Heer Handschar photo

[BandenKampfer]

the description of the incident is pretty vague, it's a second hand account.

Its the same as the Hermann Fegelein (another person who never saw Handschar in action) claim, where he says the Bosnian soldiers killed only with bayonets, cut the hearts out of their enemies and slaughtered captured POWs

Fegelein was hundreds of miles away from the division.

Something like this would've been significant enough to be mentioned in modern literature on the division. Im sure the partisans would've also documented something about it (as they have on many other massacres cases) The partisans were an important factor in determening who was responsible for such acts. Cetnik massacres were often acredited to the Handschar division because of their close cooperation at some points.

If it was the Serbian civilians that were killed it would've angered their cetnik "allies" and caused a change in diplomacy.

Theyre all rumors and today you have 70% of people who hear about the division believe the Fegelein claims.

Muslim domobran and ustasa units (all wore the fez) are time and again mistaken for Handschar. Further adding massacre after massacre to Handschar's tally.

Like the rediculous Koritska Gorge fairy tale.

I'll believe it when I hear it from the mouth of an infantryman who was there, not a rear echelon doctor.

Edited April 22, 2010 by BandenKampfer

[Chris Boonzaier]

He was not a rear echelon doctor, not even Divisional level. He was for all the time he served in a battalion of one of the Gebirgs Jäger regiments, which is closer to ground zero than either of us, or anyone who has written any of the histories.

There are tens of thousands of incidents that happened in WW2 that are not in the books we read. It is a dangerous research error to believe that because you do not find a certain incident mentioned, that it did not happen.

I do not know how many people were killed, maybe it was a small village, maybe it was 10-15 people, things like that often slip through the cracks of history.

Best

Chris