Jasenovac concentration camp

Jasenovac concentration camp (Croatian, Serbian: Logor Jasenovac; Serbian Cyrillic: Логор Јасеновац. Yiddish: יאסענאוואץ, Hebrew: יסנובץ, sometimes spelled "Yasenovatz") was the largest extermination camp in the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) and occupied Yugoslavia during World War II. The camp was established by the Ustaše (Ustasha) regime in August 1941 and dismantled in April 1945. In Jasenovac, the largest number of victims were ethnic Serbs, whom Ante Pavelić considered the main racial opponents of the NDH, alongside the Jews and Roma peoples.^[1]

Jasenovac was a complex of five subcamps^[2] spread over 240 km² (93 sq mi) on the banks of the Sava River. The largest camp was at Jasenovac, about 100 km (62 mi) southeast of Zagreb. The complex also included large grounds at Donja Gradina directly across the Sava River, a camp for children in Sisak to the northwest, and a women's camp in Stara Gradiška to the southeast.

Background

NDH "legislation"

Some of the first "legal" orders issued by the NDH reflected the acceptance of the ideology of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. The "Legal order for the defense of the people and the state" dated 17 April 1941 ordered the death penalty for "infringement of the honour and vital interests of the Croatian people and the survival of the Independent State of Croatia". It was soon followed by the "Legal order of races" and the "Legal order of the protection of Aryan blood and the honour of the Croatian people" dated 30 April 1941, as well as the "Order of the creation and definition of the racial-political committee" dated 4 June 1941. These decrees were enforced not only through the regular court system, but also through new special courts and mobile courts-martial with extended jurisdiction. In July, 1941, when existing jails could no longer contain the growing number of new inmates, the Ustaša government began clearing ground for what would become the Jasenovac concentration camp.^[3]

Nazi Germany

On 10 April 1941, the Independent State of Croatia was established, supported by Nazi Germany and fascist Italy. It adopted their racial and political doctrines. Jasenovac's role in the Nazi "final solution" was as the ethnic cleansing of the Serbian, Romany and Jewish inhabitants.

The Ustase's death camps were directed by numerous Nazi sources:

• The office of foreign affairs, represented in Croatia by Siegfried Kasche.
• The S.S., represented by a Gestapo official whose identity has not been fully established, but whom Jewish witnesses knew as "Miller".
• The Reichsfuhrung and the Wehrmacht.

The competition between the different authorities would not usually benefit the Jews, but actually caused each to try and excel past its competitors in maltreatment of Jews and others. The Nazis encouraged the Ustase's anti-Jewish and anti-Roma actions and showed support for the extermination of Serb policy. Soon, the Nazis began to make clear their genocidal goals, as shown by the speech Hitler gave to Slavko Kvaternik, at their meeting on 21 July 1941:

The Jews are the bane of mankind. If the Jews will be allowed to do as they will, like they are permitted in their Soviet heaven, then they will fulfill their most insane plans. And thus Russia became the center to the world's illness... if for any reason, one nation would endure the existence of a single Jewish family, that family would eventually become the center of a new plot. If there are no more Jews in Europe, nothing will hold the unification of the European nations... this sort of people cannot be integrated in the social order or into an organized nation. They are parasites on the body of a healthy society, that live off of expulsion of decent people. One cannot expect them to fit into a state that requires order and discipline. There is only one thing to be done with them: To exterminate them. The state holds this right since, while precious men die on the battlefront, it would be nothing less than criminal to spare these bastards. They must be expelled, or – if they pose no threat to the public – to be imprisoned inside concentration camps and never be released."^[4]

In the Wannsee Conference, Germany offered the Croatian government transportation of its Jews southwards, but questioned the importance of the offer, saying that: "the enactment of the final solution of the Jewish question is not crucial, since the key aspects of this problem were already solved by radical actions these governments took".^[5]

In addition to specifying the means of extermination, the Nazis often arranged the imprisonment or transfer of inmates to Jasenovac.^[6][7][8] Kasche's emissary, Major Knehe, visited the camp in 6 February 1942. Kasche thereafter reported to his superiors:

Capitan Luburic, the commander-in-action of the camp, explained the construction plans of the camp. It turns out that he made these plans while in exile. These plans he modified after visiting concentration-camps installments in Germany.^[9]

It thus appears that the Nazis inspected Jasenovac, possibly due to doubts they had about Ustase devotion to the extermination of Jews. Kasche wrote the following:"The Poglavnik asks General Bader to realize that the Jasenovac camp cannot receive the refugees of Kozara. I agreed since the camp is also required to solve the problem in deporting the Jews to the east. Minister Turina can deport the Jews to Jasenovac".^[10]

It is unclear whether Jasenovac was to be used primarily as a death camp in its own right, like Sajmiste, or more as a collection depot from which Jews would be transported to Auschwitz. Stara-Gradiska was the primary site from which Jews were transported to Auschwitz, but Kashe's letter refers specifically to the subcamp Ciglana in this regard.^[11] The extermination of Serbs at Jasenovac was precipitated by General Bader, who ordered that refugees be taken to Jasenovac. Although Jasenovac was expanded, officials were told that "Jasenovac concentration and labor camp cannot hold an infinite number of prisoners".^[12]

Soon thereafter, German suspicions were renewed that the Ustaše was more concerned with the elimination of Serbs than Jews, and that Italian and Catholic pressure was dissuading the Ustase from killing Jews.^[13]

