For our Prisoners is a stenographic recording of Dr Živko Topalović’s lecture on the circumstances which faced Serbian prisoners of war in Austria-Hungary 1914-1918.
Dr Topalović himself was captured in 1914. and was in a POW camp until an exchange in 1917. During this period, he became active as an informal representative of the Red Cross in trying to improve the situation of Serbs in Austro-Hungarian concentration camps.
The lecture was given before the Serbian Red Cross society members on Corfu, where the Serbian government in exile and civil society continued to function after the Central Powers’ overwhelming invasion in 1915.
As an eyewitness account of the state of affairs in the massive Austro-Hungarian concentration camp system (30 major and 300 camps in total), Dr Topalović’s testimony is one of the amazing first-hand accounts of survivors about the conditions they faced in a country which did not respect their rights guaranteed by the Hague conventions and which was suffering acute economic downturn and famine towards the end of the war.
Table of Content
Foreword
The lecture
Afterword
About the Author
About the author
Having graduated from Užice high school in 1904, Živko Topalović became a union instructor and the secretary of the Union of textile workers of Serbia at age 18. He studied in Belgrade, where he attained a Ph D in criminal law.In the period of 1910-12, he undertook specialisation in Paris and Berlin, but his studies were cut short due to the outbreak of the Balkan Wars. He participated in the battles of Kumanovo and Bregalnica as a reserve officer. After the wars he continued his specialisation.After the outbreak of the First World War, he participated in the battles of Cer and Kolubara and was one of the combatants who buried the founder of socialism in Serbia, Dimitrije Tucović, on Vrače Brdo after he fell in battle.As a sub-lieutenant he was heavily wounded and captured close to Belgrade in 1914. In 1917, he was included in an exchange of wounded POW officers between Serbia and Austria-Hungary.After this he was active in creating Yugoslavia, with active agitation among the Catholic population of Boka Kotorska and Dalmatia for a unified state. He brought he Croatian delegation to Belgrade for the declaration of the unified state on 1st December 1918.
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