Ladislav Bevc:
MY JOURNEY TO FREEDOM
In Encounter of May 1983, Nikolai Tolstoy published a documentary
paper
The Klagenfurt Conspiracy1 in which he describes the actions
of British diplomats and military authorities in 1945 when thousands of Cossacks,
Byelorussians, and Yugoslavs were shipped from refugee camps in Austria to
their death at the hands of Stalin and Tito.2 The following concerns primarily
the fate of the Slovenians who took refuge under the British flag at the camps
near Lienz and Vetrinj which very nearly became my own.
When it became apparent that the communist takeover of Slovenia was
imminent most of the members of the Slovenian National Committee decided
to leave Ljubljana and try to reach the Allies in Austria. Early in the afternoon
on May 5, 1945 I left Ljubljana by car and headed toward Ljubelj. There
were five of us in the car. We were on our own and, contrary to the communist
insinuations, had no connection whatever with the retreating Germans. Late
in the afternoon we reached Ljubelj and pulled into the entrance of the railway
tunnel connecting Carniola and Carinthia under the Karavanke Alps. We slept
in the car which, incidentally, became inoperative because a saboteur put
sugar into the gasoline. We managed to correct this during the evening and
next morning we drove via Borovlje, Celovec, Beljak, Spittal and Gomji Dravograd
to Lienz where we took up quarters in Hotel Sonne. The late Miroslav Urbas
and I shared a room. On May 8, 1945, the next day, the British arrived in
Lienz and decreed that no one may remove himself beyond ten kilometers from
Lienz. Food ration cards were being issued by the Nazi committee which the
British left in charge of these affairs. We received the lowest class of
ration cards. A weekly ration that these brought might be enough for one
meal. Urbas and I had to comb the countryside around Lienz for food and we
were able to come by some bread and milk at reasonable prices from the farmers.
The number of Slovenian refuges was gradually increasing. One of
them had a radio over which we could hear, in addition to news from home,
transmissions of triumphal rejoicing of the communists. A woman greeted
Dr Pestotnik with: "Doctor, have you heard that you have been sentenced
to death?" In fact, according to the news, Dr Pestotnik, Dr Pirkmajer, and
Dr Vindišer were all sentenced to death because the Credit and Loan Company
(
Kreditni Zavod) of which they were directors was transacting business
with Italian clients during the war.
In the midst of such excitement that punctuated the daily tedium
arrived a message from Celovec-Vetrinj where part of the National Committee
with its President, Dr Basaj, was located. The National Committee sent word
by a special emissary, Pater Odilo, that the British had decided to transport
all Slovenian refugees to a better camp in Palmanova, Italy. Pater Odilo
had been to America and thus spoke English. He came in a small truck which
he drove himself. The refugees were to be transported in four groups on 27th
through 31st of May 1945. The National Committee suggested that two of its
members staying at Lienz come to Vetrinj so that arrangements could be made
for them to accompany the refugees to Italy and act as their spokesmen.
It was decided that Dr Zajc and I should go to Vetrinj. I was to
accompany the last group of the refugees to Italy and remain with it as
a representative of the National Committee. On May 28, 1945 we drove through
Spital, Beljak and Celovec to Vetrinj; Pater Odilo informing the British
sentries on the way that he was taking two convalescents to Vetrinj.
In Vetrinj the National Committee was in permanent session. I had
to sleep in the open but the food there was ample, the refugees were preparing
it themselves. I wondered where all the meat that was served with cabbage
had come from. Later I found out that the refugees were slaughtering horses
and the cattle they brought along because they had no fodder for them. Before
I left Lienz Urbas gave me 1,000 Lire for his son whom he asked me to find
in Vetrinj among the
Domobranci (National Guard). I found his son
and was able to give him the money and his fathers regards. He was with the
group that left on May 29, 1945.
On May 29, however, the second day of those shipments, an officer
managed to return from Podrožica with the news that the British were handing
refugees over to the communists who were waiting for them concealed in railroad
cars in Podrožica. Dr Basaj immediately went to see the British commander
Lieutenant General Keightley in Celovec to find out what was going on. After
considerable waiting he was eventually admitted to Keightley's presence where
Keightley indignantly denied that anything like the handing over of refugees
occurred and threatened with severe punishment all who might spread such rumors.
