(C 11449/6789/G).
S.P. No.
ROYAL YUGOSLAV EMBASSY,
195, QUEEN'S GATE,
LONDON, S.W.V.
13th November, 1942.
Dear Mr. Eden,With reference to my letter, S.P. No. 531, of the 24th October last, and to your reply No. C 10892/5789/G of the 12th November, I beg to bring to your notice the following further reports received from General Mihailovitch in this matter:
1. Apart from the 600,000 Serbs whom the Ustashis have already massacred, they have resumed their planned mass execution of Serbs, still left in Pavelitch's "Independent Croat State".
2. The Hungarians, in addition to the known massacres already committed, have enlisted in Backa all the Serbs in their forces, with the intention of sending them to the Russian front. These, however, are fleeing into fields and forests. The Hungarian authorities persecute their families and manhandle them in the most brutal way to compel them to disclose where the male members of their families, capable of military service, are hiding.
3. From the concentration camp at Zemun, Srem, all those capable of manual labour have been transferred to the island of Ada Kale, in the Danube, to fell trees. They are dying in great numbers, as they receive only 50 grammes of food a day.
4. In the neighbourhood of Kraljevo, Serbia, there are at present 7,000 Germans, having at their disposal nine 50-ton tanks. Two thousand of them are members of the German minority from the Yugoslav Banat. They intentionally provoke incidents in order to obtain pretexts for the mass shooting of civilians.
5. In the district of Kopaonik, Serbia, two or three divisions of Germans, Croatians in German uniforms, and Bulgarians undertook to "clear", on the 8th October, the districts of Kopaonik, Zeljina and Goca. They burned and pillaged all the villages and killed a great number of innocent inhabitants. They threw them alive into the fire, and ill-used girls of fifteen years of age. The number of dead in the village of Kriva Reka in Kopaonik amounts to 690 men, women and children. The village church was set on fire and 120 people were burned in it. Dogs and birds carry about parts of dead bodies, as the Germans have prohibited their burial. After these massacres, the Germans, the Croats and the Bulgarians withdrew to their garrisons.
I beg to renew my request that the source of the foregoing information may kindly be kept secret when use is made of it.
Believe me,
Yours sincerely,
(signed) M. Nintchitich.
t. Hon. Anthony Eden, M.C., M.P.,
His Majesty's Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.