A Leaf Moves ~ chapter 2
Sep. 2nd, 2012 12:55 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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section7mfulink to chapter 1: http://section7mfu.livejournal.com/110825.html
The trial was quick, and the sentencing for espionage severe, yet somehow Illya was lucky not to have received an order of execution, instead he was to spend the rest of life in prison. He watched helplessly from the cages used to confine defendants in the courtroom.
There was no way the court could have known the things it had, or that he was the one responsible for the break in. He now realized he’d been set up...betrayed by Popović, but for what reason, he was unsure. It could have been for money, prestige or a promotion for turning in a thief, not just any thief, but one who was guilty of a crime against the state.
The trial and sentencing were kept very hush hush, since the court knew he was a Soviet citizen and didn’t want KGB or GRU swooping in and making trouble. They were concerned Illya was a KGB spy, and decided it was better just to send him to one of their prisons under a false identity. Let him die there anonymously and let the Russians think he just disappeared, or perhaps defected to the West, that was their rationale.
The break in at the Director’s office was not reported and therefore no official record of it ever happening existed, and no one would ever know outside of the State Security. The charges against Kuryakin were listed instead as smuggling. The body of Bojan Popović was found on the left bank of the Sava river, dead of an apparent suicide, or that was what the coroner’s official report indicated. No more loose ends.
.
The judge looked directly at Illya as he pronounced sentence.
“Zoran Nikolić, ovime su osuđeni na doživotni zatvor bez uvjetnog otpusta_Zoran Nikolić, you are hereby sentenced to life in prison without parole.”
“I have told you, my name is Illya Kuryakin and I am with the United...”
The cage door was opened quickly and he was bound and silenced with a gag tied over his mouth.
For some reason they refused to acknowledge his connection to U.N.C.L.E. but as to that being a good or bad thing was, at this point; it was immaterial.
He’d been relieved of all his personal effects, but managed to retrieve a homing disc in the hollowed out heel of one of his shoes; that he kept hidden. If necessary he would have to swallow it, and retrieve it again when he passed it. That and hope that someone from U.N.C.L.E. would be in range to pick up the signal. He knew the truth though, in Yugoslavia the chance on that would be slim at best. Deep down his hope was that his partner would come in search of him.
Illya was taken out of his cell the next morning, dressed in a prison uniform of a striped grey shirt and pants and a not so well fitting pair of black boots.
Shackles were locked around his ankles and wrists, joining him to a chain gang of men who were being loaded into a dark green military bus. A look of fear filled their wide eyes as they took their seats and were chained to them.
“Where are they taking us?” One of them whispered.
“The prison near Jasenovac.”
Illya’s heart beat rapidly for a moment when he heard that name. Jasenovac was the site of a once infamous World War II camp established by the governing Ustaše regime. Set in the marshland at the confluence of the Sava and Una rivers near the village of Jasenovac; it was dismantled at the end of the war.
The concentration camp was notorious for its barbaric practices and the untolled number of victims who died there, the majority of them being ethnic Serbs, whom the Ustaše wanted to remove from the NDH, along with the Jews, Roma and Sinti. The Ustaše, a nationalist organization, sought to create an independent Croatian state and when coming to power, it was established as a quasi-protectorate with the aid of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany during the war.
Jasenovac had been a complex of sub-camps spread on both banks of the Sava and Una rivers, in the German occupation zone of the Independent State of Croatia. The largest camp was the 'Brickworks' camp southeast of Zagreb. The overall complex included the Stara Gradiška sub-camp, the killing grounds across the Sava river at Donja Gradina, five work farms, and the Uštica Roma camp.
It was was not run by the Nazis, but by the Ustaše, who were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Serbs, during the war. The ideology of the movement was a blend of Nazism and Croatian nationalism. The Ustaše supported the creation of a Greater Croatia that would span to the River Drina and to the border of Belgrade. The movement emphasized the need for a racially "pure" Croatia and promoted persecution and genocide against the Serbs, Jews and gypsies The Nazis encouraged Ustaše anti-Jewish and anti-Roma actions and showed support for the intended extermination of the Serb people.
