The Jasenovac camp was the largest concentration and death camp in the Kingdom’s territory of Yugoslavia during the occupation of World War II.
The camp was established by the Independent State of Croatia in August 1941. According to historical data, it was destroyed by the Ustashas in April 1945. They wanted to hide and downplay the crimes they committed.
The “Jasenovac” concentration camp is one of the largest execution sites in the Second World War. From 1941 to 1945, hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed in that camp. Most of them were Serbs. Also, Jews and Roma. Tens of thousands of children were killed. in Jastrebarsko, where there was a camp for children.
The state administration of Croatia named it “Jasenovac Concentration and Labor Camp”. It was a death camp, a place for torturing and killing, primarily Serbs, Roma and Jews. There were people of all ages, sexes, ages, social, educational and other profiles. All others who supported Serbs, Roma, Jews, communists, partisans were also brought to that torture chamber. Or they were simply human beings and “didn’t answer” to the leaders of Ustasha Croatia.
Jasenovac concentration camp comprised several camps established in short periods of time. They were at a greater or lesser distance from the town of Jasenovac itself.
Most of the camp was in Jasenovac, about 100 km southeast of Zagreb. Camps I and II were in the villages of Bročici and Krapju. They were quickly disbanded due to frequent floods. The prisoners were transferred to the Ciglana camp (Jasenovac III), which was the largest camp and included a crematorium. Executions were carried out in Donja Gradina on the other side of the Sava River. The children’s camp was in Sisak and Jastrebarski, and the women’s camp was in Stara Gradiška, southeast of Jasenovac. There were also women and children in Jasenovac.
In the process of “cleansing the Croatian nation”, Serbian children were the first to be killed, along with adults. Even if their mothers were still nursing them. For four years, between April 1941 and May 1945, over 73,316 children were killed in the Ustasha NDH. The youngest were still in their cradles, while the oldest were around 14. During the Second World War, the only place in all of Europe where there were special camps for children was Croatia.
From December 1941 to April 1945, in the Jasenovac camp complex, the Ustashas killed at least 20,000 boys and girls under the age of 14, and children of Serbian nationality made up 61% to 63% of the killed children. They were killed in the most horrible ways. They died, faster than adults, from hunger, thirst, disease and freezing. Thousands of children were forcibly separated from their mothers. In the Jasenovac camp complex, they were left to starve to death in courtyards or rooms without furniture. They were crying and shouting for food and water.” In contrast to the terrible violent death of the children, there is a survivor’s description of the appearance of the children when they were first brought:
“The children brought to the Jasenovac camp in 1942 were unusually healthy and beautiful. No one in the camp had seen more beautiful, smarter and healthier children. We would have thought that the Nazis chose them.”
The number of victims has not and will not be accurately determined. In wars, there is a rule that it is not possible to determine the place of death for some of the killed. Only that they were killed, and for several people, it can only be determined that they “disappeared” in the war. In addition, the killers destroyed traces of the murders and those killed.
This opens up the possibility of endless debates about the number of people killed. The camp archive was destroyed twice (at the beginning of 1943 and in April 1945). However, there is a large amount of documentation about the mass and cruel crimes of the Independent State of Croatia. The victims of the camp were Serbs, Roma and Jews, communists and anti-fascists, who did not agree with the policy of the then Independent State of Croatia. In Jasenovac, Croats do not suffer because they are Croats, nor do Muslims because they are Muslim. They suffer only as anti-fascists, communists and helpers and saviors of Serbs.
An incomplete list compiled in the Jasenovac Memorial Area in Croatia in March 2013 states that at least 83,145 people were killed in the Jasenovac concentration camps. Among those killed, women and children (up to 14 years of age) together were more many than men and boys (15 and older).
It is estimated that probably between 100,000 and 200,000 human beings were killed in the Jasenovac camps. It is suspected that it was incomparably more. This results from a comparison of three facts about the Jasenovac camps, namely: an incomplete list of those killed in Jasenovac (with over 83,000 killed), a reduced estimate of the number of victims for the whole of Yugoslavia (about 1 million killed) and a revised sum of those killed (about 200,000 killed) in crimes described by witnesses to the Croatian National Commission for the Determination of the Crimes of the Occupiers and their Helpers.