The Nazis revisited the possibility of transporting Jews to Auschwitz for liquidation, not only because extermination was easier there, but also because the profits produced from the victims could be kept in German hands, rather than being left for the Croats or Italians.^[14] Instead Jasenovac remained a place where Jews who could not be deported would be interned and killed: In this way, while Jews were deported from Tenje, two deportations were also made to Jasenovac.^[15] It is also illustrated by the report sent by Hans Helm to Adolf Eichmann, saying that the Jews will first be collected in Stara-Gradiska,and that "Jews employed in 'forced labor' in Ustase camps", mentioning only Jasenovac and Stara Gradiska," will not be deported".^[16] The Nazis also found interest in the Jews that remained inside the camp, even in June 1944, after the visit of a Red Cross delegation. Kasche wrote: "Schmidllin showed a special interest in the Jews... Luburic told me that Schmidllin told him that the Jews must be treated in the finest manner, and that they must survive, no matter what happens... Luburic suspected Schmidllin is an English agent and therefore prevented all contact between him and the Jews"^[17]

Creation and operation of Jasenovac concentration camp

The Jasenovac complex was built between August 1941 and February 1942. The first two camps, Krapje and Bročica, were closed in November 1941.^[18]

The three newer camps continued to function until the end of the war:

• Ciglana (Jasenovac III)
• Kozara (Jasenovac IV)
• Stara Gradiška (Jasenovac V)

The camp was constructed, managed and supervised by Department III of the Ustaška Narodna Služba or UNS (lit. "Ustaše People's Service"), a special police force of the NDH. Vjekoslav "Maks" Luburić was head of the UNS. Individuals managing the camp at different times included Miroslav Majstorović and Dinko Šakić.^[19] The camp administration in times used other Ustase battalions, police units, domobrani units, auxiliary units made up of Muslims, and even the aid of German and Hungarian Nazis.^[20]

The Ustaše interned, tortured and executed men, women and children in Jasenovac. The largest number of victims were Serbs, but other victims included Jews,^[21]Romani people, as well as Croatian and Bosnian resistance members opposed to the regime (i.e., Partisans or their sympathizers, categorized by the Ustaše as "communists"). Upon arrival at the camp, the prisoners were marked with colors, similar to the use of Nazi concentration camp badges: blue for Serbs, and red for communists (non-Serbian resistance members), while Roma had no marks. (This practice was later abandoned.)^[22] Most victims were killed at execution sites near the camp: Granik, Gradina, and other places. Those kept alive were mostly skilled at needed professions and trades (doctors, pharmacists, electricians, shoemakers, goldsmiths, and so on) and were employed in services and workshops at Jasenovac.^[23]

The population of inmates in Jasenovac

Serbs

Serbs constituted the absolute majority of inmates in Jasenovac.^{[1][24][25][26]} In several instances, inmates were immediately killed for confessing their Serbian ethnicity and most considered it to be the reason for their imprisonment.^[27] The Serbs were predominantly brought from the Kozara region, where the Ustasa captured areas along with partisan guerrillas.^[28] These were brought to camp without sentence, almost destined to immediate liquidation, accelerated via use of a machine-gun.^[29] Estimated deaths of Serb inmates range up to over 1.300,000 depending on sources.^[30] The Jewish virtual library estimates the number of Serbs killed by the Ustaša between 330,000 and 390,000, with 45,000 to 52,000 Serbs murdered in Jasenovac.^[25] Jasenovac is the largest extermination camp in the Balkans and among the largest in Europe.^[31] The camp alone accounts for about 10% of the total number of killed persons in wartime Yugoslavia.^[32] Another researcher, Bogoljub Kocevic, estimates roughly 1,000,000 victims in entire Yugoslavia, one half of whom (mostly ethnic Serbs) were killed in wartime Croatia's genocide campaign.^[32] This researcher seems to support the Tomislav Dulic, an independent historian, in terms of the size of Jasenovac camp:

"Despite the fact that there did not die 700,000 [a figure often quoted] in Jasenovac,, an estimated 100,000 still makes it one of the largest camps in Europe during WWII."

—(Utopias of Nation. Local mass killings in Bosnia- Herzegovina 1941-1942)^[33]

Recent victim lists of the Jasenovac concentration camp (as of 2007) are composed of 70,000^[34] to 80,000 names.^[35] The Jasenovac memorial site (as of april 2010) has a list of 80,914 victims in Jasenovac, 45,923 of which were Serbs. The list is however subject to a constant update and has been constantly expanding.

Jews

Jews, being the primary target of Nazi-oriented Genocide, were the second-largest category of victims of Jasenovac. The number of Jewish casualties is uncertain, but ranges from about 8,000^[36] up to 25,000.^[37] Most of the executions of Jews at Jasenovac occurred prior to August 1942. Thereafter, the NDH started to deport them to Auschwitz. In general, Jews were initially sent to Jasenovac from all parts of Croatia after being gathered in Zagreb, and from Bosnia and Herzegovina after being gathered in Sarajevo. Some, however, were transported directly to Jasenovac from other cities and smaller towns.

