Original scientific paper
The nutrition of the population in the Great County of Dubrava in 1943
Franko Mirošević
; Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
In 1943, same as in 1942, food shortage was felt in the Great County of Dubrava, since rationed portions provided were insufficient; hence, many people suffered from hunger, while some were even dying of famine. The situation was the gravest in towns and cities, in particular for workers and clerks, who had no additional options for acquiring food except buying it from their monthly salaries. Besides, food was not regularly delivered – it arrived two, three, sometimes even four months too late to some of the districts. The situation in the country was not much better either. Rural population suffered from cattle-lifting, and inter-nation conflicts and terrorism – especially from the Chetniks. Farmers from Herzegovina were disabled in selling their greatest good – the cattle, which they needed in order to get money to buy wheat, corn and other necessary food products. In most cases, the Chetniks and anonymous cattle-lifters stole the cattle from pastures, and killed the shepherds.
Due to the Chetnik terrorism, Muslim and Croatian population fled to towns and cities, hiding from the Chetniks. Agricultural production was almost stopped, since farmers had left their fields and were living in towns, not producing anything, depending on others, while their fields remained unploughed, and most of the cattle were lifted. Refugees were a grave burden to the Great County of Dubrava. They fled to fortified towns in order to save themselves from the Chetnik murderers and torturers. There, however, they died of hunger, illnesses and poverty. Same as the poor town population, they had no money to buy food on the market, since the price of food was too high. Starving, they ate grass, bark and ground corncobs, and hence fell ill with various diseases.
The food situation in the Great County of Dubrava was far from satisfactory; district and gendarmerie flank-commanders described it as desperate, since the state was not in the position to ensure sufficient funds for the delivery of food at the time when the southern part of Croatia was far away from the wheat-lands and the capital of the Independent State of Croatia – Zagreb. The situation was usually improved in the months following the harvest, yet the overall shortage was constantly present. Protests and public disapprovals occurred in towns and cities – for instance in Dubrovnik in February 1943. The authorities, unfortunately, described this act as subversion, though the women protesting had nothing similar in mind. No political, communist idea pushed them to stir up a rebellion, solely hunger. Those engaged in the division of food were also engaged in defrauding and drawing personal benefit out of it. Due to narrow-minded nationalist standpoints of individual members of the authorities and their favouring one of the entities, the division of food led to tensions in the relations among nations at the same time the leaders of the Independent State of Croatia were proclaiming the coexistence and conciliation of all nations living in its territory.
Keywords
nutrition; Great County of Dubrava; district; provisioning; free sale; expensiveness
Hrčak ID:
131236
URI
Publication date:
19.12.2014.
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