Jasenovac concentration camp

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Jasenovac concentration camp (Croatian, Serbian: Logor Jasenovac; Cyrillic script: Логор Јасеновац) was the largest concentration and extermination camp in Independent State of Croatia during World War II. It was established by the Ustaše (Ustasha) regime in August 1941. It was dismantled in April 1945. Unlike other concentration and extermination camps, in Jasenovac the largest number of victims were ethnic Serbs, whom Ante Pavelić considered the main racial enemy of the NDH. The camp also held Jews, Roma, and large numbers of Croatian resistance members, most notably Partisans.

Jasenovac was a complex of five subcamps and three smaller camps spread over 240 square kilometers (93 square miles) on the banks of the Sava river. The largest camp was at Jasenovac, about 100 km (62 miles) 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.

Prelude

Some of the first legal orders of the NDH reflected the acceptance of the ideology of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, with an emphasis placed on Croatian national issues. The "Legal order for the defence of the people and the state" dated April 17 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 April 30 1941, as well as the "Order of the creation and definition of the racial-political committee" dated June 4 1941. The enforcement of these decrees was done not only through the regular court system, but also through new special courts and mobile court-martials with extended jurisdiction.

When existing jails could no longer sustain the rate of new inmates, the Ustaša government started preparing the grounds what would become the Jasenovac concentration camp in July 1941. The Jasenovac complex was built between August 1941 and February 1942. The first two camps, Krapje and Bročica, were closed in November 1941.

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

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.

The Ustaše interned, tortured and executed men, women and children in Jasenovac. The largest number of victims were Serbs, but other victims included Jews, Bosniaks,Gypsies, and Croatian 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 Gypsies had no marks (this practice was later abandoned.). 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.

Living conditions

The living conditions in the camp were extremely severe: a meager diet, deplorable accommodations and cruel behavior by the Ustaše guards. The conditions improved only for short periods during visits by delegations, such as the press delegation that visited in February 1942 and a Red Cross delegation in June 1944.

Food: inmates of Jasenovac suffered of horrible malnutrition. The sorts of food they consumed changed during the camp's existance. In camp Brocice, inmates were given a "soup" made of hot water with strach for breakfast, beans for lunch and same for dinner (held in 6:00, 12:00 and 21:00 accordingly). Food in camp nr. III was at first better, potatoes instead of beans, but replaced in January or so to a single daily portion of thin "turnip soup". Food changed again, by the end of that year, to three daily portions of thin gruell made of water and starch.. Food changed again in September 1943, 1944, and in other occasions.
Water: Jasenovac was one of the few camps in the holocaust where there was an actual lack of potable water
Accomodations: In the first camps, Brocice and Krapje, inmates slept in standart concentration-camp barracks, with bunks in three levels. In camp nr. III, which housed some 3,000 inmates at any given time, inmates initiatly slept in the attics of the workshops, in an open depot assigned as a railway "tunnel" and in the open. Shortly thereafter, eight barracks were erected.. Inmates slept in six of these barracks, while the other two used as a "clinic" and "hospital", where ill inmates were concentrated to die or be liquidated.

Most of the Jews at Jasenovac were executed prior to August 1942, when the NDH started to deport them to the Auschwitz concentration camp. Jews had been sent to Jasenovac from all parts of Croatia after being gathered in Zagreb, and from Bosnia and Herzegovina after being gathered in Sarajevo. Some came directly from other cities and smaller towns.

Mass murder and cruelty

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 Partisans. Most of the men were killed at Jasenovac, the women were sent to forced labor in Germany, and the children were taken from their mothers; some were murdered and others were dispersed to Catholic orphanages.

On the night of August 29 1942, bets were made among the prison guards as to whom could liquidate the largest number of inmates. One of the guards, Petar Brzica reportedly cut the throats of some 1,360 newcommers or so with a butcher knife that became known as srbosjek ("serb-cutter"). The other participants, who admitted the deed to witnesses, were Ante Zrinusic, who killed some 600 inmates and Mile Friganovic, who gave a detail and consistant report of the incident . Friganovic admmitted to have killed some 1,100 people, of which he specificly tortured an old man, Vukasin, in forcing him, to bless Ante Pavelic, which he refused, although Friganovic would cut off his ears, nose and toungue after each refusal, eventually cutting his eyes, tearing his heart and slash his throat. The whole competition was also viewed by witness Dr. Nikola Nikolic

Prisoners remaining in Jasenovac were forced to drink water from the Sava river contaminated with ren (horseradish).