Roma

Roma in Jasenovac consisted of both Roma and Sinti, who were captured in various areas in Bosnia, especially in the Kozara region. They were brought to Jasenovac and taken to area III-C, under the open sky, in terms of nutrition, hydration, shelter and sanitary that were below the camp's standards.^[38] The figures of murdered Roma are the most controversial, save figures of Serbian casualties, and they range between 20,000 and 50,000.^[39]

Croatian and Bosnian anti-fascists

Anti-fascists consisted of various sorts of political and ideological antagonists of the Ustasa. In general, their treatment was similar to other inmates, although known communists were executed right away,^[40] and convicted Ustasa or law-enforcement officials,^[41] or others close to the Ustasa in opinion, such as Croatian peasants, were held on beneficial terms and granted amnesty after serving a duration of time.^[42]

Children

Jasenovac camp also consisted of a unique camp for children in Sisak. Around 20,000 children of Serbian, Jewish and Roma nationalities perished in Jasenovac.^[26][43]

Various

The Ustasa also imprisoned various sorts of other ethnicities: Ukrainians, Romanians,Slovenes and Montenegrians.^[44]

Living conditions

The living conditions in the camp evidenced the severity typical in Nazi death camps: a meager diet, deplorable accommodations, and cruel behavior by the Ustaše guards. Also, as in many camps, conditions would be improved temporarily during visits by delegations – such as the press delegation that visited in February 1942 and a Red Cross delegation in June 1944 – and reverted after the delegation left.^[45]

• Food: Again, typical of Nazi death camps, the diet of inmates at Jasenovac was insufficient to sustain life: The sorts of food they consumed changed during the camp's existence. In camp Brocice, inmates were given a "soup" made of hot water with starch for breakfast, and beans for lunch and dinner (served at 6:00, 12:00 and 21:00).^[46] Food in Camp No. III was initially better, consisting of potatoes instead of beans; however, in January the diet was changed to a single daily serving of thin "turnip soup".^[47] By the end of the year, the diet had been changed again, to three daily portions of thin gruel made of water and starch.^[48] Food changed repeatedly thereafter.
• Water: Jasenovac was even more severe than most death camps in one respect: a general lack of potable water. Prisoners were forced to drink water from the Sava river, which was contaminated with ren (horseradish).^[49]
• Accommodations: In the first camps, Brocice and Krapje, inmates slept in standard concentration-camp barracks, with three tiers of bunks. In Camp No. III, which housed some 3,000 inmates, inmates initially slept in the attics of the workshops, in an open depot designated as a railway "tunnel", or simply in the open. A short time later, eight barracks were erected.^[50][51] Inmates slept in six of these barracks, while the other two were used as a "clinic" and a "hospital", where ill inmates were concentrated to die or be liquidated.^{[52][53][54][55][56]}
• Forced labor: As in all concentration camps, Jasenovac inmates were forced daily to perform some 11 hours of hard labor, under the eye of the Ustasa captors, who would execute any inmate for the most trivial reasons, allegedly for "sabotaging labor".^[57][58][59] The labor section was overseen by Ustasas Hinko Dominik Picilli and Tihomir Kordic. Picillii would personally lash inmates to work harder.^[60][61] He divided the "Jasenovac labor force" into 16 groups, including groups of construction, brickworks, metal-works, agriculture, etc. The inmates would perish from the hard work. Work in the brickworks was hard.^[62] Blacksmith work was also done, as the inmates forged knives and other weapons for the Ustasa.^[63] Dike construction work was most feared.^[64][65][66]
• Sanitation: Inside the camp, squalor and lack of sanitation reigned: clutter, blood, vomit and bodies filled the barracks, which were also full of pests and of the foul scent of the often overflowing latrine bucket.^[67][68] Due to exposure to the elements, inmates suffered from impaired health leading to epidemics of typhus, typhoid, malaria, pleuritis, influenza, dysentery and diphtheria.^[69] During pauses in labor (5:00-6:00; 12:00-13:00, 17:00-20:00^[70]) inmates had to relieve themselves at open latrines, which consisted of big pits dug in open fields, covered in planks. Inmates would tend to fall inside, and often died. The Ustase encouraged this by either having internees separate the planks, or by physically drowning inmates inside. The pit would overflow during floods and rains, and was also drained into the lake, from which inmate drinking water was taken.^{[71][72][73][74]} The inmate's rags and blankets were too thin to prevent exposure to frost, as was the shelter of the barracks.^[75] The clothes and blankets were rarely and poorly cleansed, as inmates were only allowed to wash them briefly in the lake's waters once a month^[76] save during winter time, when the lake froze. Then, a sanitation device was erected in a warehouse, where a few clothes were insufficiently boiled.^[70]
• Lack of personal possessions: The inmates were stripped of their belongings and personal attire. As inmates, only ragged prison-issue clothing was given to them. In winter, inmates were given thin "rain-coats" and they were allowed to make light sandals. Inmates were given a personal food bowl, designated to contain 0.4ltrs of "soup" they were fed with. Inmates whose bowl was missing (stolen by another inmate to defecate in) would receive no food.^[77] During delegation visits, inmates were given bowls twice as large with spoons. Additionally, at such times, inmates were given colored tags.
• Anxiety: The fear of death, and the paradox of a situation in which the living dwell next to the dead, had great impact on the internees. Basically, an inmate's life in a concentration camp can be viewed in the optimal way when looking at it in three stages: arrival to camp, living inside it, and the release. The first stage consisted of the shock caused by the hardships in transit to camp. The Ustase would fuel this shock by murdering a number of inmates on arrival and by temporarily housing new-arrivals in warehouses, attics, in the train tunnel and outdoors.^[78] After the inmates grew familiar with the life in camp, they would enter the second and most critical phase: living through the anguish of death, and the sorrow, hardships and abuse. The peril of death was most prominent in "public performances for public punishment" or selections, when inmates would be lined in groups and individuals would be randomly pointed out to receive punishment of death before the rest. The Ustase would intensify this by prolonging the process, patrolling about and asking questions, gazing at inmates, choosing them and then refrain and point out another.^[79][80] As inmates, people could react to the Ustase crimes in an active or passive manner. The activists would form resistance movements and groups, steal food, plot escapes and revolts, contacts with the outside world.^[81] The passive inmates, the majority, would react by attempt to survive, to go through the day unharmed. This is not "going in line to slaughter", but rather another approach to survival, which deprived the Ustase of the possibility of completely dehumanizing the inmates. However, some of these inmates became in this way utterly primitive, as their whole life revolved around following orders and eating a bowl of soup. Thus they became "musselmans": physically appearing as living skeletons, but mentally stripped of their humanity beyond hope of salvation. All inmates suffered from psychological phenomena to some extent: obsessive thoughts of food, paranoia, delusions, day-dreams, lack of self-control.^[82] Some inmates reacted with attempts at documenting the atrocities, such as Nikola Nikolic, Djuro Schawrtz and Ilija Ivanovic, who all tried to memorize and even write of events, dates and details. Such deeds were perilous, since writing was punishable by death and tracking dates was hard.^[83]

