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At the time of his deportation to Mauthausen in 1943,Despot Oparušić was the president of the village of Donji Petrovci in Vojvodina, Serbia, Yugoslavia. He had been in this position for eight years. Donji Petrovci was a little village of around 1000 inhabitants, mostly farmers. The village has always been fairly rich, thanks to the fertile ground surrounding it and the hardworking attitude of its peasants. Despot Oparušić was an extraordinary man, progressive and always looking towards the future, looking for means how to change things for the better. He was very much respected by the people of Donji Petrovci for this. He has brought a lot of changes to the village during those eight years while he was in charge of the village: the first primary school was constructed, electricity was introduced, paved roads were built in the village as well as to the railway station in the neighboring village of Putinci. Around his activities to introduce the electricity there still exist family anecdotes, as there was a lot of resistance in the village – people were afraid their homes would burn down the moment they switch on the bulbs. Years before being deported to Austria, Despot visited this country by his own will for the purpose to learn and bring new improvements to the village. His mission was to check upon new types of fruit trees, buy them and then plant them in Donji Petrovci. Some of these trees still exist in the village.

Despot Oparušić was arrested by the SS troops in January1943 together with his son Novak, his brother Mladen, Mladen’s son Ilija and around 20 other male members of the family. All male population found in the village that black day, around 200 people, was captured as a repression for a partisan attack on the nearby railway. The villagers were first deported to the concentration camp Staro Sajmiste in Serbia. After several days the healthiest, around 100 of them were deported to Mauthausen, where they arrived on 2 February 1943. Despot, a proud and strong man, died from dysentery just two months after his arrival to Mauthausen under inhuman conditions. He was half alive burned in a crematorium in Gusen. Before this, he gave a little knife and his food ranson to Borivoj Oparušić, age 17 at that time, and told him that Borivoj needed it more than he did, Borivoj was young and would survive. Borivoje indeed did survive and was able to tell us this. Despot was married to Zorka Oparušić and had two sons, Novak and Jovan, and one daughter Anica (there were also two other sons that died as infants).
Novak was deported to Mauthausen/Gusen together with his father. On 20 February 1943 he was transferred from Gusen to Linz III, to work in the weapon factories of Voest Alpine. He was killed during the Allied bombing of the Linz III factory complex on 25 July 1944. Jovan was killed by a German sniper in the village of Donji Petrovci. Zorka turned grey overnight.

Tatjana Claasen Vujcic, great-granddaughter