Belgrade was liberated in October 1944. The medical headquarters of the First Army arrived at the hospital. The hospital filled up with wounded and sick Partisans. I listened to their harrowing stories and made a firm decision to leave my comfortable life behind and go to the front. I thought: “I’m more needed there.” It seemed to me that I had been waiting a long time for that moment, because I couldn’t simply go to the front on my own.
The opportunity came on the evening of 6 December. A group of soldiers was returning to their unit, so I went with them — secretly. We arrived in Ilok. I was accepted into the Fifth Battalion of the Third Krajina Brigade.
In the morning I reported to the commander, Jovo Miljević. I think he held the rank of major. I told him where I came from and why I had come to the front. Surprised, he said nothing. To break the awkward silence, I said loudly: “Comrade Commander, I want to be a company nurse.” “All right, then. You will be.” He wished me luck in battle and called a courier to take me to the company commissar, Captain Dane Tica. “So you deserted from the medical service of the First Army. What am I supposed to do with you? We may be moving to the front line as early as tonight...” — “Give me the equipment. I’m ready to go with the unit...”
And so my wartime campaign began on 7 December and lasted until 23 January, when I was wounded at Tovarnik.
My first uniform was a green Croatian Home Guard uniform. A green Home Guard uniform, that’s what they dressed me in. And I thought they had put nettles on my head, because the uniform was of such poor quality, made of some terribly coarse material — I think it was some kind of goat-hair fabric. It pricked me all over my head and scratched my whole body, it was so bad. It was a Home Guard uniform, from the Croatian Home Guard, which was some new army they had formed during the war. The Ustaše had better uniforms.
The front line remained around Vukovar, Ilok and Tovarnik. There was a large farmstead below the big forest near Šid. We spent three weeks there in the trenches. It was cold, we were hungry, and because of the heavy fighting they couldn’t get food through to us. There were many wounded.
The fighting took place only at night, with many fighters wounded and killed. We were exhausted, chilled to the bone and hungry. Near Adaševci we were very close to the German trenches, so we received food only at night, frozen... and so it went on for three weeks, until under terrible pressure we had to abandon our position. We retreated throughout the night, passing Šid and heading towards the Bosut River. We came upon a minefield — a terrible sight... the field was covered with the bodies of dead sheep. I remembered my childhood and my sheep bathing in the Mrežnica. I thought: “Never again. This too will come to an end...”