Mass murder and cruelty

According to Jaša Almuli, former president of the Serbian Jewish community, Jasenovac was a much more terrifying concentration camp, in terms of cruelty, compared with Auschwitz. In the late summer of 1942, tens of thousands of Serbian villagers were deported to Jasenovac from the Kozara mountain area (in Bosnia) where NDH forces were fighting against the Yugoslav Partisans.^[84] Most of the men were killed at Jasenovac, but women were sent to forced labor in Germany. Children were taken from their mothers and either killed or dispersed to Catholic orphanages.^[85]

On the night of 29 August 1942, the prison guards made bets among themselves as to who could liquidate the largest number of inmates. One of the guards, Petar Brzica, boasted^[86] cutting the throats of about 1,360 new arrivals.^[87] Other participants who confessed to participating in the bet included Ante Zrinusic, who killed some 600 inmates, and Mile Friganovic, who gave a detailed and consistent report of the incident.^[88] Friganovic admitted to having killed some 1,100 inmates. He specifically recounted his torture of an old man named Vukasin; he attempted to compel the man to bless Ante Pavelic, which the old man refused to do, although Friganovic cut off his ears, nose and tongue after each refusal. Ultimately, he cut out the old man's eyes, tore out his heart, and slashed his throat. This incident was witnessed by Dr. Nikola Nikolic.^[89]

Srbosjek

Brzica and others used a knife that became known as srbosjek, meaning "Serb-cutter" ("cutthroat").^{[90][91][92][93][94][95]}

This knife was originally a type of agricultural knife manufactured for wheat sheaf cutting.^[96][97][98]

The upper part of the knife was made of leather, as a sort of a glove, designed to be worn with the thumb going through the hole, so that only the blade protruded from the hand. It was a curved, 12 cm long knife with the edge on its concave side. The knife was fastened to a bowed oval copper plate, while the plate was fastened to a thick leather bangle.^[99] Its agricultural purpose was to make it easier for the field workers to cut wheat sheaves open before threshing them. The knife was fixed on the glove plate in order to prevent injuries and to prevent taking care of a separate knife in order to improve the work speed.^[97]

Such a type of wheat sheaf knife was manufactured prior to and during World War II by German factory Gebrüder Gräfrath from Solingen-Widderit under the trademark "Gräwiso".^[100][101] Gebrüder Gräfrath was taken over in 1961 by Hubertus Solingen.^[102]

Systematic extermination of prisoners

Besides sporadic killings and deaths due to the poor living conditions, many inmates arriving at Jasenovac were scheduled for systematic liquidation. An important criterion for selection was the duration of a prisoner's anticipated detention. Strong men capable of labor and sentenced to less than three years of incarceration were allowed to live. All inmates with indeterminate sentences or sentences of three years or more were immediately scheduled for liquidation, regardless of their fitness.^{[103][104][105][106]}

Systematic extermination varied both as to place and form. Some of the executions were mechanical, following Nazi methodology, while others were manual. The mechanical means of extermination included:

• Cremation: The Ustase cremated living inmates, who were sometimes drugged and sometimes fully awake, as well as corpses. The first cremations took place in the brick factory ovens in January, 1942.^[107][108] Engineer Hinko Dominik Picilli perfected this method by converting seven of the kiln's furnace chambers into more sophisticated crematories.^{[109][110][111][112][113][114][115]} Crematories were also placed in Gradina, across the Sava River. According to the State Commission, however, "there is no information that it ever went into operation.".^[116] Later testimony, however, say the Gradina crematory had become operational.^[117][118] Some bodies were buried rather than cremated, as shown by exhumation of bodies late in the war.