Systematic extermination of the victims

Besides sporadic killings and death under poor living conditions, inmates that arrived in Jasenovac were, in a large number of cases, set for systematic extermination, rather than being concentrated and killed thereafter due to health impairment or sporadic killings. An important criteria for this selection was, to begin with, the duration of detention the inmate was doomed for. Inmates who were sentenced to less than 3 years of incarceration passed a selection, and the strong and labor-capable men were kept alive. All inmates sentenced to 3 years or not sentenced at all were taken to liquidation regardless of their fitness. The systematic extermination took place in various forms and in varied locations. Some of the methods were machinic, following the example of their Nazi patrons, while some were "manual". The machinical means of extermination included:

Cremation: The Ustase cremated corpses, as well as living inmates, awake or stoned. The first cremations took place in the brick factory ovens as back as January 1942. Engineer Hinko Dominik Picilli further, perfected this method by turning 7 of the kiln's furnace chambers into more sophisticated crematories. . Crematories were also placed in Gradina acros the Sava. According to the State-commission, "there is no information that it ever went into operation". But later testimonies say otherwise . In later stages of the war, exhumation of bodies that were killed and buried during the camp's existance was also conducted.
Gassing and poisoning: The Ustase, in following the Nazi example, as set in Auschwitz and Sajmiste, tried to utilize 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 addressed as "green Thomas" . The method was later replaced with stationary gas-chambers with Zyklon-B and Sulphur monoxide

Manual methods, the Ustase's favorites, were liquidation that took part in utilizing sharp or blunt craftsmen tools: knives, saws, hammers and et cetra. 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 Axis expected defeat, were large. Therefore, the "Maks" Luburic devised a plan to utilize the crane as a gallow 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 than taken to the "Granik", where ballasts 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 ere they were tossed into the river alive.
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 underwent a 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 untill it became the main killing-ground in Jasenovac. Grave-sites were also located in Ustica and in Draksenic.
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. There are more evidence suggesting that killings took place there at that time and afterwards.

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 April 22, 600 prisoners revolted; 520 were killed and 80 escaped. Before abandoning the camp shortly after the prisoner revolt, the Ustaše killed the remaining prisoners, blasted and destroyed the buildings, guard-houses, 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, 200 to 600 Home Guard members captured by the Allied forces. The laborers completed destruction of the camp, leveling the site and dismantling the two-kilometer long, four-meter high wall that surrounded it.

Number of victims

There are various estimates about the number of victims who died in the Jasenovac camp. Estimates range from tens of thousands of deaths, which is the most commonly cited contemporary figure, to hundreds of thousands, which was the most common estimate prior to the 1990s.

The estimates vary due to lack of accurate records, the methods used for making estimates and sometimes, due to differing biases of the estimators. Examples of difficulties in compiling accurate counts include: cases where entire families were exterminated with no one left to submit their names to the lists; inclusion of names of people who were killed elsewhere, or who survived but were not heard of, or that were duplicates.

Lists of victims

The Jasenovac Memorial Area maintains a list of the names of 69,842 Jasenovac victims, including: 39,580 Serbs, 14,599 Roma, 10,700 Jews, 3,462 Croats, as well as people of some other ethnicities. The memorial puts estimations at minimum 85,000, and up to 100,000 or so. Former director, Simo Brdar, puts it at a minimal 360,000

The Belgrade Museum of the Holocaust keeps a list of the names of 80,022 victims (mostly from Jasenovac), including: around 52,000 Serbs, 16,000 Jews, 12,000 Croats and nearly 10,000 Roma.. Milan Bulajic, former director, estimates it at 500,000-700,000, and the Jasenovac research institute as 300-700,000.

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

In 1998, the Bosniak Institute published SFR Yugoslavia's last List of war victims from the Jasenovac camp from 1992. The list contained the names of 49,602 victims at Jasenovac, including 26,170 Serbs, 8,121 Jews, 5,900 Croats, 1471 Roma, 787 Muslims, 6,792 of unidentifiable ethnicity and the rest identified as "others".

