War Memoirs: The Scent of Sacrificial Oil (Chapter 20.)

 

The Scent of Sacrificial Oil

The village of Ivanovac was a fragile yet vital shield. It was not merely a demarcation line on a map; it was a taut thread holding Osijek, the metropolis of Slavonia, back from the precipice. If this small cluster of houses were to collapse under the enemy’s onslaught, there was no telling what fate would befall my hometown. Našice still lay in the deceptive peace of central Slavonia, just beyond the reach of enemy artillery. That safety, that distance, was a deep, quiet comfort. It was a ballast in my heart that allowed me to breathe easier, knowing that for those people, life was still a predictable rhythm of peaceful mornings.

And yet, here I was. No conscription forced me, nor had a direct threat shattered my own windows. I was too young to be obligated to sacrifice myself, and my city was safe. My presence here was a voluntary act, a chosen sacrifice that elevated me from an ordinary citizen to a volunteer—one who willingly stepped forward, ready to lay down his life for the collective safety of others. I realized that the very weight of that choice was what gave me strength; I felt its almost sacred resonance. I recalled words sometimes spoken in hushed, reverent tones: that the Holy Spirit had poured out upon the Croatian defenders, transforming ordinary, small men into the prophets and apostles of their land. Hadn’t Christ done the same with simple fishermen? What great, foundational works they left behind after He was gone. Were we, Croatian defenders, treading that same improbable, holy path?

These heavy, sublime thoughts—of duty, divinity, and sacrifice—were the only things moving faster than my body as I pushed forward.

I crawled, knelt, walked hunched over. Slowly. Cautiously. The air, thick with the damp, winter scent of cold earth and pulverized brick dust, pressed down like a viscous fluid. It wasn’t just thick; it was electric. The "oil," that diluted tension, seemed to shimmer, making every breath heavy and saturated with the anticipation of impact. A shell fell nearby. The sound was dull, resonating.

Just three hundred meters behind Ivanovac, Croatian forces had managed to establish a defense line in the fields and groves, holding back an enemy far superior in armor and numbers. My fellow soldiers were paying the price for halting the advance from temporarily occupied Vukovar: an endless, ceaseless rain of fire and steel upon their positions. The enemy was furious. They had been conquering Croatian village after village for a time, only to be stopped here. Blocked, forced to dig in with their tanks and mortars, they now had to settle for gnawing at the edges of Osijek and Ivanovac.

In that November of 1991, the enemy had been advancing relentlessly after the fall of heroic Vukovar, eagerly moving toward Osijek. Behind Čepin, the main road led into Ivanovac, where it forked in the center of the village. The main road continued left toward Antunovac and right toward Divoš, which further connected to Ernestinovo. Paulin Dvor was, in turn, linked to Ernestinovo. That week, fierce battles were fought in the area by the 130th Osijek Brigade, the 101st Zagreb Brigade, and other units. Faced with a difficult task and the threat of encirclement, they had been forced to withdraw. Many of our men died, but the enemy also suffered heavy losses. Now, they were enraged because they could go no further. They thought it would be easy. Although they had taken village after village, it cost them lives and resources, so after that November, they stopped, dug in with their tanks and mortars, and began pummeling Osijek, Ivanovac, and the surrounding area with shells. The center of Ivanovac was marked by the parish church. From there, the main road stretched straight toward Divoš and Ernestinovo, while a side street to the right of the church was a dead end—perhaps a kilometer and a half long—terminating at the fields overlooking Paulin Dvor. That vacuum zone, a so-called "clean space" consisting only of fields, separated Ivanovac from Paulin Dvor. One of my comrades told us that the fields between Ivanovac and Paulin Dvor "pair together like wine and steak."

Our immediate objective was a temporary assembly house serving as a shelter and dormitory. We moved along the battered edges of the houses—our only protection from crossfire. They were shooting at us from Divoš on the left flank, shelling us straight down the main road from Ernestinovo, and targeting us from Paulin Dvor on the right. We were squeezed from three sides, and the sheer edges of farmhouses were our only, pitiful cover.

Gajo, our leader, crept ahead. He raised his hand—a dark, almost imperceptible silhouette against the faint glow of the shelled street—and then lowered it. That was the signal. We didn’t wait for a shout; in that charged silence, a shout was a death sentence.

When the whistling of incoming bullets thinned momentarily, Gajo’s hand dropped. We moved forward, novices and veterans alike, running pressed against the wall in groups of five—a syncopated street dance of survival. When Gajo raised his hand again, we would stop and wait for the shooting to cease. And so it went, from house to house. Those five hundred meters felt like an eternity. Twenty separate houses we had to sprint past, twenty empty spaces where bullets whistled and chipped away concrete edges just above our heads.

For the first time, I felt the real, physical charge of combat—not the philosophical weight of sacrifice, but the raw, biological spike of stress. My comrades moved with a calming, practiced fluidity. I, the novice, stumbled and compensated, trying to mimic their low profile, their economy of movement.

Finally, we arrived. A two-story house, partially ruined and standing like a battered but steadfast sentry, shielded our true objective. Behind it lay a single-story building, further protected on its exposed flank by a massive concrete cattle barn. We dove toward the entrance, descending into the blessed darkness of the basement.

The space was already furnished, lit by candles and equipped with about twenty makeshift beds. The low ceiling and thick walls felt like an impenetrable vault. As I collapsed onto a bed, inhaling the dusty, safe air, a wave of bitter relief washed over me. I looked at Gajo and Jure, and a distorted, sour laugh escaped me—a sound that tasted of sand and adrenaline. I wiped the sweat from my eyes, even though it was barely a few degrees above freezing outside. This was not the war I had romanticized in my head. This was a brutal slog through air thick with death and the fear of unseen shells.

"I'm in deep shit," was the only thought that surfaced, clear and true. And this, I knew with chilling certainty, was only the beginning.