Mahmut J. BUČUK 

MAHMUT (JUSUF) BUČUK, born on February 6, 1919* in Mostaći near Trebinje. A locksmith who lived and worked in Mostar. An activist and underground worker. Husband of the underground worker Sidika Bučuk-Hadžić. Both of them were arrested in March 1944 and taken to Stara Gradiška where they were killed. From a Ustasha document, we learn that Mahmut was “sent to a camp upon the proposal of the Ž.R.O. in Mostar for a period of 2 years; as a locksmith at the Mostar airport, he procured weapons and ammunition for the insurgents.“

Omer Šaput, the brother of the deceased Safet Šaput, provided a statement on October 19, 1945, regarding Safet’s arrest, which was published as “Minutes of the City Commission for the Investigation of War Crimes by the Occupiers and Their Collaborators.” In the statement, Mahmut and his wife Dika are mentioned.

“On March 24, 1944, there was the Ustasha Protective Guard from Sarajevo in Mostar, which, together with the Mostar police, carried out a series of arrests. (…). These arrests were carried out by agents, including Jakupović, the head of the Ustasha Protective Guard in Sarajevo, Hafizović, Sušić Pavo (illegible), and Cvitanović, an agent of the Mostar police. Sušić Pavo, in particular, was very cruel, and the others were more or less the same. I believe that all the agents are now in hiding. In Mostar, they kept several of the arrested individuals in prison for another month, where they were subjected to terrible torment and terror. They tortured them with three days of starvation, gave them salt, beat them with fists, feet, truncheons, put them in the so-called ‘tram,’ and after a month, they were sent to Stara Gradiška, to the large penitentiary. In the group, there were 12 men and 4 women from Mostar. From Mostar, there were Professor Mustafa Alikalfić, Zajko Mehić, Omer Mesihović, Lazo Radišić, Arif Sabitage Hadžiselimović, Dušan Čulajević, Bučuk, Osman Novo, my brother Safet. I can’t remember the names of the others at the moment. Among the women were Fatima Balta, Fahira Ćišić, Dika Hadžić, and Bera Ćemalović. (…)”