Estimates by Holocaust institutions

The Yad Vashem center claims that over 500,000 Serbs were killed in the NDH , including those who were killed at Jasenovac, where approximately 600,000 victims of all ethnicities were killed. Some Croatian commentators and holocaust revisionists have criticized these victim counts as exaggerated. . The same figures are concluded by the Simon-Wiesentall center. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, also citated in quote by the Jewish virtual library, the victim figures are as follows:

Between its establishment in 1941 and its evacuation in April 1945, Croat authorities murdered thousands of people at Jasenovac. Among the victims were: between 45,000 and 52,000 Serb residents of the so-called Independent State of Croatia; between 8,000 and 20,000 Jews; between 8,000 and 15,000 Roma (Gypsies); and between 5,000 and 12,000 ethnic Croats and Muslims, who were political and religious opponents of the regime.
The Croat authorities murdered between 330,000 and 390,000 ethnic Serb residents of Croatia and Bosnia during the period of Ustaša rule; more than 30,000 Croatian Jews were killed either in Croatia or at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

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 in times considered contemporary because German and Ustase sources tend to exaggerate, but the comparison of all different sources can give a reliable portrayt 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:

"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 the elderly), 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. (Neubacher, Dr. Hermann. Special Assignment in the Southeast, p. 18-30.)

Italian generals, who were more overwhelmed by the atrocious Ustase slaughter, also reported of similar figures to their commanders . The Vatican's sources also speak of similar figures, E.g. of 350,000 Serbs slaughtered by the end of 1942 (Eugen Tisserant )

The Ustase themselves gave more` exaggerated assuptions 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 on October 9 1942 (keep in mind that Jasenovac operated untill 1945). During the banquet which followed, he reported with pride: "We have slaughtered here at Jasenovac more people than the Ottoman Empire was able to do during its occupation of Europe." . Although the account may appear somewhat exgratted, its veracity can be found in several other Ustase accounts: a circular of the Ustase general headquarters that reads: "the concentration and labor camp in Jasenovac can receive an unlimited number of internees"). In the same spirit, Miroslav Filipovic-Majstorovic, once captured by Yugoslav forces, addmitted, in attempt to somewaht minimize the rate of crimes committed in Jasenovac (e.g. Miroslav claimed to have personally killed 100 people, extremlly understated), that during his three months of administration, 20,000 to 30,000 people died , whereas in other sources it is displayed as 40,000 .

A report of the National Committee of Croatia for the investigation of the crimes of the occupation forces and their collaborators, dated November 15 1945, which was commissioned by the new government of Yugoslavia under Tito, stated that 500,000-600,000 people were killed at the Jasenovac complex. These estimates were supported by the government of Yugoslavia while it existed. These figures were cited by researcher Israel Gutman in the Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, by the Simon Wiesenthal Center and others. 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 appears to be authentic, since it matches all other sources regarding to the atrocities committed in Jasenovac. Nevertheless, if the numbers were inflated, the gap was probably not substantialy large. 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. 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. Statistics Phd's Vladimir Zerjavic and Bogljub Kovcevic present them as 1,000,000, while other sources present them as 1,400,000 .

Forensic sources

In the 1960s, exhumations of bodies and use of sampling methods was conducted at Jasenovac by a team of researchers. The team consisted of anthropologists, medical doctors, archaeologists and other experts, who had experience in similar research at Auschwitz and used the same methods. During the Yugoslav Wars, Serbian anthropologist, Srboljub Živanović, published what he claimed were the full results of the studies, which had allegedly 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. 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. Other team members assert that the Jasenovac researchers never discussed victim counts in preparing their report. However the number, of some 300,000 bodies being found and exhumed is considered reliable

Statistical estimates

In the 1980s, calculations were done independently by Croat economist Vladimir Žerjavić and Serb statistician Bogoljub Kočović, who each 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 claimed that number of victims in the Independent State of Croatia was between 300,000 and 350,000, including 80,000 victims in Jasnovac, as well as thousands of deaths in other camps and prisons. Kočović, who made an estimate of the total number of victims, accused Žerjavić of being motivated by nationalism: Zerjavic relies on the writings of Franjo Tudjman, a Croatian nationalist and holocaust revisionist. In the trail of Dinko Sakic, Zerjavic testified that the number of casualties is 85,000, as did Josip Jurcevcic, Sakic's defence witness. As Sakic, who also claimed no mass-atrocities took place in the camp, was indeed found guilty, Jurcevic testimony on the death rate, as that of Zerjavic, are held as non-reliable.