Tolstoy's paper, however, reveals that Keightley, the British officer who
most likely by direction of Harold Macmillan, then the British resident minister
for the Mediterranean at the Allied Supreme Command Headquarters at Caserta,
arranged for the treachery, was lying.
While Dr Basaj and his deputation were cooling their heels in Keightley's
antechamber a certain "Major Jones" was bustling in and out of the general's
office arranging, no doubt the details of what the general would shortly
vigorously deny on his honor as a British officer. Apparently he was the
same Jones whom the Partisans used to show off at their meetings during the
war as evidence that their cause enjoyed full support of the Allies. From
such observations one can draw inferences on the sinister forces that played
the decisive role in the betrayal of the refugees.
At the same time another terrified fugitive from a "shipment to Italy
" showed up with an identical report to that given earlier by the escaped
officer. The National Committee still was not able to make up its mind what
to do and continued its session through May 30, 1945. At around noontime,
on that date, however, Dr Janez Janež, a young military surgeon, who had
been sent with the first transport on May 29, appeared, still in full uniform.
He was exhausted because he had come to Vetrinj from Pliberk walking day
and night without rest, evading the British sentries who, naturally, also
guarded the bridges on the Drava river. He reported that he was assigned
to go with the group to be transported as a medical officer in an ambulance.
When they arrived at the railway station at Pliberk the refugees were mustered
out of the train by the British. In front of the railway station Tito's partisans
were already waiting for them. The British soldiers, who knew what would
happen to the refugees, robbed them systematically of their meager personal
belongings such as watches, shaving kits, and the like, before they handed
them over to the communists. The communists, in turn, made the refugees undress
so that they could take their uniforms leaving them, for the time being,
their own rags. The military surgeon managed to avoid the muster by heading
toward the nearby inn, ostensibly looking for a restroom. A British guard
followed closely behind him but under his charge's reproachful look he eventually
stepped aside when the surgeon entered the facility. As soon as the latter
was sure he was no longer being followed he threw himself into a wheat field
and lay still and unobserved. Then he heard the frightful cries of the refugees
whom the partisans were loading into boxcars which were then locked. The
night fell but he still heard the plaintive cries from the sealed cars. From
the position of the stars he estimated that it was midnight when the train
with its wretched cargo departed and silence fell on the station and the
inn. He rose from the field and began to walk away from that place. It was
still dark when he reached a farm and raised the farmer. Fortunately the
farmer was not a communist sympathizer and advised Janež how to get further
on his way to reach the Drava river. The farmer also warned him about the
British sentries on the bridges and told him where he could find a ferryman
who would take him across. The surgeon found the ferry, crossed the Drava
river, and without rest or sleep continued on to Vetrinj.
Now the National Committee had an authentic report on the infamous
treachery by which the British were delivering the refugees to the Partisans.
It was decided, at once to warn the refugees advising them to disperse immediately
and save themselves as best they could; it was every man for himself from
then on.
Later we learned that some refugees, notwithstanding the clear warning
they received, boarded the last transport train on May 31, 1945, and went
to their deaths. It was that last group with which I was to go as a representative
of the National Committee to the "new and better refugee camp in Palmanova,
Italy."
Pater Odilo was ready to take both Dr Zajc and myself, as well as
Dr Celestin Jelenc, - if I remember correctly - back to Lienz at once. We
left on May 30, 1945 and arrived at Lienz on the same day, Pater Odilo again
informing the British sentries on the way he was transporting sick men. The
dreadful news spread instantly and it was universally agreed that we must
disappear as soon as possible into the American sector. Urbas wept all night
over the loss of his only son.
Later, in a refugee camp, I read a sworn statement by a refugee who
succeeded in escaping after he was handed over to the partisans at Pliberk.
He gave the statement to the American Military Government in Trieste after
he escaped from Yugoslavia. The victim reported that on arrival at the territory
under communist control the Partisans would stop the train at larger stations
and drive the captives from boxcars through the gauntlets of crowds that
spat on them and abused them in any way they could. When they reached the
concentration camp at Teharje women and children were separated from men
who were sent to a separate concentration camp. Guards were coming throughout
the night taking the victims to large natural underground caves and gullies.
There the victims were lined up with their hands bound along the edges of
the pits and shot in the neck. The young man in Trieste who bore witness
to these massacres, however, had not been mortally wounded - after some time
he regained consciousness and began feeling around. Finding the bloodied
corpses all around him he tried to undo the wire with which his hands were
bound. Suddenly he noticed another man rising and sinking again between the
dead walking over them toward him. When the man reached him, he untied his
hands. Both men waited inside below the rim of the pit until the executioners
finished off another group, then they climbed out and ran in different directions.
