File talk:Corpses in the Sava river, Sisak 1945.jpg

Photograph

That photograph's location is questionable. It is from May 1945 and the victims are citizens of Sisak not from Jasenovac concentration camp. It is not known who killed them as both Ustase (on 6th May 1945) and Partizans (on 19th May 1945) blamed the other for killings. See in book Jasenovac Fotomonografija, Nataša Mataušić, Spomen područje Jasenovac, Zagreb, 2008. ISBN 978-953-99169-4-5 on pages 20-23. Article in Vjesnik. No. 25, of 19 May 1945, page 5, says: Pogreb žrtava ustaškog terora u Sisku. It is said that the victims are mostly Croats killed by Ustase before retreating form Sisak in the night between 4th and 5th of May 1945. Quote from the book:

"Iz navedenog članka saznajemo da su noću, četvrtoga na peti svibnja 1945, godine, pri povlačenju iz grada ustaše ubile između 350 i 400 osoba iz Siska i okolnih sela (radnika, namještenika, žena i djevojaka, te 19 dječaka u dobi od 10 do 14 godina), uglavnom Hrvata, te izvjestan broj domobrana iz protuavionske bitnice u Jasenovcu koji su ubijeni zato, jer su u Jasenovcu bili svjedoci neviđenih ustaških zločina, te nekoliko domobranskih mornaričkih oficira kao bojnik Franjo Novak, nadsatnik Franjo Čič... Posljednja grupa likvidiranih ostala je ležati na obali rijeke Save." (that in italic is from Vjesnik article).

Ustase said on State radio Zagreb on 6th of May 1945 that Partizans killed them on their way into Sisak. Quote from the book:

"Državna krugovalna postaja Zagreb izvijestila je 6. svibnja 1945. godine da su prigodom ulaska u Sisak partizani ubili oko 400 građana. Zbog svega navedenog pri razmatranju ovoga događaja treba biti krajnje oprezan, a o krivnji ove ili one strane moći će se sa sigurnošću tvrditi tek u slučaju da se pronađu čvrsti dokazi o počiniteljima."--Rovoobo (talk) 07:24, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Propaganda information in the context of the image?

@Magog the Ogre and Peacemaker67:

Article is "Genocide of Serbs in the Independent State of Croatia" and this picture is placed in the context of the victims of the Jasenovac concentration camp (Bodies of the Jasenovac camp prisoners in the Sava River), however the picture itself is from Vjesnik (the newspaper of that time) May 19, 1945, under the title: "Funeral of victims of Ustasha terror in Sisak"... The corpses of the citizens of Sisak and the surrounding area were pulled from the Sava."

In that primary source from 1945, as well as in the secondary source (Mataušić, Nataša Jasenovac - photo monograph. Zagreb: Spomen-područje Jasenovac, 2008) there is no information that these were the victims of Jasenovac camp. In this sense, all information concerning this picture that does not mention the victims of Sisak (most of whom are Croats) is classic OR and Fringe.

Mataušić, Nataša Jasenovac - fotomonografija. Zagreb: Spomen-područje Jasenovac, 2008, page 21. "Iz navedenog članka (Vjesnik) saznajemo da su noću, četvrtoga na peti svibnja 1945. godine, pri povlačenju iz grada ustaše ubile između 350 i 400 osoba iz Siska i okolnih sela (radnika, namještenika, žena i djevojaka, te 19 dječaka u dobi od 10 do 14 godina), uglavnom Hrvata, te izvjestan broj domobrana iz protuavionske bitnice u Jasenovcu koji su ubijeni zato, jer su u Jasenovcu bili svjedoci neviđenih ustaških zločina, te nekoliko domobranskih mornaričkih oficira kao bojnik Franjo Novak, nadsatnik Franjo Čič... Posljednja grupa likvidiranih ostala je ležati na obali rijeke Save....From the mentioned article, we learn that on the night of the fourth to fifth of May 1945, during the retreat from the city, the Ustashas killed between 350 and 400 people from Sisak and the surrounding villages (workers, employees, women and girls, and 19 boys between the ages of 10 and 14 years), mostly Croats, and a certain number of Home Guards from the anti-aircraft battalion in Jasenovac who were killed because they were witnesses to unprecedented Ustasha crimes in Jasenovac, and several Home Guard naval officers as Major Franjo Novak, Sergeant Franjo Čič... The last group of the liquidated remained lying on the banks of the Sava River"[1] Mikola22 (talk) 22:01, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Agree. The best source for what is shown is the Mataušić fotomonograph. The title and caption should reflect what that source says is depicted. Peacemaker67 (talk) 05:45, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Photographer's claim

