Zdravko I. BAJIĆ 

ZDRAVKO BAJIĆ, son of ILIJA, born on April 16, 1925* in Bileća (according to multiple sources, in Čapljina), a student at the Gymnasium in Mostar where he lived with his family. A member of the SKOJ (League of Communist Youth of Yugoslavia) since 1941. Arrested by the Ustaše in August 1941 in Mostar, taken away and killed. Two possible locations for Zdravko’s murder are mentioned in literature: Mostar and Jadovno.

According to the website Jadovno.com, he was arrested by the Ustaše on August 2, 1941, along with his brother Žarko. After spending several days imprisoned in Mostar (in the Queen Mary School, converted into a collection camp where many were beaten and kept in the heat without food and water), the brothers were transported by train to the Jablanica camp and on August 8, 1941, transferred to the Jadovno camp* near Gospić, where they were soon killed.

One surviving prisoner testified about the conditions in Jadovno:

“We came across a horrific scene in the prison in Gospić, where we found a crowd of people. The Ustaše had set up four or five rows of very long chains throughout the prison yard and ordered two male prisoners to stand next to each chain, their hands tied with wire and attached to the iron chain. Sons stood together with fathers, brothers with brothers, friends with friends. They were then moved, bound in this way, in massive columns, for the final journey that led to the infamous Jadovno in Velebit. That is where these poor people ended their lives.” (Testimony of Dane Milićević from Mostar, arrested on July 28, 1941, and later taken to Gospić, Mahmut Konjhodžić, “Mostarke”)