Perhaps you have visited a former Nazi concentration camp, but did you know
that there also existed Ustasha-Croatian concentration camps during the Second
World War. I'm now at what used to be the Jasanovac complex; this was a death camp where
Ustasha, the Croatian ultra-nationalists, interned and murdered many Serbs, Jews
and Roma. This here is a tragic story of the Jasanovac complex during World War II.
The Jasanovac concentration camp was located in the Independent State of Croatia (the NDH). This
state was proclaimed on 10 April 1941 when the Germans took over Zagreb. The Kingdom of
Yugoslavia was attacked by Germany and supported by Italy and Hungary. Around 40% of its territory
went to the NDH, the new Croatian state. Its the leader – known as the Poglavnik – Ante Pavelic.
His movement was the Ustaša. Its ideology was drawn from Croatian ultranationalism,
Italian fascism and German Nazism, from authoritarianism and peasantism. Its three
main components were: racism, religion and violence. The Ustaša unleashed a
wave of violence on the people in their state they wanted to get rid of: Serbs,
Jews and Roma-Sinti. Many died at the hands of Ustaša death squads. Others were deported to
concentration camps where they were brutally murdered. Do notice that however many Croats
supported the ressurection of a Croatian state, they did not support the killings:
'[D]isappointment soon set in and sympathy evaporated... [The] racial and ethnic
persecution of Serbs, Jews, and Roma, and cruel terror over political opponents,
antagonized most of the Croatian population and made them feel insecure'.
During the summer of 1941 an estimated 20,000 Serbs were killed in wild pogroms. The regime set
up centres for detention and killing modelled on the Nazi camps. There were several camps,
but the most infamous one was Jasenovac, which was set up in the summer of 1941 in a quiet
village south of Zagreb on the old border between Croatia and Bosnia. It was not a single site,
but a complex of five camps. There were also special camps for children up to the age of 14.
“The architect […] of the concentration camp Jasenovac, in which more than 70,000 Serbs,
Jews and other ‘enemies of the state’ were killed, was Vjekoslav Luburic.”
Luburic was a sadist who enjoyed tormenting his prisoners, both mental as well as physical. He for
example taunted his prisoners about the date and method of their forthcoming liquidation. He and
others competed who was the most sadistic. People were starved to death, stabbed by
knives, tailed to trees, tortured and mutilated, drowned, burned alive, hanged, shot, slashed,
smashed or clubed to death. Sometimes prisoners were ordered to kill another before being killed
themselves. Even Nazi officers were shocked by the sheer brutality of the killings.
“The most intense exterminations took place during the years 1941 and 1942,
while during 1943 and the first half of 1944 killings slowed down some,
only to pick up in intensity in the second half of 1944 and 1945. When it became obvious that the
Allies were winning the war, the Ustase tried to cover up their crimes by liquidating the
remaining “enemies,” exhuming the bodies from mass graves, burning the evidence,
mining most of the camp buildings, and thoroughly destroying all the written evidence.”
Total capacity was around 7,000 but at most times there were no more than 4,000
in the complex which meant killings took place quickly. Do notice this
wasn't only a death camp. Plenty of Croat political prisoners were interned here as
well. For example Vladko Maček (leader of the Croatian Peasant Party (HSS)).
Yugoslav Partisan units managed to free the first prisoners on April 23, 1945. The
day before two large groups of remaining inmates, assuming death would await them,
attempted to break out: only 91 out of over 1,100 survived. The main camp was liberated on May
2. Camp commander Luburic fled to Spain after the war and was found murdered in his home in 1969.
There are discussions about the Jasanovac complex today: some claim it was only
built to house political opponents and while it is true that political opponents,
also Croatians, were interned here, most of the internees were Serbs, Jews and Roma. And
also the camp was already set up before the resistance to off and then there's
a discussion whether Jasanovac was a labor camp or death camp: the truth is, is was both.
“In Jasenovac I and II, the Ustase killed all inmates. Jasenovac III was at first a work camp,
but when there were more than 5,000 inmates there, the surplus were killed. Jasenovac IV
was mostly a work camp, while Stara Gradiska (Jasenovac V) started as a work camp for
political opponents of the regime but turned into a death camp when Jews from Jasenovac
and Serbs from the insurrectionist areas were deported to it en masse.”
How many people died at the Ustasha-ran death camps is hard to determine. After the war the
communist Yugoslav authorities claimed the number of 600,000, which is probably too high.
“[A] leading contemporary Croat historian, Ivo Banac, has reached a figure of about
120,000 victims in all the NDH-run camps. Others have settled on 80,000 victims in
the camps of all nationalities, with Serbs making up about 50,000. […] One
recent Croatian publication, which draws on the work of both Croat and Serb historians,
estimates the total number of casualties in Yugoslavia during the war at 947,000,
of whom 487,000 were Serbs, 207,000 Croats, 86,000 Muslims and 60,000 Jews.”
I'm sure the debate will rage on in the comments: people claim that this was only
a labor camp, denialism is often rampant. Although to be fair during the Second
World War most Croatians were definitely not on the same page with the brutal policies
of the Ustasha. That is it what I wanted to point out; if you have any thoughts
leave me in the comments below. I want to thank you for watching and see you later.