Page 54 - Stradanje i humanizam

The epidemic more acceptable, and cleaned the warehouses of the Drina Division, brought in the straw beds for the
During the occupation, once again, Valjevo become the most important hospital centre, this time for
the Austro-Hungarian army. All their sick and wounded from the entire front line were sent to Valjevo.
Usually they would put their wounded, and later on the sick as well, in the same hospitals, and the only
new hospital that was established was the hospital for their officers, near the District Hospital in No. 13
Pop Lukina Street, in a private house. As they had a large number of soldiers suffering from typhoid and
dysentery, they established a hospital for infectious diseases Epidemiespital at the barracks of the Fifth
Regiment, but after its capacities were quickly exhausted, and those patients were no longer transferred
from the other hospitals. The places where the patients were accommodated, from the taverns to the
hospitals, later became focal points spreading the disease.
All hospitals in Valjevo were in a neglected condition, the wounded, and especially the Serbs, were
not fed or did not have their wounds dressed regularly. The Czech paramedic Janda recorded the
complaints by a Serb patient that the “Krauts“ had not given him anything to eat for 14 days. The
occupation authorities almost executed the Serb doctor Vinaver only for insisting on the rights and
protection of the imprisoned soldiers and doctors. The staff and the management of all the hospitals in
Valjevo before the Serbian victory at the Battle of Kolubara, were mostly Hungarian and Croatian,
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except for the staff in the District Court building. It is known that in Valjevo there were several
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hospitals, of which we know of two, 2/16 and 3/16. The first was located in the building of the Drina
military hospital, and the second one in the building of the Grammar School. Fearing rightfully the rage
of the Serb soldiers when they see the incredible lack of hygiene, neglect and disregard for the Serb
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wounded, the command of the Fifteenth Regiment ordered the replacement of the hospital staff in the
Grammar School building. The best equipped hospital and the one that was closest to Valjevo was the
Austro-Hungarian field hospital that followed the military operations on both banks of the river Jadar,
called Feldmaroderhaus 3/8. They came to Kamenica via Osečina, shortly before the fall of Valjevo,
where they took over the building of the District Administration and all bigger buildings and houses for
their own needs. “In all the houses and warehouses, there were only the wounded. Around 1400 of them.
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In addition, there were 600 Serb prisoners“ wrote the above mentioned Czech Janda. By order of the
command, on 6 December 1914, they left Kamenica and took over several hospitals in Valjevo,
preparing to surrender to the Serbs. The reason for that was simple, most of the staff in that hospital were
Czechs, towards whom the Serbs had a benevolent attitude, similarly as towards all the South Slav
peoples, they were free to move as prisoners, and their officers were allowed to keep their sabres, as a
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sign of respect. The reasoning was, and rightfully so, that their presence would make the whole
situation more acceptable. The staff led by doctor Vaclav Milota found a complete chaos and disorder,
filth and the wounded in an indescribable squalor. A team of about 30 Czechs tried to make the situation
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wounded, and began to bury the dead who were already in a decomposed state. Due to the urgency of the
situation and a lack of transportation to the cemetery, 60 corpses of the soldiers from the Grammar
School building and another 30 who had since been found were buried provisionally in the courtyard of
the elementary school. The amputated legs and other body parts were also put on that pile. Such a
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small group of people was not able to do a lot if one takes into account that, at the same time, they had to
take care of more than 3,000 of the abandoned wounded and sick, and to treat and feed them. For their
sustenance, they were left 20 oxen and a few dozens of pigs that were seized. On 8 December 1914,
parts of Serbian forces were still entering parts of the town, and the town was fully liberated only on the
following day. All diaries that describe this event do not fail to mention the incredible lack of hygiene
and filth, and the unbearable stench of the corpses and rot, the stench of sickness and death. The
soldiers, who until then could not wait to get into the town, would quickly pass, almost running away
from the passers-by, and they were eager to leave behind the horrible smell of rot.
The renowned Serbian writer Veljko Petrović, wrote as an eyewitness: “The men have sensed that
incomprehensible, infectious stench already at the end of Paun. And in the town we just had to put
something over our noses. And the streets and courtyards, and rooms, even those where the officers
lived, were filled with garbage and excrement. All our division and regiment trains and thousands of
wagons were used for days to remove the rotting garbage that was piled up.“ The innocent Czechs, who
were blamed for the “Austro-Hungarian culture,“ defended themselves by saying that they had arrived
only two or three days ago.
“At the corner, there was a dead horse lying in a state of decomposition, there were piles of
excrement crawling with vermin everywhere. I entered a luxurious house, and all doors were open; it
was used as a stable for horses; horse manure in the bedrooms, silk sheets as horse blankets…“ as
recorded by doctor Tienhoven who had earlier been elected honorary citizen of Valjevo. His return to
the District Hospital marked the renewal of its operations. The hospital has more than 1,500 severely
wounded patients, they were in the attics, cellars, in other buildings, and “there was an unbearable
stench everywhere. As there were about 400 of the most severe wounded lying there, still not taken care
of. Most of them had been lying there for twenty days, their wounds still had not been dressed, they were
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still in uniforms, exhausted, abandoned, their pus oozing down from the beds.“ One of the few more
favourable circumstances was that the town still had electric lighting. In his hospital, Tienhoven
undertook the activities taken in the other hospitals as well: he organized the transport of the huge
number of the sick and wounded from his hospital to the interior. Unfortunately, many of them had
already been infected with typhus. Only when the number if wounded in the Surgery Ward of the
District Hospital came to about a hundred, they could proceed with cleaning all the rooms of the
hospital, and with a serious treatment of the remaining patients.
The handover of the hospital located in the Court building was documented in greater detail in
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