions of the soldiers, because he was the youngest one. Sometimes he was also sent on patrol. During one of these, they ended up with partner in the Serbian village of Turković. The inhabitants welcomed them with food, but asked them not to stay long. Only half an hour earlier Ustashas on horses had burst into them, terrorizing the inhabitants. After leaving there, he experienced one of the most terrifying things in his life. „There was one small river there. Vitunica.” And he decided to take a bath in it. But when he entered the water: “ I see, um... You can imagine - scythe and scalp. Purpose. A scalp from a man. It‘s scariedr me for a stroke.“ During the encirclement of Ogulin, he also saw other crimes, such as slutted throats.

Then it was his and his colleagues‘ turn to hit the front line. Then Lolić was injured. It happened when he was sent to give the order to fire on the defenders of Ogulin in the vicinity of Svetog Petra Ogulinskog, in the cemetery there. Despite being surrounded by the enemy, the situation of the partisans was not good. Half of Lolicia‘s ceta was taken prisoner. The witness emphasizes that they were lucky because they were taken prisoner by the Germans and thanks to that they could survive the war. In addition, the provisioning situation was difficult - Mladen had to walk barefoot when his shoes fell apart. Former partisan in this battle then seriously injured and so began his journey through many hospitals.

              It was during the battle on the cemetery when he was seriously wounded. The commandant sent him with information to his fighting colleagues to fire at the Ustasha surrounding the cemetery. However, Lolić just ran into Croatian fascists who shot him. That day he told the commander that he was afraid to go there because he was afraid for his head. However, he carried out the order. Shot in the stomach, he crawled up the hill. Constantly under fire, he hid in a bomb crater, because he thought that the Nazis and their allies would not hit the same place a second time. There he spent day and night, in the company of another partisan soldier. Thanks to the fact that his „neighbour’s“ unit came back for him, Lolić also went to Ogulinski Hreljin. There, the doctors said, although he only overheard it, that he would not live long. They sent him to the hospital in Vrbosko. From there he finally went to Senj, where a priest was sent to anoint him. Yet he was still alive. He ended up in Otošac, where, however, he was refused help. It turned out that when the partisans left the town, it was take over by the Ustasha. They, with the help of one of the hospital sisters, murdered all the partisans lying in the rooms. A little earlier, Otočac was the capital of the Croatian partisans. Staffs were stationed there. The surrender of the Italians changed everything. Then the partisans moved elsewhere. This shows well the fluidity of the front in Yugoslavia at that time.

Due to this tragedy, Lolić was treated in Trnovac, near Bihać and Korenice. It was a forest field hospital for partisans. However, when the Germans announced they were withdrawing from Albania, Trnovac was on their way. Everyone who could walk had to leave the hospital there, including Lolić. His long journey had begun. Through bombed-out towns where only women, children and the elderly remained. Where, in the cold, without food, people were crying among the ashes under tents, as the witness describes it: “ Under the tent... They would just put the tent wing on the stones where their houses were. You understand this, children cry...”

Only in Senj he found some peace. There, it turned out that not only ZAVNOH was in the town, but also his father, who was surprised on land by the takeover of the island of Krk by the Germans. They both ate there in the main headquarters, seeing at the end of the table, among others Vladimir Nazor or Andrija Hebrong. After the partisans left the city due to the approaching German forces, they stayed in Senj. His father was speaking German, which allowed them to safely return to Baška.

From there, despite his mother‘s objections, in 1944 Lolić went back to the partisan headquarters. He got to Vis, where the 8th Corps directed him from Dugi Otok. There he underwent detailed examinations, including X-rays. This device was on the island at the disposal of a small American garrison. It turned out that he was unfit for further service at the front. He also tried in NOB Dalmacija to get a job in the navy as a telegraph operator. Unsuccessfully. It was addressed to Cvito Fisković, a Croatian art historian. The already aged professor was the head of the local teaching department of NOB. Young Mladen, although he will finish school after the war in Zadar, took an accelerated teaching course and graduated with honors. He was teaching basic subjects until June 1946. He emphasizes several times that there was a shortage of teachers in the whole country at that time, because they died en masse in the fight.

Today, Mladen Lolić is annoyed at the mere mention of the partisan monuments and graves destroyed in the 1990s and now. He believes it‘s something you wouldn‘t wish even to your worst enemy. At the same time, he emphasizes that if the partisan army and all activities for the local community were taken by another party, and not the communists, he would simply be, for example, an HSS member. He does not hide his thinking about communist Yugoslavia. He calls it an authoritarian state and points out that its citizens have never heard what happened to the war reparations that Yugoslavia received. He also regrets many times how many people died during World War II in Yugoslavia. Not only communist elites, which he emphasizes, but people in general. Civilians and soldiers. Years later, he still wonders what would have happened if Yugoslav politicians had made different decisions.

After the war, Lolić worked as a school teacher for almost a year, despite demobilization in 1945. Then he started working in the Pomeranian Poduzeć: „Jugoslobodna, za tim Jugolonija, pa Generalna direkcija trgovačke mornarice.“ The latter company sends him to the two-year High maritime school,  at the economic faculty. After graduating, he manages to find a job at Jadroagenta Rijeka. Something makes him wonder and think, maybe language skills, maybe a desire to communicate, but Jadroagent sends him for an internship at AngloYugoslav Shipping Company in London. There he learns English. Upon his return, he returns to his old job, but already in 1961 he is again sent to London. He works for the AngloYugoslav Shipping Company until 1984. It is during her son‘s stay in London that his mother hands over his captured (trophy) weapons to the authorities - as part of a state procurement project. The witness also emphasizes that his language skills were a key reason why he was sent abroad. From 1984 until his retirement, he worked as a director at Jadroagent.

World War II and the experience of guerilla warfare influenced his life once again in 1991. Then friends from the HDZ party (Hrvatska Demokratska Zajednica) warned him: „Mladen, run away. Run away, because you‘ll lose your head.“ One of the names was professor Barbalić, but Lalić emphasizing that „all that people are dead“. Initially, he wanted to greet the people of the then police chief Tomislav Merčep with an ax. He said that his colleagues also „mentioned Merčep“, who created concentration camps for Serbs and opponents of the war at the Zagreb Fair. As Lolić himself states, the idea with the ax was stupid. That is why he escapes once to Rovinj and twice to Slovenia, avoiding death. He hides in Kranjska Gora and Bled. Then he also fights in 90s for Croatian citizenship for his Serbian wife. Only consent to the withdrawal of the complaint from the Constitutional Court makes the spouse receive it. Today, he rarely visits his hometown, Baška, due to his wife‘s illness.