Although it was dark the sentries around the pit noticed their escape and
began firing at them. A year or two after these events a boy was recounting
to my son how he, as a young partisan camp follower, participated at such
murderous orgies. The Partisans on purpose did not tie-up all their victims
and let some escape from the pits so that other communists, including the
boy who was telling about this, hidden some distance away in the forest,
could amuse themselves by shooting down those trying to run away. The boy
was not much older than my son who was fourteen when these heroic deeds were
narrated to him. The communists did not try to conceal what they did at all
in these days, on the contrary -- they used to describe these executions
in morbid detail while they watched the listener to see how he would react.
Fortunately, our fugitive was not gunned down. He got away and managed to
reach, still at night, a farm where the people dressed the wound in his neck.
He moved on, mostly at night, and eventually reached his home somewhere in
Dolenjsko. There he remained until his wound healed and he recovered from
his ordeal. When he got well his relatives advised him to leave the country
lest the communists find out about him.
Another staging camp for mass executions, described by Tolstoy, was
St Vid near Ljubljana. Some victims at that camp were summarily executed
there but the majority were taken to Kočevje, the Slovenian Katyn. There
a large clearing was prepared in the systematic way of the communist executioners.
The victims were bound in pairs, tied to a line and taken to a common grave
where they were mowed down with machine guns. Then the communists finished
off those that were still showing signs of life. Those mass graves were
only superficially covered and local communist authorities, later complained
about the earth heaving up and uncovering the partially decomposed dead.
Thus Anton Gliha, a friend of ours in Krško, noticed that a foul smell of
decay filled the air as soon as he began excavating on his property where
he wanted to build a fence. As soon as he started the work a person came
from the Local People's Committee forbidding him to dig further and ordering
him to fill in the excavation. Spelunkers, exploring the various subterranean
caves in Charso also often came across skeletons of people who were executed
and thrown into the pits.
Some 13,000 Slovenians were brutally murdered in this way. Tolstoy
says indications point to Lieutenant General Keightley and Harold Macmillan
as persons most likely responsible for these crimes and conjectures that
the payoff for sending the Slovenian refugees back to Tito and their death
may have been the withdrawal of communist troops from portions of Carinthia
they occupied. Thus the communists sold the Slovenian soil to the British
and eventually to Austria in order to gain revenge over their political opponents.3
Soon after these events both the British armed forces as well as
Whitehall disclaimed any intentional complicity in the handing over of the
Slovenian refugees to the Partisans. I observe, however, that while diplomats
of most countries as a rule receive precise instructions for action from
their governments Whitehall does not issue specific instructions to its
senior diplomats, it only provides them with all the information that is
deemed necessary for them to act. Thus, actions of the resident minister
for the Mediterranean were for all practical purposes actions for which the
British government must assume full responsibility and any disclaimers appear
disingenuous. In response to recriminations for those heinous acts the British
were quick to point out that it was not they who pulled the triggers. True
enough, this is how the British fight the wars of their Empire: by letting
others do the shooting.
We may justly ask whether crimes of such proportions perpetuated
by an Allied government are not equally or even more deserving of prosecution
such as that of the defendants at Nüremberg or those Nazis that were
apprehended more recently? In the case of the latter, the intervening time
appears to be no bar to prosecution. Indeed, while one could argue that
the trials at Nüremberg had their legal foundation only in the generally
perceived limits on the conduct of governments and the conscience of mankind,
the action of the British officers and diplomats were clearly illegal under
the laws of their own country and the covenants to which it was a party,
namely the Geneva Convention and the Atlantic Charter.
I was thus left to my own devices in trying to reach the American
zone of occupation. Despite the British roadblocks around Lienz, the refugees
generally could find a way to circumvent them and filter into Anras, a mountain
village to which Bishop Rožman had removed himself. The bishop still had
his car which was driven by his chaplain. The car belonging to my friend
Rudolf Žitnik in which we travelled was seized by the British who did not
even bother to give Žitnik a receipt. Members of the National Committee decided
to follow the refugees to Anras where we would find out how to get around
the checkpoint on the border of the American zone at Silian. The chaplain-driver
agreed to load our knapsacks in his car and wait for us some distance away
from the roadblock at Lienz. We were to get around it on foot and rejoin
the waiting car. On June 2, 1945 this plan was carried out without difficulty.