• Gassing and poisoning: The Ustase, in following the Nazi example, as set in Auschwitz and Sajmiste, tried to employ poisonous gas to kill inmates that arrived in Stara-Gradiska. They first tried to gas the women and children that arrived from camp Djakovo with gas vans that Simo Klaic called "green Thomas".^[119][120] The method was later replaced with stationary gas-chambers with Zyklon B and sulfur dioxide.^{[121][122][123][124][125][126][127]}

Manual methods, the Ustase's favorites, were liquidation that took part in utilizing sharp or blunt craftsmen tools: knives, saws, hammers, et cetera. These liquidations took place in various locations:

• Granik: Granik was a ramp used to unload goods of Sava boats. In winter 1943-44, season agriculture laborers became unemployed, while large transports of new internees arrived and the need for liquidation, in light of the expected Axis defeat, were large. Therefore, "Maks" Luburic devised a plan to utilize the crane as a gallows on which slaughter would be committed, so that the bodies could be dumped into the stream of the flowing river. In the autumn, the Ustase NCO's came in every night for some 20 days, with lists of names of people who were incarcerated in the warehouse, stripped, chained, beaten and then taken to the "Granik", where weights were tied to the wire that was bent on their arms, and their intestines and neck were slashed, and they were thrown into the river with a blow of a blunt tool in the head. The method was later enhanced, so that inmates were tied in pairs, back to back, their bellies were cut before they were tossed into the river alive.^{[128][129][130][131]}
• Gradina: The Ustase utilized empty areas in the vicinity of the villages Donja Gradina and Ustice, where they encircled an area marked for slaughter and mass graves in wire. The Ustase slew victims with knives or smashed their skulls with mallets. When gypsies arrived in the camp, they did not undergo selection, but were rather concentrated under the open skies at a section of camp known as "III-C". From there the gypsies were taken to liquidation in Gradina, working on the dike (men) or in the corn fields in Ustice (women) in between liquidations. Thus Gradina and Ustica became Roma mass grave sites. Furthermore, small groups of gypsies were utilized as gravediggers that actually participated in the slaughter at Gradina. Thus the extermination at the site grew until it became the main killing-ground in Jasenovac. Grave sites were also located in Ustica and in Draksenic.^{[132][133][134]}
• Mlaka and Jablanac: Two sites used as collection and labor camps for the women and children in camps III and V, but also as places where many of these women and children, as well as other groups, were liquidated at the Sava bank in between the two locations.
• Velika Kustarica: According to the state-commission, as far as 50,000 people were killed here in the winter amid 1941 and 1942.^[135] There is more evidence suggesting that killings took place there at that time and afterwards.^[136][137]

Inmate help

In 1942, Diana Budisavljević came into contact with German officers at Stara Gradiška about releasing children from the camp.^[138] With the help of the Ministry of Social Affairs, especially prof. Kamil Bresler, she was able to relocate child inmates from the camp to Zagreb, and other places.^[138] The Red-Cross is in times accused of insufficient aid of the persecuted Jews in Nazi Europe. In the NDH, however, the operation of the Red-Cross was ambivalent, and although the assistance was perhaps late or insufficient, it was the most help the victims ever got. The local representative, Julius Schmidllin, was contacted by the Jewish community, which sought financial aid. The organisation helped to release Jews from camps, and even debated with the Croatian government in relation to visiting the Jasenovac camp. The wish was eventually granted in July 1944. The camp was prepared for the arrival of the delegation, so that it found nothing incriminating.^[139] The inmates also received help from Croat citizens and even of Ustase. Borislav Seva was rescued by an Ustase Vladimir Cupic.^[140] Inmate resistance groups were aided by contacts amongst the Ustase: one of these groups, operating in the tannery, was assisted by Ustase Dr. Marin Jurcev and his wife, and by an Ustase that defected to the Partisan side with information of the atrocities of Jasenovac.^[141] Ustase found guilty of tender handling of inmates were killed.^[142] Civilians were mostly kind towards inmates that did exterior labor.^[143][144]

End of the camp

In April 1945, as Partisan units approached the camp, the Ustaše camp supervisors attempted to erase traces of the atrocities by working the death camp at full capacity. On 22 April, 600 prisoners revolted; 520 were killed and 80 escaped.^[145] Before abandoning the camp shortly after the prisoner revolt, the Ustaše killed the remaining prisoners, blasted and destroyed the buildings, guardhouses, torture rooms, the "Picili Furnace", and the other structures. Upon entering the camp, the partisans found only ruins, soot, smoke, and dead bodies.

During the following months of 1945, the grounds of Jasenovac were thoroughly destroyed by prisoners of war. The Allied forces captured 200 to 600 Home Guard members. Laborers completed destruction of the camp, leveling the site and dismantling the two-kilometer long, four-meter high wall that surrounded it.

Victims

Total number

Historians have had difficulty calculating and agreeing on the number of victims at Jasenovac. An accurate number might not ever be known but current estimates range between 49,600 to 600,000.^[146] Other sources place it at around 100,000.^[147][148] The first figures to be offered by the state-commission of Croatia ranged around 500,000 and even 600,000. The official estimate of the number of victims in SFRY was 700,000; however, beginning in the 1990s, the Croatian side began suggesting substantially smaller numbers. The exact numbers continue to be a subject of great controversy and hot political dispute, with the Croatian government and institutions pushing for a much lower number even as recently as September 2009.

The estimates vary due to lack of accurate records, the methods used for making estimates, and sometimes the political biases of the estimators. In some cases, entire families were exterminated, leaving no one to submit their names to the lists. On the other hand, it has been found that the lists include the names of people who died elsewhere, whose survival was not reported to the authorities, or who are counted more than once on the lists.