As the Nazis began to make clear their ultimate goal of genocide for the Jews and other nationalities thought to be inferior, Hitler gave a speech to Slavko Kvaternik, the military commander and Minister of Domobranstvo_ the Croatian Armed Forces in July of 1941.
“The Jews are the bane of mankind. If the Jews will be allowed to do as they will, like they are permitted in their Soviet heaven, then they will fulfill their most insane plans. And thus Russia became the center to the world's illness... if for any reason, one nation would endure the existence of a single Jewish family, that family would eventually become the center of a new plot. If there are no more Jews in Europe, nothing will hold the unification of the European nations... this sort of people cannot be integrated in the social order or into an organized nation. They are parasites on the body of a healthy society, that live off of expulsion of decent people. One cannot expect them to fit into a state that requires order and discipline. There is only one thing to be done with them: To exterminate them. The state holds this right since, while precious men die on the battlefront, it would be nothing less than criminal to spare these bastards. They must be expelled, or – if they pose no threat to the public – to be imprisoned inside concentration camps and never be released."
Prisoners sent there were marked with colors, similar to the system used with Nazi concentration camp badges, there was blue for Serbs, and red for communists and non-Serbian resistance members, while Roma had no marks, while most of the Jews marked with their yellow stars were sent on to the Nazi death camps.
Most victims at remaining at Jasenovac were killed at execution sites near the camp mostly at Granik and Gradina. Those kept alive were the skilled, as they were needed professions and trades...doctors, pharmacists, electricians, shoemakers, goldsmiths, brickmakers and such and were forced to labor in services and workshops at the camp.
.
“But Jasenovac is gone.” Another of the prisoners on the bus whispered. “Surely it cannot be like it was during the war?” Yet the name and the memories of the place still had the power to instill terror into the hearts of even the most hardened criminals so many years after the war.
“There is a prison now where part where Jasenovac used to be,” someone else said, “ built by prisoners themselves near the old ‘Brickworks.’ The inmates are set at hard labor making bricks, and working the kiln day and night. It is a bad place and there no escaping it, or so I’ve heard.”
Illya folded his arms across his chest, closing his eyes and listening to the speculation. He thought it best to get some sleep as he knew it would be at least a five hour trip, if they were indeed going to Jasenovac.
The trial was quick, and the sentencing for espionage severe, yet somehow Illya was lucky not to have received an order of execution, instead he was to spend the rest of life in prison. He watched helplessly from the cages used to confine defendants in the courtroom.
There was no way the court could have known the things it had, or that he was the one responsible for the break in. He now realized he’d been set up...betrayed by Popović, but for what reason, he was unsure. It could have been for money, prestige or a promotion for turning in a thief, not just any thief, but one who was guilty of a crime against the state.
The trial and sentencing were kept very hush hush, since the court knew he was a Soviet citizen and didn’t want KGB or GRU swooping in and making trouble. They were concerned Illya was a KGB spy, and decided it was better just to send him to one of their prisons under a false identity. Let him die there anonymously and let the Russians think he just disappeared, or perhaps defected to the West, that was their rationale.
The break in at the Director’s office was not reported and therefore no official record of it ever happening existed, and no one would ever know outside of the State Security. The charges against Kuryakin were listed instead as smuggling. The body of Bojan Popović was found on the left bank of the Sava river, dead of an apparent suicide, or that was what the coroner’s official report indicated. No more loose ends.
.
The judge looked directly at Illya as he pronounced sentence.
“Zoran Nikolić, ovime su osuđeni na doživotni zatvor bez uvjetnog otpusta_Zoran Nikolić, you are hereby sentenced to life in prison without parole.”
“I have told you, my name is Illya Kuryakin and I am with the United...”
The cage door was opened quickly and he was bound and silenced with a gag tied over his mouth.
For some reason they refused to acknowledge his connection to U.N.C.L.E. but as to that being a good or bad thing was, at this point; it was immaterial.
He’d been relieved of all his personal effects, but managed to retrieve a homing disc in the hollowed out heel of one of his shoes; that he kept hidden. If necessary he would have to swallow it, and retrieve it again when he passed it. That and hope that someone from U.N.C.L.E. would be in range to pick up the signal. He knew the truth though, in Yugoslavia the chance on that would be slim at best. Deep down his hope was that his partner would come in search of him.