There were five of us in the group: Bogumil Remec, director of a college
preparatory school (gymnasium), writer Dr Tine Debeljak, his son-in-law,
Josip Porenta, civil engineer, Miroslav Urbas, and I.
In Abfaltersbach Urbas got out and headed for Ziljska Dolina where
he had relatives; finding his kin inhospitable, however, he soon moved on
to Celovec where he remained until his death. We remained in touch so long
as he lived.
The rest of us in the car continued uphill to Anras. On the recommendation
of the rector who was an old schoolmate of Bishop Rožman the farmers in
Anras were very hospitable towards the refugees and willingly provided us
with food and shelter. I was pleasantly surprised to find there Andrej Uršič,
an acquaintance of mine, and his friends. We slept in a larger room, each
on his own bed. The hostess fed us well as a matter of course. On Sunday,
June 3, 1945, Bishop Rožman, officiating at the mass in the local church,
confirmed the refugee children. The following day we started on our way to
Silian to carry out our plan for reaching the American zone of occupation.
The people in Anras told us where along our way we should stop to get detailed
information for this purpose. The bishop gave me a letter of recommendation
to all ecclesiastics requesting that they give me help in case of need. This
is what he wrote:
"
Litterae comendatitis
Episcopus Labacensis omnibus Rev. is
Sacerdotibus et ordinibus eclesiasticis virum
eggregium
Ladislavum Bevc quam optime
comendat et rogat ut eum opportunis
consiliis et informationibus adjuvent
In itinere datum 1. Junii 1945.
Gregorius Rožman, eppus Labacen."
SEAL: F. B. Pfaramt in Anras, Ost Tirol
The chaplain again drove Remec, and myself from Anras. On our way
we picked up Debeljak and Porenta. In Absfaltersbach we got out and continued
on foot through the villages of Stressen, Tassenbach, and Panzendorf to
Silian. The trip took two days, the best we could do for the night was to
stay in a shelter.
Outside Silian we received precise information on the movements of
the patrols near the roadblock and instructions how to avoid them. We arrived
safely at Silian where we called on the dean who received us well and invited
us to dinner. We could only offer him the few ration cards we had left from
Lienz as a recompense. The dean promised us to get a guide for each of us
next morning who would take us to the Austro-Italian border in the part
of Tyrol occupied by the Italians. The border was being patrolled by Italian
guards but the locals knew at what time the guards returned to their barrack.
The guides showed up the next morning as promised. They were four youths
aged 15 to 18 years. Because my knapsack was the lightest the youngest guide
was assigned to me. The guides were thoroughly familiar with the route and
the timetables of the border patrols. When we reached the place of crossing
we paid each guide his fee. They pointed out the direction of mountain pass
Windbach at 1,900 meters where we would find a large farm. We set out on
our way across the snowfields and slush. Remec, who was the oldest among
us and who had the most luggage was moving up the trail with a considerable
difficulty. From time to time we had to decide which turn to take, and we
decided for the steepest path every time.
It was already getting dark when we sighted the farm. We were received
without objections and given rooms, two persons to a room. Our host was
the only man on the farm but there were several women who, in the absence
of men who had gone to war, had to do all the work on the farm. We were invited
to an opulent dinner after which we turned in to rest after the exhausting
trip. In the morning Remec, arranged for a porter to carry his luggage on
our descent toward Dobbiaco. We were surprised to be treated to a glass of
cognac at breakfast, our host explained that the military in the valley had
abandoned their supply stores which the local population was quick to empty
out.
Back in Lienz we had already decided that each group of the National
Committee would independently try, to find a suitable route to Rome. We
had lost at least two days at Anras. The first group, however, did not wait
around and so it was able to get on its way in the desired direction without
impediment.
The descent into the valley was considerably less demanding than
the previous day's climb. Soon we reached a tourist inn at the outskirts
of Dobbiaco, where the porter left. Continuing on toward Dobbiaco we stopped
on a meadow and agreed that I should go to the municipal offices and seek
information about transportation to Rome; my companions would wait there
until I returned.
I readily found the mayor's office. The mayor, a German appointed
by the Italian Government, was in and he carefully listened to my request.