The casualty figures for the whole of Yugoslavia sways between the maximum 1,700,000 and the more conservative figures between 1,500,000^[149] or one million.^[150]

Historical documentation sources

The documentation from the time of Jasenovac revolves around the different sides in the battle for Yugoslavia: The Germans and Italians on the one hand, and the Partisans on the other. There are also sources originating from the documentation of the Ustase themselves and of the Vatican. These sources are at times considered contemporary because German and Ustase sources tend to exaggerate, but the comparison of all different sources can give a reliable portrait of the historical truth.

German generals issued reports of the number of victims as the war progressed. German military commanders gave different figures for the number of Serbs, Jews and others killed on the territory of the Independent State of Croatia. They circulated figures of 400,000 Serbs (Alexander Löhr); 350,000 Serbs (Lothar Rendulic); around 300,000 (Edmund Glaise von Horstenau); in 1943; "600-700,000 until March 1944" (Ernst Fick); 700,000 (Massenbach). Hermann Neubacher calculates:

The recipe, received by the Ustashe leader and poglawnik, the president of the Independent State of Croatia, Ante Pavelic, resembles to the bloodiest religious wars: "A third must become Catholic, a third must leave the country, and a third must die!" This last point of their program was accomplished. When prominent Ustasha leaders claimed that they slaughtered a million Serbs (including babies, children, women and old men), that is, in my opinion, a boastful exaggeration. On the basis of the reports submitted to me, I believe that the number of defenseless victims slaughtered to be three quarters of a million.^[151]

Italian generals, who were more overwhelmed by the atrocious Ustase slaughter, also reported similar figures to their commanders.^[152] The Vatican's sources also speak of similar figures, that is, for an example, of 350,000 Serbs slaughtered by the end of 1942 (Eugen Tisserant^[153]) and "over 500,000 people" in all (Godfried Danneels.^[154])

The Ustase themselves gave more exaggerated assumptions of the number of people they killed. Vjekoslav "Maks" Luburić, commander-in-chief of all the Croatian camps, announced the great "efficiency" of the Jasenovac camp at a ceremony as early as 9 October 1942. During the banquet which followed, he reported with pride, intoxicated: "We have slaughtered here at Jasenovac more people than the Ottoman Empire was able to do during its occupation of Europe."^[155] Other Ustase sources give more canon estimations: a circular of the Ustase general headquarters that reads: "the concentration and labor camp in Jasenovac can receive an unlimited number of internees".^[156] In the same spirit, Miroslav Filipovic-Majstorovic, once captured by Yugoslav forces, admitted that during his three months of administration, 20,000 to 30,000 people died.^[157] Since it became clear that his confession was an attempt to somewhat minimize the rate of crimes committed in Jasenovac, having, for an example, claimed to have personally killed 100 people, extremely understated,^[158] Miroslav's figures are evaluated so that in some sources they appear as 30,000-40,000.^[159][160]

A report of the National Committee of Croatia for the investigation of the crimes of the occupation forces and their collaborators, dated 15 November 1945, which was commissioned by the new government of Yugoslavia under Josip Broz Tito, stated that 500,000-600,000 people were killed at the Jasenovac complex. These figures were cited by researchers Israel Gutman and Menachem Shelach in the Encyclopedia of the Holocaust from 1990 and Simon Wiesenthal Center . Menachem Shelach will in his book speak that number, of some 300,000 bodies being found and exhumed is reliable^[161] Mosa Pijade and Eduard Kardelij used this number in the war reparations meetings. Thus the proponents of these numbers were subsequently accused of artificially inflating them for purpose of obtaining war reparations. All in all, The state-commission's report has been the only public and official document about number of victims during 45 years of second Yugoslavia.^[162]

The state's total war casualties of 1,700,000 as presented by Yugoslavia at the Paris Peace Treaties, were produced by a math student, Vladeta Vučković, at the Federal Bureau of Statistics.^[163] He later admitted that his estimates included demographic losses (i.e., also factoring in the estimated population increase), while actual losses would have been significantly less.^[163] This number of victims has been refused by Germany during war reparations talks.

Živanović: a contemporary forensic source

Between 22 and 27 June 1964,^[164] exhumations of bodies and use of sampling methods was conducted at Jasenovac by Vida Brodar and Anton Pogačnik from Ljubljana university and Srboljub Živanović from Novi Sad university.^[164] During the Yugoslav Wars, Serbian anthropologist, Srboljub Živanović, published during war between Croatia and Serbia what he claimed were the full results of the studies, which in his words has been suppressed by Tito's government in the name of brotherhood and unity, in order to put less emphasis on the crimes of the Ustashe.^[165][166] According to Živanović, the research gave strong support to the victim counts of more than 500,000, with estimates of 700,000-800,000 being realistic, stating that in every mass grave there are 800 skeletons.^[164]

Victim lists

• The Jasenovac Memorial Area maintains a list of the names of 80,914 Jasenovac victims, including 45,923 Serbs, 16,045 Romanies, 12,765 Jews, 4,197 Croats, 1,113 Bosnian Muslims and 871 people of some other ethnicities. The memorial estimates total deaths at 85,000 to 100,000.^[167]

• The Belgrade Museum of the Holocaust keeps a list of the names of 80,022 victims (mostly from Jasenovac), including approximately 52,000 Serbs, 16,000 Jews, 12,000 Croats and 10,000 Romanies..

