The Jasenovac Camp – the Auschwitz of the Balkans

The Jasenovac camp was the largest concentration and death camp on the territory of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) and of the entire occupied Yugoslav area during the Second World War.

Location and organisation

The camp was located near the town of Jasenovac, on the bank of the Sava, about 100 km south-east of Zagreb. It was part of a system of 5 main camps:

• Jasenovac I (Krapje) – operational from August 1941 to April 1942
• Jasenovac II (Bročice) – September 1941 to April 1942
• Jasenovac III (Ciglana) – November 1941 to April 1945 – the main camp
• Jasenovac IV (Kozara) – March 1942 to April 1945
• Jasenovac V (Stara Gradiška) – the women's camp

Period of operation

The camp was operational from August 1941 to April 1945 – almost four years of systematic murder.

Victims – numbers and structure

According to various sources, the number of victims varies:

• Jasenovac Memorial Site: 83,145 confirmed victims (names documented)
• Museum of Genocide Victims: 700,000 – 1,000,000 (including all NDH camps)
• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: 77,000 – 99,000 for Jasenovac alone
• Yad Vashem: 80,000 – 100,000
• Jasenovac Research Institute: over 100,000

The ethnic structure of the victims (according to documented data):

• Serbs: ~52,000 (62%)
• Roma: ~16,000 (20%)
• Jews: ~13,000 (16%)
• Croat anti-fascists: ~2,000 (2%)
• Others: a few hundred

Children in Jasenovac

One of the most terrible facts is the systematic killing of children:

• At least 20,000 children killed in Jasenovac
• Youngest victim: 1 day old (a baby born in the camp)
• A separate children's camp in Sisak – over 1,600 children killed or died of hunger and disease
• Children separated from their parents and systematically killed

Methods of murder

Jasenovac differed from the Nazi camps in its methods:

• Srbosjek – a specially designed knife for swift slaughter, strapped to the hand
• The mallet – blows to the head
• The knife – throat-cutting
• The pistol – shooting
• Hunger – systematic starvation
• Diseases – unhygienic conditions, typhus
• Torture – tortures before death
• Live cremation – throwing living people into the furnaces

IMPORTANT: Unlike the Nazi camps, which used gas chambers for "efficient" murder, at Jasenovac the victims were mostly killed by hand – with the knife, the srbosjek, the mallet. This makes Jasenovac unique in its brutality.

The camp commandants

The camp was run by Ustaše officials:

• Vjekoslav "Maks" Luburić (1941–1943) – The chief organiser of the camp system. Fled to Spain after the war, killed in 1969.
• Friar Miroslav Filipović-Majstorović (1942) – A Franciscan priest who personally took part in the mass killings. Hanged in 1946.
• Dinko Šakić (1944–1945) – The last commandant. Sentenced in 1999 to 20 years in prison, died in prison in 2008.

Testimonies of survivors

Egon Berger, a survivor of Jasenovac, testified: "I saw the Ustaše driving a column of women and children towards the Sava. I heard screams. I saw them throwing children into the water. It was not human. They were demons in human form."

Đuro Schwartz, another surviving child: "We were in a barrack, 200 of us children. Every evening they would come and take away 20–30 of us. They never came back. We knew what awaited them. When they came for me, I managed to escape through a hole in the wall."

Liberation and the flight of the Ustaše

In April 1945, before the arrival of the Partisans:

• The Ustaše tried to destroy the evidence – they burnt the barracks, the documents
• They killed the remaining prisoners (about 700 people)
• 20–21 April 1945 – the prisoners organised an uprising
• Of the 1,073 prisoners who attempted to escape, only 80–90 survived
• 22 April 1945 – the Partisans liberate the camp

Trials and punishments

After the war:

• Friar Miroslav Filipović – hanged in 1946 in Belgrade
• Dinko Šakić – sentenced in 1999 in Zagreb to 20 years
• Most of those responsible – fled to South America, Spain, Australia
• The Vatican – helped many Ustaše to flee (the so-called "Ratlines")

Jasenovac today

Today, on the site of the camp, there is:

• The Jasenovac Memorial Site – a museum and memorial
• The Stone Flower (Bogdan Bogdanović, 1966) – a concrete flower 24 metres high
• A database – 83,145 documented names of victims
• An annual commemoration – 22 April, the day of liberation

Controversies and denial

Regrettably, even today there are attempts at:

• Minimising the number of victims – some Croatian revisionists claim that "only" 20,000–30,000 perished
• Denying the systematic genocide
• Rehabilitating the Ustaše – in Croatia there are streets named after Ustaše officers
• Relativising – attempts to equate the Ustaše and the Partisans

The international community (Yad Vashem, USHMM, the UN) clearly recognises Jasenovac as a death camp and a site of genocide.

Conclusion

Jasenovac remains:

• The largest death camp in the Balkans
• The only camp in Europe that was NOT run by the Germans but by their allies (the NDH)
• A place where children were systematically killed
• A symbol of the extreme brutality of the Ustaše ideology
• A place of remembrance for at least 83,000 documented victims

"Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it."