Vjekoslav Luburić

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Vjekoslav "Maks" Luburić (1911 - 1969), was a member of the Croatian World War II regime the Ustaše, best known as the commander of the Jasenovac concentration camp. The secret police was responsible for Croatia’s twenty-seven concentration camps. He was from an Orthodox family from Montenegro.

In the beginning of the Second World War, Luburić was the commanding general for the area of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) around the Drina river, which is why he is sometimes referred to as General Drinjanin (General of the Drina).

Vjekoslav Luburić, as the commander-in-chief of all the Croatian camps, announced the great "efficiency" of his concentration camp at Jasenovac at a ceremony on October 9th, 1942. Vjekoslav Luburic gave gold and silver medals to Pavelić and Artukoivic because they were the most efficient soldiers.

It is estimated that between 100,000 to 600,000 people were killed [at Jasenovac] during World War II. Those who were without papers were, without trial, interned into the camp, providing that they were able to work and with a profession that suited the Ustasa's needs. Those who had permits to remain three years were immediately taken to liquidation, and those who had special permits who dealt with according to what the permits were for.

Mladen Lorković and Ante Vokić who were planning a coup against Pavelić in 1944 when their machinations were discovered, were arrested and sent to the camp at Lepoglava, where they were tried & sentenced to death on Maks Luburić's orders in May of 1945.

Near the end of the war, after the NDH was defeated, Luburić led the so-called Crusaders (Križari) paramilitary for a brief time but was unsuccessful.

After the end of World War II, he surfaced in the West and participated in various activities of the Croatian emigrant organizations, in Spain, Sweden, Germany, Canada and elsewhere. He founded a terrorist organization called the "Croatian National Resistance" (Hrvatski narodni odpor, HNO).

Luburić was killed by an agent of UDBA, the Yugoslav secret service, Ilija Stanić on 20 April 1969, in Carcagente ^[1] after Stanić infiltrated Luburić's organisation. Ilija Stanić was Luburić's godson, and the son of Luburić's comrade-in-arms Vinko Stanić.[1]

He was affectionately given the name Maks by lifetime friend Jure Francetić while at the Ustaša training camp Jankapuszta in Hungary. Many Croatian exiles in West European countries were murdered by agents of the Yugoslav secret police, the UDBA.

Luburic's sister, Nada Tanic, was also attributed with the execution of war crimes in the camp of Stara Gradiska, she hasn't been indicted, yet it is clear that as sister of Maks Luburic, wife of convicted war criminal and Jasenovac commandant Dinko Sakic, and assistant of the Stara Gradiska women's section commandant, Maja Bozdon, being a nominated member of the Ustase, that she is also guilty of war crimes.