Nurse Beba

With a gaze directed towards the camera lens and a big smile, Nurse Beba looks at us. The back of the photograph only shows that it was taken in Dubrovnik, likely in 1945. Along with the photograph, we find handwritten documents, an entire confession from Beba, whose real name is Marija Supičić, a nurse in Šamarica, and later a medical clerk of the Disabled Home in Hvar located in the Park Hotel.

Marija Supičić Beba (1924-2014) lived during World War II in Rapska Street in Zagreb's Sigečica neighborhood. She joined the Partisans in Banija mainly because, through her friends in Topusko, she met doctors from Zagreb with whom she saved two children from the Jastrebarsko camp. These doctors later issued Beba a pass to leave occupied Zagreb.

Before the war, Beba was active in the union movement, which during the war directed her to a Red Cross course. After four months of the course and a short practice, she continued her work in the underground movement, which was responsible for destroying Ustasha flyers and posters in Zagreb. She was also active in collecting red aid. After one action, a large number of youths from her group were arrested, and due to fear of arrest and torture, it was necessary to leave Zagreb urgently. Part of her underground youth group fled through Jastrebarsko to Žumberak, while Beba managed to obtain a doctor's note stating she needed treatment in the Topusko thermal baths. From Topusko, she fled to Banija, where she was assigned to a hospital in Šamarica. Her departure to the Partisans resulted in her mother's suffering, where she was tortured at night in the premises of the 'Ustasha battalion'.

As an attachment to a photograph, we bring you the reconstructed confession Beba wrote by hand in the seventies on sheets of paper, which provides valuable information about the functioning of the partisan hospital service.

'About the partisan hospital in the Šamarica forest in Banija, I can speak from June 20, 1943, when I arrived there. The political commissar of the hospital was named Dušan Čalić. There were probably other leaders, but I do not remember their names. Before my arrival, Comrade Ankica Lončarić, with a few nurses, i.e., lightly wounded patients, took care of the wounded. Who placed the hospital here and when it was established, I do not know, but the villagers of Trnovac, from where there was access through the forest, probably know. The hospital was of great importance, especially being so well-guarded and hidden. The hospital faced great danger. Roads from Dvor, Kostajnica, Glina, were good and straight and led into the heart of Banija. Airports were close. Planes searched for us every day. The forests of sweet chestnut were old, the trees tall, the canopies sparse. We covered the roofs of the barracks with fresh shrubbery. Comrade Tošo, before lighting the fire, would remove the bark from the wood to prevent smoke from forming.

Neither at night nor during the day were we allowed to speak loudly, and we were very careful about that. Secrecy was necessary due to various traitors who could sneak through the forest. Wounded who arrived at the hospital in any way could come to the guard post. Mobile wounded received a blindfold. We took immobile wounded from the carts to our stretchers, and they also received a blindfold. Horse-drawn carriages could never come directly to the hospital. Only the highest leaders of brigades, battalions, or regular couriers could enter the hospital. The hospital was well-guarded from all sides. Against the regular enemy army, our units protected us, and against the scum we feared most. The barracks were sturdy with tile roofs. Some barracks had an attic that served as a patient room. On both sides, there were wooden beds with straw mattresses. The people donated blankets for the hospital. Patients from various units were treated here for wounds received from frames. They were not only fighters from Banija. We treated their wounds as best we could and knew, but in all this, people's youth and will to live helped them the most.

Medical supplies were very scarce. Bandages were mostly made from torn sheets and decorative kitchen towels. Those were the hardest days for me. For the first time in my life, I encountered wounded and death. The biggest problem was washing the bandages. We had to go far down into the forest to a mountain stream. How to wash bandages without soap. They needed to be dried, but we could not do that, as scattered bandages would be visible from airplanes. Fierce battles were fought daily in Banija. Brigades came to each other's aid, so we

 had fighters from various areas. Food for the hospital was collected by the steward. People knew that in the heart of their forest lay a hospital and always set aside as much as they could. Therefore, the wounded always had modest and little to eat.

Italy surrendered. A month later, medical supplies arrived at our hospital. Some instruments were selected 'from here and there,' but still. From the Rab camp, many of our people who headed for the hospital were released. So, with them came Doctor Bella Kohn, a surgeon. Also, unfortunately, now deceased Doctor Julius came with his entire family. Doctor Kohn stayed, while Doctor Julius went to the regional command in Klasnić. With the arrival of doctors and a lot of bandaging material, everything in the hospital significantly changed. Glass arrived from Glina. A wooden table for operations was made. A carbide lamp was obtained instead of a flickering kerosene lamp. Arriving medicines and injections were organized. Sterilization of instruments was done by boiling, and swabs that came even for the most severe wounds were steamed over a pot. The shipment included a larger amount of chlorine, which was very welcome to us. Day and night, very exhausted wounded came to us after long transport.

Among ours, there was also a wounded Italian. Among the wounded Italians was also a doctor. He soon learned the language and earnestly took up the work. I no longer remember his name. I met him after the war in the military hospital in Vlaška. Now the barracks were too cramped, and two or three more had to be built. One day we received five severely wounded English pilots. Among them was a Dane wounded in the abdomen who knew German and English, and I knew a bit of that, and we cooperated very well. The English had deadly wounds from a large anti-aircraft bullet through the lungs, neck, and shoulders. With great sacrifices and care, their wounds were healed so that one day they headed to a meadow near Glina, where their planes picked them up.

In our great work and commitment, with weak conditions, we succeeded. One day a courier brought news that the Seventh Offensive was being prepared. The same day we started preparing the most severely wounded, without legs, wounded in the head or abdomen, for a long journey to Petrova Gora to a better hospital.

Since we had more dugouts in the forest, we crammed the more mobile wounded under the ground. In nearby villages, about twenty carts were collected, and we placed about forty-five wounded in them. With armed escort, I was the medical leader of our column. Along the Bosnian border, we moved at night across fields and meadows, off the roads. I do not need to specifically mention the sufferings of the wounded. We hid from airplanes, and the danger of Huska's band lurked. Yet someone betrayed us, so a small biplane flew over us the entire way, which had a red cross painted on its left wing. On the third day, when we were near Petrova Gora, six stukas targeted us. Since they did not immediately find us, we took advantage of this and started up the hill, whipping the horses and amid the terrible screams of the wounded, barely reached the houses in the village of Katinovac. Thus, we were saved. Our arrival at the hospital on Petrova Gora was announced by couriers. They received us quickly and nicely. Doctor Knajnhapel and the staff. To my surprise, there was no end. This was not just any hospital, it seemed to me, in terms of equipment, like a real hospital compared to what we had in Šumarica.

I soon rushed back to my hospital. I found the wounded being prepared in dugouts. They carried them on stretchers to dugouts that were not near. I did not even know about all the dugouts myself. The largest and best-equipped dugout did not have a lid on top but an approach and a door that closed from the inside. It had beds down below and a rack. The dugout could accommodate about forty people. The ventilation system was actually a metal pipe whose end was in dense bushes. Here were also the most severely immobile wounded, so Doctor Bella also stayed with them.

When the last wounded was safely placed and the personnel distributed by duties, the offensive began with new intensity. On the roads, the enemy army moved in columns right towards the heart of Banija, towards us. Part of the hospital staff was tasked with monitoring movement and deterring Germans from the dugouts, another part was tasked with opening dugouts at night and encouraging the wounded. I stayed to direct the newly arrived wounded towards the forest and dugouts.

In the zeal of my duty, to help a mortally wounded fighter, I found myself encircled. It was in the village of Mali Gradac. Seeing that I had nowhere to go, the villagers pulled me under the ruins of some former brick house