@Magog the Ogre, Peacemaker67, and Mateus2019:

In the description of this picture, there is information in the note 18, of Nataša Mataušić source: "Serija od 165 originalnih fotografija navedenog zločina čuva se u Foto-službi Hrvatskoga državnog arhiva Zl-161-325. U bilježnici s opisima fotografija piše: Ustaše i (Nijemci) par dana prije povlačenja iz Siska (pred nadolaskom J.A.) poklali su, povezali žicom ubijene žrtve na kojem su povešali utege i bacili u Savu, da bi time zbrisali tragove tj. svjedoke o zločinima u logoru. Pobijeno je.... logoraša, žena i djece. Većina je dotučena sa maljem i čekićem po lubanji. Fotografije je snimio Hugo Fisher Ribarić."... A series of 165 original photographs of the mentioned crime is kept in the Photo Service of the Croatian State Archives Zl-161-325. In the notebook with descriptions of the photographs it is written: Ustaše and (Germans) a few days before the withdrawal from Sisak (before the arrival of J.A.) slaughtered, tied the killed victims with a wire on which they hung weights and threw them into the Sava, in order to wipe out traces, i.e. witnesses of crimes in the camp. Camp inmates, women and children were killed. Most of them were beaten on the skull with a mallet and a hammer. The photos were taken by Hugo Fisher Ribarić."

However, Nataša Mataušić as a secondary source in page 21[2] cites information from Vjesnik where this picture exists, but with a different claim: "Iz navedenog članka saznajemo da su noću, četvrtoga na peti svibnja 1945. godine, pri povlačenju iz grada ustaše ubile između 350 i 400 osoba iz Siska i okolnih sela (radnika, namještenika, žena i djevojaka, te 19 dječaka u dobi od 10 do 14 godina), uglavnom Hrvata, te izvjestan broj domobrana iz protuavionske bitnice u Jasenovcu koji su ubijeni zato, jer su u Jasenovcu bili svjedoci neviđenih ustaških zločina, te nekoliko domobranskih mornaričkih oficira kao bojnik Franjo Novak, nadsatnik Franjo Čič... Posljednja grupa likvidiranih ostala je ležati na obali rijeke Save.. From the mentioned article, we learn that on the night of the fourth to fifth of May 1945, during the retreat from the city, the Ustashas killed between 350 and 400 people from Sisak and the surrounding villages (workers, employees, women and girls, and 19 boys between the ages of 10 and 14 years), mostly Croats, and a certain number of Home Guards from the anti-aircraft battalion in Jasenovac who were killed because they were witnesses to unprecedented Ustasha crimes in Jasenovac, and several Home Guard naval officers as Major Franjo Novak, Sergeant Franjo Čič... The last group of the liquidated remained lying on the banks of the Sava River"

First, the statement in the current description of this image on wiki commons is wrong ie OR, given that it states: "per photographer's note kept at Croatian State Archives". Nataša Mataušić's source does not state anywhere that this is the photographer's claim or note. The photographer himself is not a forensic expert nor is he involved in the investigation as an expert. Also as a primary source, he cannot be stronger than the newspaper itself (Vjesnik) as well as the secondary source of Nataša Mataušić, who presents information in a good part opposite to the photographer or information of Photo Service of the Croatian State Archives. Furthermore, this is obviously information from the archive itself(Photo Service of the Croatian State Archives Zl-161-325), which is not in accordance with the text in Vjesnik from 1945(ie primary information where these pictures exist), as well as the explanation of that image and context in Nataša Mataušić's secondary source.