He told me that all civilian traffic was suspended and that all transportation
was reserved exclusively for the use of the military. The only suggestion
he could make was that I might be able to get further information at the
Italian military command post. I returned with this information to my companions
and we all went to the Italian military command where they were flattered
that anyone would come to them for advice but could only suggest that we
go to the carabiniers for further information.
The carabiniere was very reserved and questioned us closely. I was
the spokesman for the group because I was the only one who spoke Italian.
When the carabiniere ran out of questions he barked that we were under arrest
and, in keeping with the time honored Italian practice with which we became
acquainted back in Ljubljana, demanded that we hand over our pocket knives.
I was prepared for this and handed over a cheap small penknife which I had
bought for just such an eventuality as Italian military authorities in Ljubljana
used to be fond of staging raids in public places at which they would confiscate
pocket knives. Thus I managed to keep my better knife with scissors, a can
opener and the like of which was a gift brought to me from Paris by the
father of a boy whom I had been tutoring as a student. Naturally, I was
running some risk for the bully could decide to frisk us. Fortunately, however,
the thoroughness with which people are nowadays frisked and searched in America
was not yet the practice with the carabiniers at that time. After he took
away our knives the carabiniers shoved us into a cell ordering us to leave
our luggage outside. The cell was small, without windows or other sources
of light; in place of beds there were some kind of planks without bedding
arranged along the walls leaving hardly enough space for a person to get
up and carefully move toward the door when it was open.
Confined to such close quarters all we could do was lie closely together.
The door was locked upon us and we spent the following three days in that
cell. Every morning the carabiniere unlocked the door to let us out where
we could wash a little, drink some water and take a few crumbs out of our
packs. We would also be issued one American canned meat ration per person
whereupon the carabiniere would again lock us up in that windowless cell.
Our only fear was that we would be returned to the British in Lienz.
On June 7, 1945, the third day of our imprisonment, the carabiniere
opened the door of our cell and told us we would be taken to the American
command in Brunico for interrogation by the OSS. We were received by Captain
Carrigher4 who questioned us through an interpreter. Again, I was the spokesman
for the group. The interpreter was a Jew who had not yet become naturalized.
When I complained about the treatment accorded to us by the carabiniere
the captain said that the carabiniere had no right to detain us. He ordered
that we be put up in a hotel where we also were to have meals. Because civilian
transportation was still suspended he would at the first opportunity send
us to San Candido (Innichen, elevation 1,175 meters) to the depot of 22nd
American Military Government Evacuation Camp where we could stay and have
food and shelter until he could arrange for transportation to the interior
of Italy or wherever we might wish to go. He sympathized with our plight
and expressed hope that some day Tito might yet be put in his proper place
by the United States. The captain instructed his interpreter to give us at
least some food rations immediately but the latter could come up with nothing
but cigarettes.
During the interview Remec discovered the disappearance of his supply
of gold coins which he carried in his underwear tied at the ankles with
a ribbon that became loose during the ride to Brunico to the pleasant surprise
of the dishonest finder. Unfortunately, Remec did not confide this to the
American representative, he merely observed to us that he had enough hard
currency left for all four of us to live in comfort for several years.
The appointed Italian quartermaster of the American depot at San
Candido showed scant enthusiasm at our arrival but he had to comply with
the orders of the American commander. The morose quartermaster's face bore
a resemblance to the pompous features of Mussolini whose portraits used
to hang at railway stations. Paying little attention to him we found some
living quarters and although there were no beds available we managed to
improvise quite acceptable bunks with bedding. We took our meals with the
employees of the depot. In town, where we were allowed to go at will, we
found a laundress and other conveniences.
Within a week a few more refugees showed up, among them Prelog. They
asked us to pretend we did not know them. Beyond Sillian they had been intercepted
by the Italian police who were taking them to an interrogation. Thus we
could not associate with them.
On June 12, 1945, the American commander was able to carry out his
promise. He sent a truck with which we left Innichen through Dobbiaco, Brunico,
Muhlbach, Brixen and eventually arrived at Bolzano. The driver took us to
the 24th A.M.G. Evacuation Camp and went to report our arrival. We were
still on the truck when a Slovenian came to look us over. Still out of sight,
we heard him asking as he was coming around the comer "Where are those hooligans?"
On seeing us, however, he realized what the situation was and shut up. He
was one of the Slovenians who were returning to Yugoslavia from the various
internment camps. These returning Slovenians acted in a rowdy and boisterous
manner similar to that of the communists in Ljubljana whose carousing we
could hear over the radio. Naturally, we told the Americans that we had nothing
to do with those people.
