Ćamil S. DELIĆ 

ĆAMIL DELIĆ, son of SALKO, born in Mostar on July 2, 1924*, a hospital orderly by profession. Actively assisted the resistance movement during the war, member of the Communist Youth League (SKOJ) since 1942. Arrested by the NDH police on May 1, 1943, in Mostar. By the decision of the Župa Police Authority in Mostar, he was sent to the Jasenovac concentration camp. He was accused of reading communist literature, attending party meetings, and aiding the escape of sixteen-year-old SKOJ member Samija Puzić from the Mostar hospital, where she had been transferred from prison after being beaten by the Ustaše (Samija was arrested when one winter night she was pasting slogans and proclamations on the walls of houses). Ćamil was killed in Jasenovac in 1945. As a result of Samija’s escape, another hospital orderly and illegal resistance member, Ivo Bronzović, was arrested and also executed in the Jasenovac camp.

Regarding Samija’s escape, it is documented:

“It was guarded by two policemen who stood guard in the hospital room at night, and only one remained during the day. However, the hospital director Dr. Vjekoslav Glavadanović decided that the guards could not be in the hospital room, and they were moved to the hallway. The local committee of the SKOJ decided to organize Samija’s escape from the hospital, and they informed Samija about it. One of the Young Communists, partisan Halid Sadiković-Bušak from Ljubuški, who had returned from the detachment in Mostar for some duties, was assigned the task of organizing the escape. He established connections with the hospital staff, including the orderlies Ivo Bronzović and Ćamil Delić, who later helped. Samija left in the evening and went along the hospital rooms to the neighboring tea kitchen, where used dishes were taken every evening. When she moved away, she ran down the stairs as planned and exited the building. Her comrades Mithad Hadžiosmanović and Halid Sadiković were waiting for her with a bicycle in front of the hospital, they took her and drove away. The girl had a safe place in the Bušatlić family, near the villa of the then Ustasha official, Dr. Riđanović (…) When Samija was already with the battalion, on April 22, 1943, the police reported the following to the Ustasha supervisory service in Zagreb about her escape: ‘On March 22nd, around 7:30 PM, Samija Mehmedova Puzić, a student in the 5th grade of the gymnasium, Islamic religion, born on August 3, 1926, in Mostar, escaped from the state hospital in Mostar. She was arrested on January 23, 1943, when the authorities were arresting Communist youth (as reported under number 183/43, on January 25, 1943), she was found on the street with several communist leaflets. Proceedings were initiated against her, and together with other detainees, she was supposed to be handed over to the Military Court in Šibenik by the Italian military authorities. She was in custody in this region at the disposal of the Italian military authorities. She was transferred from prison to the local state hospital because she was suffering from pleurisy. Investigations conducted in this region have determined that Halid Sadiković, a photographic assistant from Ljubuški, residing in Mostar, organized Samija’s escape. The hospital orderlies Ivo Bronzović and Ćamil Delić assisted him. Ćamil Delić was tasked with distracting the police guard who was guarding Puzić, and Ivo Bronzović was tasked with delivering supplies to the hospital garden and breaking open the doors located near the hospital morgue. Both of them fully executed their tasks, and Bronzović brought Puzić to the mentioned doors, where Halid Sadiković was waiting. The police guard noticed the escape after a short time, but the search was in vain. As mentioned, the hospital orderlies Bronzović Ivo and Delić Ćamil were arrested, and they admitted to their actions, but to this day, Samija Puzić and Halid Sadiković could not be found in Mostar. (…) It is assumed that they joined the partisans who were in the vicinity of Blagaj, near Mostar at that time.”

From a preserved document, we learn that Ćamil was “sent to a camp for a period of 2 years based on the proposal of the Ž.R.O. in Mostar; he read communist literature, attended meetings, and prepared and facilitated the escape of the detained communist Samija Puzić.”

After the war, Ćamil’s mother testified: “My second son Ćamil, 19 years old from Mostar, a nurse at the Mostar Hospital, was arrested by the Croatian authorities. After spending 4-5 months in their local prisons, they sent him to a collection camp in Nova Gradiška, from where he contacted me several times, and I sent him packages. Then he was taken to Jasenovac. The witness shows a letter sent by Ćamil from the Jasenovac camp on January 21, 1945. The letter bears the Ustasha stamp, and it is evident that Ćamil Delić was a prisoner of Group 10 A in the Jasenovac collection camp. After reviewing the letter, it was returned to the witness. In peaceful times, Ćamil earned around 1,200 pre-war dinars at the hospital.”

*According to the information from the book “Spomenica Mostara 1941-1945.”