Commentators in Serbia criticized these estimates as too low, since the demographic calculations assumed 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.

Various

Logically, the number of casualties in Jasenovac is affected by several factors:

the camp's size: Jasenovac was a complex of various camps, including Krapje and Brocice, Ciglana, Stara-Gradiska, Sisak, Djakovo, Jablanac, Mlaka, Draksenic, Gradina and Ustice, Dubica, Kosutarica, Jasenovac's tannery. These camps and mass-grave yards covered 120 square miles. This fact is also important since in the list of nmaes found in the Jasenovac memorial, only 4000 victims are of Stara-Gradiska, which points just how partial the list really is.
The length of the camp's existance: Jasenovac stood since mid-August 1941 to May 1945. Mass-extermination took place in mass in the whole of 1941-1942, and again in the second half of 1944. From March to December 1943, a "lull" took place when almost no mass-atrocities took place, whilst death due ot health impairment or in indevidual slaugther (to wit, that any gaurd could kill any inmate at any given time) continued.
The camp's classification: besides being a concentration camp, Jasenovac was an extemination camp. For comparison, Belzec and Kulmhof, both small and both existed for a significantly shorter period of time, exterminated over 300,000 and 128,000 accordingly.
The camp's population: Jasenovac housed and used as a place of extermination for Serbs, Jews, Roma, Sinti, Slovens and other ethnicities, whereas in all extermination camps only Jews and Roma were exterminated, therefore, the number of casualties should be in accordance.

Additionaly, Crematories were constructed in Jasenovac as back as January 1942, due to difficulties of burial, thus implying the massive death rate at hand there. The same goes for gassing that also took place in Stara-Gradiska later that year, in both chambers and vans.

Camp officials and their fate

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

Miroslav Majstorović, an Ustasa infamous for his command periods in Jasenovac and Stara-Gradiska, named "Fra Sotona" (brother devil) for his cruellty and christian heritage, was captured by the Yugoslav communist forces, tried and executed in 1946.
Maks Luburić was the commandant of the Ustaska Obrna, or Ustase defense, thus being held responsible for all crimes committed under his supervision in Jasenovac, which he visited two-three times a month or so. 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 Ustasa officer who, in the night of August 29, 1942, alledgly slaughtered 1,360 people or so, Brzica's fellow Ustasa 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, March 1943. He latere fled to the United States. His name was on a list of 59 Nazis living in the US given by a Jewish organization to the Immigration and Naturalization Service during the 1970s. His fate after that is not publicly known.

Recognition of nations and foundation the the horrors of Jasenovac

Nazi Germany

The independent state of Croatia was created and supported by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, thus it relied on their racial and political doctorines. Jasenovac had a role in the Nazi "final solution", as well as to the extermination of the Romany and the ethnic cleansing of Serbs. The Nazi institutions that directed the Ustase Genocide were:

The office of foriegn affairs: presented in Croatia by Siegfried Kasche.
The S.S.: presented a Gestapo official known by the Jewish witnesses as Miller.
Other institutions, the Reichfuhrung and the Wehrmacht.

The Nazis encouraged all anti-Jewish and anti-Roma actions the Ustase took. They also showed support of the Ustase anti-Serb policy. After a short period of time, the Nazis began to imply the Ustase of their Genocide intentions, as best illustrated by the speech Hitler gave to Slavko Kvaternik, in the time of their meeting, in July, 21, 1941:

The Jews are the bane of the human kind. If the Jews will be allowed to do as they will, like they are permitted in their Soviet heaven, than 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 enduty the existance of a single Jewish family, that familiy would eventually become the center of a new plot. If there will be no more Jews in Europe, nothing will hold the unification of the europian nations... this sort of people cannot be intergrated in the firm of the social order or into an organised nation. They are parasites on the body of a healthy society, that live off of explusion of descent people. One cannot expect of them to fit to 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 in the battlefront, it would be none-the-less but 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 to be released."( Hilgruber, Staatsmanner und Diplomaten bei Hitler, p. 611)

Thus the Nazis directed the Ustase to committ thier henious Genocide behind the walls of closed extermination camps. In the Wansee conference it was told that it should be brought to the attention of the Croatian government that Germany is willing to transport its Jews southwards, but it is also mentioned 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".