• Antun Miletić, a researcher at the Military Archives in Belgrade, has collected data on Jasenovac since 1979.^[168] His list contains the names of 77,200 victims, of which 41,936 are Serbs.^[168]

• In 1998, the Bosniak Institute published SFR Yugoslavia's final List of war victims from the Jasenovac camp (created in 1992).^[30] The list contained the names of 49,602 victims at Jasenovac, including 26,170 Serbs, 8,121 Jews, 5,900 Croats, 1471 Romanies, 787 Bosnian Muslims, 6,792 of unidentifiable ethnicity, and some listed simply as "others".^[30] Another list from that institution, naming victims that died between April and November 1944, lists 4,892 names.^[169]

Estimates by Holocaust institutions

The Yad Vashem center claims that more than 500,000 Serbs were murdered in Croatia in horribly sadistic ways, 250,000 were expelled, and another 200,000 were forced to convert to Catholicism in the NDH^[170] including those who were killed at Jasenovac.^[146] The same figures are concluded by the Simon-Wiesentall center. Thus Menachem Shelach and Israel Gutman conclude at "the encyclopedia of the holocaust":

"Some six hundred thousand people were murdered at Jasenovac, mostly Serbs, Jews, Gypsies, and opponents of the Ustase regime. The number of Jewish victims was between twenty thousand and twenty-five thousand, most of whom were murdered there up to August 1942, when deportation of the Croatian Jews to Auschwitz for extermination began." (Entry in Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, edited by Israel Gutman, vol.1, 1995, pp.739-740)"

On the other hand, however, as of 2009, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum estimates that the Ustaša regime murdered between 66,000 and 99,000 people of all ethnicities (but mostly Serbs) in Jasenovac between 1941 and 1945, and that during the period of Ustaša rule, a total of between 330,000 and 390,000 ethnic Serbs and more than 30,000 Croatian Jews were killed either in Croatia or at Auschwitz-Birkenau^[36]

Statistical estimates

In the 1980s, calculations were done by Serb statistician Bogoljub Kočović, and by Croat economist Vladimir Žerjavić, who claimed that total number of victims in Yugoslavia was less than 1.7 million, an official estimate at the time, both concluding that the number of victims was around one million. Žerjavić calculated furthermore, claiming that the number of victims in the Independent State of Croatia was between 300,000 and 350,000, including 80,000 victims in Jasenovac, as well as thousands of deaths in other camps and prisons.^[171] Kočović, who made an estimate of the total number of victims, accused Žerjavić of being motivated by nationalism.

However, these estimates have been dismissed as biased and unreliable especially on the Serbian side. The mere 0.1% change of the (unknown) birth rate would contribute more to the number of victims than the Žerjavić's claim of the number of Serbs killed in Jasenovac (50,000) and his calculation has a deficiency rate of 30%. Žerjavić has been dismissed as a nationalist even by Kočović, and his estimates of number of victims in the Bosnian war of the 90s (300,000 killed) was three times greater than ICTY data and Bosnian official estimates after the war, and sheds light on problems with his credibility. Accused by some Croatian historians of being a plagiarist and the 'court statistician'.^[172]

Commentators in Serbia criticized these estimates as far too low, since the demographic calculations assumed arbitrarily that the growth rate for Serbs in Bosnia (which was part of the Independent State of Croatia during the war time) was equal to the total growth rate throughout the former Yugoslavia (1.1% at the time). According to Serbian sources, however, the actual growth rate in this region was 2.4% (in 1921-1931) and 3.5% (in 1949-1953). This method is considered very unreliable by critics because there is no reliable data on total births during this period, yet the results depend strongly on the birth rate - just a change of 0.1% in birth rate changes the victim count by 50,000. According to the census, the number of Serbs between last prewar ([1931]) and first post war (1948) census has gone up from 1,028,139 to around 1,200,000. The Yugoslav Federal Bureau of Statistics has in 1964 created list of World War II victims with 597,323 names and deficiency estimated at 20-30% which is giving between 750,000 and 780,000 victims. Together with estimated 200,000 killed collaborators and quislings, the total number would reach about one million. This Yugoslav Federal Bureau of Statistics list was declared a state secret in 1964 and it was published only in 1989.^[150]

Camp officials and their fate

Some of the camp officials and their post-war fate are listed below:

• Miroslav Majstorović, an Ustaša infamous for his command periods in Jasenovac and Stara-Gradiska,^[173] named "Fra Satana" (Father Satan) for his cruelty and Christian upbringing, was captured by the Yugoslav communist forces, tried and executed in 1946.
• Maks Luburić was the commandant of the Ustaška Odbrana, or Ustaše defense, thus being held responsible for all crimes committed under his supervision in Jasenovac, which he visited two-three times a month or so,^[174] fled to Spain, but was assassinated by a Yugoslav agent in 1969.
• Dinko Šakić fled to Argentina, but was eventually extradited, tried and sentenced, in 1999, by Croatian authorities to 20 years in prison, dying in prison in 2008.
• Petar Brzica was an Ustaša officer who, in the night of 29 August 1942, allegedly slaughtered 1,360 people. Brzica's fellow Ustaša also took part in that crime, as part of a competition of throat cutting. Brzica is also known for having killed an inmate by beating him, on the departure of administrator Ivica Matkovic, in March 1943.^[175] Brzica's post-war fate is unknown.

