On Friday, March 22nd, in the premises of the Ramska zajednica Zagreb association, a promotion of an interesting book about the events in Rama and Northern Herzegovina during World War II, specifically in the period from 1941 to 1944, was held. At that time, four armies passed through Rama, and the war destruction reached its maximum, as reported by Večernji.ba. The book "Prozor-Rama and Northern Herzegovina in the Whirlwind of World War II: Echoes of an Era" was written by Mr. sc. Matej Škarica, a journalist, and communication expert. The publisher is Alfa from Zagreb, in the Library of the Spirit of Time.
The presentation program in the packed headquarters of Ramska zajednica was led by the new president, historian Assistant Professor Dr. sc. Mijo Beljo. The author of the book, Matej Škarica, a master of communication, is also a visual artist who depicted his native Rama, his homeland, the regions of Jablanica, Neretva, and Mostar where he grew up. Škarica has written a very readable book on a demanding topic that has not been sufficiently researched.
A particularly valuable part of it consists of testimonies of surviving residents of Rama. In addition to archival documents, expert literature, oral testimonies of victims, there are original illustrations that vividly evoke the atmosphere of that wartime. But besides the very interesting portrayal of interethnic relations, cultural relations, and the influence of global ideologies on the local community, this book is significant for Croats throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia - emphasized Beljo in the introduction.
Assistant Professor Dr. sc. Hrvoje Mandić, a historian, spoke about the socio-political circumstances in relation to the situation in Prozor-Rama and Northern Herzegovina during World War II. He emphasized that the establishment of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as in the Rama region, was greeted with great enthusiasm, but internal and external circumstances did not favor it at all. Especially in terms of security. Several armies were stationed in this relatively small area: Italians, Germans, Chetniks, while partisans appeared only in the summer of 1942. For example, in 1941, the NDH mostly had domestic guards (Domobrani), while military units were not filled and technically better equipped. Rama (Croats and Muslims) suffered a massacre by Chetniks in the autumn of 1942.
The threat to the civilian population became enormous. Rama briefly fell into the hands of the Partisans in March 1943, then in early 1945, but until 1951 - when the last Ustasha soldier was killed - it can be said that there was a 'war after the war' there. The level of casualties of Croats in Herzegovina (southern counties) amounted to twenty-four thousand killed men with an average age of twenty-three years. Despite these extremely negative factors, Croats in Herzegovina fought for the statehood idea of Croatism until the end and that's why they perished - emphasized Mandić.
"For more than five years, I have been collecting material for this book, which has almost 400 pages. The task would have been even greater if I had written down everything." Along with available documents from Zagreb and Mostar, I recorded oral tradition from individual experienced older residents of Rama who were children and young men at that time. Like my grandfather Nikola, who was a Croatian soldier in the 369th German division, survived the Way of the Cross and imprisonment in a Požega concentration camp. Also, my maternal grandfather and his brothers who witnessed the fall of Prozor with their own eyes, the capture of hundreds of Italian soldiers, and later shortages of food and medicine in the entire deserted region. In a similar way, hundreds of Croats and Muslims from Rama who were conscripted or captured after truly tough battles perished. They all shared a similar fate full of uncertainty. Unfortunately, some never returned home or their whereabouts are unknown. The most well-known event was in the summer and autumn of 1942 when the Rama region was hit by a large Chetnik massacre of over 1500 residents, followed by fierce battles for Prozor in the winter of 1943 - stated the author, Škarica.