This is the background to the extermination that took place in Jasenovac, that was a concentration camp in the form of the Nazi camps. Aside from the identity in some of the means of extermination, the Nazis often arrenged the imprisonment or transfer of inmates to Jasenovac. Kasche's emissary, Major Knehe, was part of a delegation of the Axis forces that came to the camp in February 6, 1942. Kasche thus 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.
(Shelach, p. 195)

It thus appears that the Nazis examined Jasenovac, possibly due to doubts they had in refrence to the 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".. It remains unclear whether Jasenovac was to be a transit camp to Auschwitz or rather a place where the Jews will be exterminated, thus needless to deport them, as in Sajmiste. Stara-Gradiska was the place used for transit of victims to Auschwitz, but here the refrence is of camp Ciglana in specific. Anyhow, it is clear that the decision of general Bader caused the great extermination of Serbs in Jasenovac, as he ordered that the refugees be taken to Jasenovac. And thus Jasenovac was expended and it was told that "Jasenovac concentration and labor camp can no hold an infinate number of prisoners". But soon thereafter the German's suspicions became more acute, as they feared that the Genocide of Serbs may take presidence over the extermination of Jews and that Italian and catholic influences will sway the Ustase from killing the Jews.

Thus they began searching for the possibily of killing the Jews in Auschwitz, where the extermination will be easier and the profits will fall into German hands. Yet, Jasenovac remained as place where Jews who cannot be deported will be interned and killed. In this way, while Jews were deportated from Tenje, two deportations were also made to Jasenovac. It is also illustrated by the report sent by Hans Helm to 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 deportated".. 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: "Schmidlin 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"

Later events

Yugoslav Marshal Josip Broz never visited the site.

The Jasenovac Memorial Museum was temporarily abandoned during the Yugoslav wars. In November 1991, Simo Brdar, a former associate director of the Memorial, collected the documentation from the museum and brought it to Bosnia and Herzegovina. Brdr 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.

Croatian president Franjo Tudjman made an official visit to the site in 1994.

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 re-opened 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.