Later events

Yugoslav Marshal Josip Broz Tito never visited the site, as he sought to make the people of Yugoslavia forget the Ustaše crimes in the name of "brotherhood and unity" in Yugoslavia.^[176] This policy continued to modern times.^[177]

The Socialist Republic of Croatia adopted a new law on the Jasenovac Memorial Area in 1990, shortly before the first democratic elections in the country.^[178] The Jasenovac Memorial Museum was temporarily abandoned during the Yugoslav wars when it was taken over by the rebel Republic of Serb Krajina.^[179] In November 1991, Simo Brdar, a former associate director of the Memorial, stole the documentation from the museum and brought it to Bosnia and Herzegovina. Brdar kept the documents until 2001, when he transferred them to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, with the help of SFOR and the government of Republika Srpska.

Moshe Katsav, traveled to Jasenovac in 2003, as the first Israeli head of state to officially visit the country.^[180]

The New York City Parks Department, the Holocaust Park Committee and the Jasenovac Research Institute, with the help of US Congressman Anthony Weiner, established a public monument to the victims of Jasenovac in April 2005 (the sixtieth anniversary of the liberation of the camps.) The dedication ceremony was attended by ten Yugoslavian Holocaust survivors, as well as diplomats from Serbia, Bosnia and Israel. It remains the only public monument to Jasenovac victims outside of the Balkans. Annual commemorations are held there every April.

The Jasenovac Memorial Museum reopened in November 2006 with a new exhibition designed by the Croatian architect, Helena Paver Njirić, and an Educational Center designed by the firm Produkcija. The Memorial Museum features an interior of rubber-clad steel modules, video and projection screens, and glass cases displaying artifacts from the camp. Above the exhibition space, which is quite dark, is a field of glass panels inscribed with the names of the victims. Helena Njirić won the first prize of the 2006 Zagreb Architectural Salon for her work on the museum.^[181] The new exhibition is however seen as scandalous by some, notably Efraim Zuroff, due to the removal of the Ustaše killing instruments from the display and a possible intent to minimise the crimes committed there.^{[182][183][184]}

Israeli President Shimon Peres visited Jasenovac on 25.07.2010 dubbing it "demonstration of sheer sadism".^{[180][185][186]}

Notes

See also

• Stara Gradiška concentration camp
• Sisak children's concentration camp
• Kragujevac massacre
• List of Nazi-German concentration camps
• Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics
• Research Materials: Max Planck Society Archive
• Shark Island Extermination Camp
• Holocaust
• World War II casualties
• Bleiburg massacre

References

1. The Yugoslav Auschwitz and the Vatican, Vladimir Dedijer (Editor), Harvey Kendall (Translator) Prometheus Books, 1992.
2. Witness to Jasenovac's Hell Ilija Ivanovic, Wanda Schindley (Editor), Aleksandra Lazic (Translator) Dallas Publishing, 2002
3. Crimes in the Jasenovac Camp, State Commission investigation of crimes of the occupiers and their collaborators in Croatia, Zagreb, 1946.
4. Ustasha Camps by Mirko Percen, Globus, Zagreb, 1966. Second expanded printing 1990.
5. Ustashi and the Independent State of Croatia 1941-1945, by Fikreta Jelic-Butic, Liber, Zagreb, 1977.
6. Romans, J. Jews of Yugoslavia, 1941- 1945: Victims of Genocide and Freedom Fighters, Belgrade, 1982
7. Antisemitism in the anti-fascist Holocaust: a collection of works, The Jewish Center, Zagreb, 1996.
8. The Jasenovac Concentration Camp, by Antun Miletic, Volumes One and Two, Belgrade, 1986. Volume Three, Belgrade, 1987. Second edition, 1993.
9. Hell's Torture Chamber by Djordje Milica, Zagreb, 1945.
10. Die Besatzungszeit das Genozid in Jugoslawien 1941-1945 by Vladimir Umeljic, Graphics High Publishing, Los Angeles, 1994.
11. Srbi i genocidni XX vek (Serbs and 20th century, Ages of Genocide) by Vladimir Umeljić, (vol 1, vol 2), Magne, Belgrade, 2004. ISBN 86-903763-1-3
12. Magnum Crimen, by Viktor Novak, Zagreb, 1948.
13. Kaputt, by Curzio Malaparte, translated by Cesare Foligno, Northwestern University Press Evanston, Illinois, 1999.
14. Der kroatische Ustascha-Staat 1941-1945, by Ladislaus Hory and Martin Broszat, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1964.

External links

• Holocaust Encyclopedia: Jasenovac, hosted at USHMM
• US Holocaust Memorial Museum: Jasenovac
• Spomen Područje Jasenovac
• Jasenovac Memorial Museum
• Jasenovac commander Šakić trial documents by Republic of Croatia
• Concentration camp Jasenovac, Archive of Republika Srpska
• Jasenovac at the Simon Wiesenthal Center Museum of Tolerance
• Pavelic Papers' Documents on Jasenovac (includes "Encyclopedia of the Holocaust" quotes)
• Jasenovac Committee of the Holy Assembly of Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church
• Kosta Brandic Archives: Jasenovac
• Jasenovac Research Institute
• Eichmann Trial - Alexander Arnon testimony
• Unscrambling the History of a Nazi Camp, The New York Times, 6 December 2006
• New expanded Jasenovac Memorial opened
• Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team Jasenovac Page
• Jadovno,Slana and Metajna Concentration camps

See Also

• List of Nazi-German concentration camps