Livno: Memory Rite of 1,600 Serbs who murdered on the feast-day of Holy Martyr Marina
On the occasion of the 79th anniversary of the Ustashas’ killing 1,600 Serbs in the Livno field, the Holy Liturgy was celebrated in the Memorial Chapel-Ossuary in Livno, Hercegovina, on the feast of the Holy Great Martyr Marina. The parish priest of Livno, Predrag Crepulja, told agency ‘Srna’ that the Ustashas from the day of Holy Martyr (30th July) to the feat-day of Prophet Elijah (2nd August) in 1941, during the Second World War, murdered 1,600 Serbs.
Revd. Crepulja pointed out that it had been a horrible suffering of Serbs from the area of Livno; they had been taken away from their homes by Croat neighbors and thrown alive into the pits of the abyss on the Dinara and Kamesnica, where they ended their lives in the greatest torment. - After forty days, 14 Serbs were taken out of the Ravni Dolac pit, who later testified to the survivors about the torture, pointed out the parish priest of Livno.
According to him, only a dozen surviving Serbs came out of the other pit. -Of the 1,600 Serbs who died in the area of Livno in that terrible year of 1941, 673 were younger than 18, and out of that number, 248 were babies and children up to six years old, the parish priest of Crepulja pointed out: -Almost there is no Serbian family from Livno, who in his family memory does not bear the scars from July 30, 1941, when the Ustashas brutally killed Serbs.
In the summer of 1941, women and children were thrown alive into the pits of Dinara, Staretina, Tusnica, Kamesnica, while men were murdered near the village of Prolog, little ones of the village Celebic were killed in a village school, as well as on the meadow of Trnovac, in the area of Kupres…
More than 1,600 civilian victims, from newborns to the elderly and infirm, disappeared in those days around the feast of the Holy Maryr Marina (celebrated on the 30th of July). Entire Serbian families have disappeared forever, and in some villages from that day until today, there have been no more Serbs. Fifty years after the crime, the descendants buried the relics of the victims taken out of most of the pits with dignity in the Memorial Chapel in Livno, Hercegovina.