Illya was taken out of his cell the next morning, dressed in a prison uniform of a striped grey shirt and pants and a not so well fitting pair of black boots.
Shackles were locked around his ankles and wrists, joining him to a chain gang of men who were being loaded into a dark green military bus. A look of fear filled their wide eyes as they took their seats and were chained to them.
“Where are they taking us?” One of them whispered.
“The prison near Jasenovac.”
Illya’s heart beat rapidly for a moment when he heard that name. Jasenovac was the site of a once infamous World War II camp established by the governing Ustaše regime. Set in the marshland at the confluence of the Sava and Una rivers near the village of Jasenovac; it was dismantled at the end of the war.
The concentration camp was notorious for its barbaric practices and the untolled number of victims who died there, the majority of them being ethnic Serbs, whom the Ustaše wanted to remove from the NDH, along with the Jews, Roma and Sinti. The Ustaše, a nationalist organization, sought to create an independent Croatian state and when coming to power, it was established as a quasi-protectorate with the aid of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany during the war.
Jasenovac had been a complex of sub-camps spread on both banks of the Sava and Una rivers, in the German occupation zone of the Independent State of Croatia. The largest camp was the 'Brickworks' camp southeast of Zagreb. The overall complex included the Stara Gradiška sub-camp, the killing grounds across the Sava river at Donja Gradina, five work farms, and the Uštica Roma camp.
It was was not run by the Nazis, but by the Ustaše, who were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Serbs, during the war. The ideology of the movement was a blend of Nazism and Croatian nationalism. The Ustaše supported the creation of a Greater Croatia that would span to the River Drina and to the border of Belgrade. The movement emphasized the need for a racially "pure" Croatia and promoted persecution and genocide against the Serbs, Jews and gypsies The Nazis encouraged Ustaše anti-Jewish and anti-Roma actions and showed support for the intended extermination of the Serb people.
As the Nazis began to make clear their ultimate goal of genocide for the Jews and other nationalities thought to be inferior, Hitler gave a speech to Slavko Kvaternik, the military commander and Minister of Domobranstvo_ the Croatian Armed Forces in July of 1941.
“The Jews are the bane of mankind. If the Jews will be allowed to do as they will, like they are permitted in their Soviet heaven, then they will fulfill their most insane plans. And thus Russia became the center to the world's illness... if for any reason, one nation would endure the existence of a single Jewish family, that family would eventually become the center of a new plot. If there are no more Jews in Europe, nothing will hold the unification of the European nations... this sort of people cannot be integrated in the social order or into an organized nation. They are parasites on the body of a healthy society, that live off of expulsion of decent people. One cannot expect them to fit into a state that requires order and discipline. There is only one thing to be done with them: To exterminate them. The state holds this right since, while precious men die on the battlefront, it would be nothing less than criminal to spare these bastards. They must be expelled, or – if they pose no threat to the public – to be imprisoned inside concentration camps and never be released."
Prisoners sent there were marked with colors, similar to the system used with Nazi concentration camp badges, there was blue for Serbs, and red for communists and non-Serbian resistance members, while Roma had no marks, while most of the Jews marked with their yellow stars were sent on to the Nazi death camps.
Most victims at remaining at Jasenovac were killed at execution sites near the camp mostly at Granik and Gradina. Those kept alive were the skilled, as they were needed professions and trades...doctors, pharmacists, electricians, shoemakers, goldsmiths, brickmakers and such and were forced to labor in services and workshops at the camp.
.
“But Jasenovac is gone.” Another of the prisoners on the bus whispered. “Surely it cannot be like it was during the war?” Yet the name and the memories of the place still had the power to instill terror into the hearts of even the most hardened criminals so many years after the war.
“There is a prison now where part where Jasenovac used to be,” someone else said, “ built by prisoners themselves near the old ‘Brickworks.’ The inmates are set at hard labor making bricks, and working the kiln day and night. It is a bad place and there no escaping it, or so I’ve heard.”
Illya folded his arms across his chest, closing his eyes and listening to the speculation. He thought it best to get some sleep as he knew it would be at least a five hour trip, if they were indeed going to Jasenovac.
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Date: 2012-09-02 05:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-02 05:41 pm (UTC)