We then went to the barracks where we were stayed for two days without
anyone disturbing us. In town we looked for transportation further to the
south. We came across a deacon dressed in white with the yellow insignia
of the Vatican; he turned out to be an employee of the Vatican repatriation
assistance. I introduced myself showing him the letter of recommendation
by Bishop Rožman which the deacon attempted to read but, not having been
conversant in Latin as is the case for the lower clergy in Italy, he could
not understand. Almost immediately a small crowd of curious onlookers gathered
around us peppering the deacon with questions as to the contents of the letter
I handed him to which the deacon responded: "It says here that he is a good
man. [
Un buon uomo.] " I asked him to take my letter to the
commission's office which he did but he soon returned and told us that the
commission was there to help the natives only.
Eventually we found a truck that was going to Verona and thence to
Modena. We climbed on it along with a sizeable crowd of others and, standing
up all the way, arrived at Modena and the 24th A.M.G. Evacuation Camp5 where
we stored our belongings. The city was swarming with people returning to
their homes. We stayed overnight; Remec and his son-in-law found quarters
with a family that was renting rooms while Porenta and I spent the night
in an abandoned house. The next day, June 16th, we climbed on an already
overloaded truck full of people who had enormous amounts of luggage: bundles
of bedding and clothes, cages of geese and all kinds of things they were
able to salvage when the fascist regime shipped them off as laborers on loan
to Germany. Enroute to Rome, however, we learned that the road was closed
because a bridge had been destroyed. The truck then took the route through
Bologna to Forli where it stopped at the 23rd A.M.G. Evacuation Camp.
In Forli we found quarters in a vacant house where we could store
our packs and sleep on the floor. A Royalist Yugoslav and Chetnik camp was
nearby and the following day I visited it and called on General Andrej (Prezelj)
and Chief of Staff Skalar (Dr Benedik). My brother-in-law Franci Slapar
also was there as a staff officer. The Chetniks lived in tents which they
had put up: They invited me to stay with them but I declined because I wanted
to see my companions safely to their destination.
I remembered that the daughter of my good friend Etbin Bežek who
had married in Italy was living in Forli. At the city recorder's office
where I was inquiring about her address the clerks knew about her as her
marriage to Count Canestri-Trotti represented quite a social event in Forli.
I found the Canestri-Trottis without difficulty. Tatjana was with her infant
son and a Slovenian friend married to an Italian colonel from Forli who dropped
by for a visit. I told her that her father intended to leave Ljubljana the
same day as I but that he probably changed his mind. During the conversation
Tatjana's visitor was expressing sympathies for the communist regime in Yugoslavia;
apparently she had been spared the opportunity of experiencing its benefits
first hand without her Italian passport.
Tatjana asked her husband to arrange transportation for our group
to the nearby refugee camp in the vacation resort of Riccione on the Adriatic.
He readily found a driver with a car who for 500 lire took us to Riccione
where we arrived after dark on June 18, 1945. We were taken in among the
Slovenian refugees in that camp who were billeted in various hotels and summer
homes that were not in use. I was to spend two years there.
My flight from the murderous communists and their British accomplices
was over and the long wait for emigration to America began.
NOTES
1. Nikolai Tolstoy,
The Klagenfurt Conspiracy, War Crimes and Diplomatic
Secrets, " Encounter Vol. 40, No. 5., pp. 24-37 (1983).
2. Nicholas Bethell,
The Last Secret, Basic Books,Inc., New York
1974. Chapter 4 deals with the extradition of Cossacks and Croatians.
3. Charles Zalar,
Yugoslav Communism, a Critical Study, prepared
for the subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security
Act and other Internal Security Laws of the Committee on the Judiciary,
United States Senate, 87th Congress, 1st Session, October 18, 1961, U.S.
Government Printing Office, Washington, 1961. Contains a detailed index
and comprehensive bibliography. Vetrinj is mentioned on pages 114 and 115.
The book is no longer available from the Superintendent of Documents; the
author gratefully acknowledges the courtesy of the Chairman of the Senate
Committee on the Judiciary for providing him with a copy.
4. The author probably errs here as Carrigher was the name of the British
commander at the refugee camp at Riccione, it is unlikely that the American
captain had the same name.
5. The manuscript gives the same number as that for the camp in Bolzano.