Mehmed M. ĆEHAJIĆ

MEHMED ĆEHAJIĆ, son of MUSTAFA, born in 1903 in Bosanska Dubica. Police officer, he lived with his family in Mostar since 1936. From April 1941, he worked in the NDH police issuing IDs and passes. Activist of the National Liberation War. Arrested by the NDH police in Mostar at the end of 1941 for illegally issuing passes to persecuted and interned citizens of Mostar, for the vast majority expelled Serbian families. After months of investigation and brutal harassment, he was brought to court, but due to his severe illness, he was allowed to defend himself while remaining at liberty. He went to Banja Luka in early 1943, where he soon passed away.

EXCERPT FROM LITERATURE:

“(…) This quiet man falsified, and sometimes by deceiving his superiors, obtained original signatures on passes that were illegally delivered to interned families. On blank passes, like the ones the internees received from Ćehajić, they could write the names of several people, that is, as many names as could fit on the unprinted part of the pass. Ćehajić’s actions did not go unnoticed by Ustasha-minded police officers, so one of them, Glavaš, filed a complaint with the grand prefect. Noticing that a ring of mistrust was tightening around him, Ćehajić staged a burglary in his office, but without success. Police chief Mate Roko ordered him to be arrested.

During the commission’s handover (…) it was not possible to determine how many pass forms were missing, but it was indicated that the number was not less than 40. If we take into account that three or four internees went to one pass, it can be estimated how many lives Ćehajić saved in this way.

Unfortunately, one person, the user of the pass obtained in this way, accused Ćehajić of having issued passes to them and two other families at the hearing with Roko. In addition, not realizing how much harm they were causing to their savior, they stated that Ćehajić did not want to receive a single dinar from them for that service. This automatically placed him in the group of political opponents of the Ustasha government.

Ćehajić was kept in the Mostar prison for a long time, beaten, interrogated, taken to Dubrovnik for confrontations and finally handed over to the court in Mostar, which released him after a hearing, “due to lack of evidence”. He went to Banja Luka, from where the court was later informed that he died on February 3, 1943. (K.D. Miletić, article “Stradanja u Mostaru”)