In this sense, I think that RS of Nataša Mataušić and her information which is based on a primary source where that image is located (Vjesnik yugoslavian communist newspaper information from 1945) should be respected. In this sense, I suggest that in description of this picture ie image, the above information and context presented by Nataša Mataušić in a secondary source be quoted in the image description and not completely different context information from the archive for which we do not know who wrote it, approved it, determine context, on what was based on, etc. Mikola22 (talk) 17:57, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

You're misquoting what's italicized in the note. The note in the (photographer's) notebook itself does not state "The photos were taken by Hugo Fisher Ribarić". It's also quite safe to assume that the notes were made when the photographs were taken, as that is the usual photographers' practice. Nowadays we record the notes, but in the past they were written down in a notebook. It'd be best if all the relevant information would be in the image description, which includes the description by the Holocaust Museum, photographer's note, and what accompanied the image in Vjesnik. 63.127.180.130 20:46, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

"The note in the (photographer's) notebook" as information does not exist. Nataša Mataušić only states that there is a note for those pictures in a notebook in the archive. Who wrote that note, when, why, is that (photographer's) notebook etc, we don't know.

That specific picture is part of the article in Vjesnik and part of the context that the journalists presented in that article, and Nataša Mataušić presents it in a secondary source. These are citizens from the area of Sisak, mostly Croats, some Home Guards were also killed. The context from the notebook is killing with hammers, Jasenovac prison inmates, slaughter, tying with wire, tying with weights. These facts are not part of Vjesnik who writes about that event and Nataša Mataušić's secondary source in the description of that picture. This information cannot be in the description of the picture if the newspaper for which the pictures were taken does not state this information at all. Mikola22 (talk) 04:19, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

Another secondary source about that crime. Jovan Byford,"Spasavanje savskih žrtava od zaborava i negiranja: Istorija i sećanje na poslednje ustaške zločine u Sisku", page 16,[3] "The report on the murders in Sisak published in the Zagreb daily Vjesnik at the end of May 1945 emphasizes that the majority of those killed in Sisak were Croats, and that the arrival of partisans prevented further crimes against the local Croat population. Also, the article did not try to hide how it is among among the "innocent people" killed on the banks of the Sava, who consisted of "peasants, workers, officials and employees, women and youth", there were also several members of the Home Guards Army". In the source of Jovan Byford, the report of the commission is cited: "An examination of the remains of the victims indicated that they were killed with cold weapons. They died from stab wounds in the neck or back of the head, or from skull fractures caused by an ax, sledgehammer or similar blunt object. Some bodies were found with their hands tied behind their backs or with weights attached to shackles to prevent the victims from escaping during the short walk to the dumping ground, or in turn to ensure that the bodies sink to the bottom of the river". So it partially matches with the note from the archive. However, this source also states that the victims(in this crime) are mostly Croats and the Jasenovac camp inmates or prisoners are not mentioned, same as in the source of Nataša Mataušić. --Mikola22 (talk) 05:15, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

We also have this claim of Jovan Byford in his source: "Picturing Jasenovac: Atrocity Photography Between Evidence and Propaganda", page 8.[4]

"The photographs from Sisak are important because many of them have been used in subsequent yearsand decades to illustrate the killings at Jasenovac and other Ustasha concentration camps. This trendbegan on the very same day that the killings in Sisak was first reported in Vjesnik. In the same issue, just two pages after the article on Sisak, a different photograph from the exhumation was used to illustrate a piece on the killings at the Stara Gradiška camp. On the following day, yet another appeared in an article on the killings in Jasenovac. Later that month, in Narodni List, a photographof a disembowelled victim from Sisak accompanied the text of the Country Commission for Croatia’s report on the camp in Lepoglava. On this occasion, the captions correctly identified the photographsas showing victims recovered from the Sava in Sisak. Nevertheless, because of their availability and visual poignancy, they were used as generic illustrations of Ustasha brutality. Already on June 6, Narodni List published an image from the collection with a much less specific caption: "A document of Ustasha terror"

So, originally and factually, it is a picture or pictures that talk about the crime in Sisak from 1945., mainly committed against Croats, and which are placed in the context of Jasenovac and other events. This is what we know from quality secondary sources. According to various Wikipedias, that picture is nowhere placed in the context of Croats killed in Sisak, but that picture is mainly presented as a crime in Jasenovac or the Jasenovac prisoners, crime against Serbs, etc. Which is obviously OR. --Mikola22 (talk) 08:43, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

Why do you keep pinging me on this? You're going to do a lot better bringing this discussion to the village pump than pinging random people with no connection to this part of the world. Magog the Ogre (talk) (contribs) 21:31, 1 June 2024 (UTC)