The Stara Gradiška Camp – the women's death camp

The Stara Gradiška camp (Jasenovac V) was the largest women's concentration camp in the NDH, part of the Jasenovac camp system.

Location and period

The camp was located in the fortress of Stara Gradiška on the Sava, between Slavonski Brod and Jasenovac. It was operational from October 1941 to April 1945.

Prisoners

In the camp were:

• Serbian women – the majority of the prisoners
• Jewish women
• Roma women
• Croatian women – anti-fascists, the wives of Partisans
• Children – mostly with their mothers, but also alone

Number of victims

According to various sources:

• Jasenovac Memorial Site: 12,235 documented
• Museum of Genocide Victims: 20,000–30,000
• Some researchers: up to 75,000

Conditions and tortures

The women were subjected to:

• Hard physical labour – work in the fields, in the workshops
• Sexual violence – systematic abuse
• Hunger and disease
• Tortures – torture for the guards' amusement
• Separation from their children – mothers separated from children who were sent to Sisak or killed

Pregnant women and babies

Particular brutality was shown towards pregnant women:

• Pregnant women forced into hard labour until they gave birth
• Childbirth without medical assistance
• Babies killed immediately after birth or left to die of hunger
• Some reports speak of babies being thrown into the Sava

Known victims

• Milka Žičević – a writer, died in the camp
• Katarina Ivanović – a teacher, died of typhus
• Jelena Ćetković – a doctor, killed because she helped sick prisoners

Liberation

In April 1945:

• The Ustaše killed the remaining prisoners
• They burnt the documentation
• The Partisans liberated the camp on 22 April 1945
• Only a few hundred survivors were found

Today

On the site of the camp:

• A memorial plaque
• An annual commemoration
• Demands for a museum to be opened – still not realised