Notes

*Bosniaks in Jasenovac Concentration Camp—Congress of Bosniak Intellectuals, Sarajevo. ISBN 9789958471025. October 2006. (Holocaust Studies)
Djuro Schwartz,"in the death camps of Jasenovac"(במחנות המוות של יאסנובץ, קובץ מחקרים כ"ה של יד-ושם), p. 329
Gutman Israel (Ed.), "Encyclopedia of the holocaust", vol. 1, p. 739
Djuro Schwartz,"in the death camps of Jasenovac", p. 299-300
Cadik Danon, "The smell of human flesh".
Lazar Lukajc:"Fratri i Ustase Kolju", interview with Borislav Seva on pages 625-639
Dinko Sakic indictment(as presented in http://public.carnet.hr/sakic/documents/optuznica/optuznica.html), overview of witnesses' testimonies, witnesses Mara Cvetko, Jakov Finci and others
State-commission for the investigation of the Ustasa crimes and their collaborators, P. 19-20, 40.
Djuro Schwartz, p. 299, 302-303, 306, 313, 315, 319-320, 322
Sakic indictment, Dragan Roller testimony.
State-commission, P. 20, 39 (testimonies: Hinko Steiner,Marijan Setinc, Sabetaj Kamhi, Kuhada Nikola)
Sakic indictment, testimonies: Dragan Roller, Anton Milkovic, Mara Cvetko, Jakov Finci, Adolf Friedrich and Abinun Jesua
Djuro Schwartz, p. 316,324-328, 330
Cadik Danon, "the smell of human flesh", as presented here (under the title "hunger"): http://www.srpska-mreza.com/History/ww2/book/Danon/index.html#doc
Dinko Sakic trail, Ljubomir Saric testimony,15.4.1999, on: http://public.carnet.hr/sakic/hinanews/arhiva/9904/hina-15-g.html
in The Role of the Vatican in the Breakup of the Yugoslav State, by Dr. Milan Bulajić, Belgrade, 1994: 156-157; from a Jan., 1943, interview with Mile Friganović by psychiatrist Dr. Nedo Zec, who was also an inmate at Jasenovac. http://www.jasenovac-info.com/cd/biblioteka/wschindley-jasenovac_en.html
Avro Manhatten, "The Vatican's holocaust", p. 48.
State-commission, p. 9-11, 46-47
Cadik Danon,"The smell of human flesh", chapter 1,"the first day". See here: http://www.srpska-mreza.com/History/ww2/book/Danon/FirstDay.html
Avro Manhatten, "The Vatican's holocaust", chapter 4, "The nightmare of a nation". See here: http://www.reformation.org/holoc4.html
various testimonies in the Dinko Sakic trail and indictment, as presented here: http://public.carnet.hr/sakic/
Lukajic, "Fratri i Ustase Kolju", interview with Borislav Seva, "they threw Rade Zrnic into the brick factory fires alive!". Hereby presented as follows in here: http://www.srpska-mreza.com/History/ww2/book/Lukajic/Borislav_Sheva.html
C. Savic column on Serbianna.com/Jasenovac ( http://www.serbianna.com/columns/savich/007.shtml ). Sado Cohen-Davko testimony.
Savic, Jasenovac. Testimonies: Jakov Atijas, Jakov Kablij, Sado Cohen-Davko
State-commission, p. 14, 27, 31, 42-43, 70
testimonies in the Dinko Sakic case
Cadik Danon, "The smell of human flesh",chapter: "the smell of human flesh". http://www.srpska-mreza.com/History/ww2/book/Danon/Furnace.html
interview with Borislav Seva
Shorthand notes of the Ljubo Milos case. Also in: indictment of Ante Pavelic and presented in "The Vatican's holocaust" here: http://www.reformation.org/holoc4.html
Dr. Edmund Paris, "Genocide in satelite Croatia", p. 132.
State-commission, P. 43
Sakic trail, Tibor Lovrencic testimony, 30.3.99, as presented here: http://public.carnet.hr/sakic/hinanews/arhiva/9903/hina-30-t.html
Djuro Schwartz, p. 331-332
Dinko Sakic trail, Simo Klaic testimony, 23.3.99
Dragan Roller, statement to the press during the Dinko Sakic case, new-york times, May 2nd, 1998: "War crimes horrors revive as Croat faces a possible trial", by Chris Hedges
http://www.reformation.org/archive.html , Alberto Rivera testimony from: "The Yugoslav Auschwitz and the Vatican"
Savic, Jasenovac, testimonies: Sado Cohen-Davko,Misha Danon, Jakov Atijas
"Zlocini Okupatora Nijhovih Pomagaca Harvatskoj Protiv Jevrija". Pages 144-145
Shorthand notes of the Ljubo Milos case, p. 292-293. Antun Vrban himself admmitted of his crimes: "Q. And what did you do with the children A. The weaker ones we poisoned Q. How? A. We led them into a yard... and into it we threw gas Q. What gas? A. Zyklon."(Qtd. M. Shelach (Ed.),"The History of the holocaust: Yugoslavia")
Sakic trail, testimonies of witnesses: Milka Zabicic, Jesua Abinun, Jakov Finci, Simo Klaic and others
"Blank pages of the holocaust"
M. Persen, "Ustasi Logore", p. 105
Secanja Jevreja na logor Jasenovac", p. 40-41,58, 76, 151
State-commission, p. 38-39
Dragutin Skrgatic testifies in the trail of Dinko Sakic, 14.4.99 (http://public.carnet.hr/sakic/hinanews/arhiva/9904/hina-14-f.html).
Illija Ivanovic, "witness to Jasenovac hell", "the last day in Jasenovac"
Timebase Multimedia Chronography(TM) - Timebase 1945
Southeast Times: Exhibition aims to show truth about Jasenovac
^ Anzulovic, Branimir. Heavenly Serbia: From Myth to Genocide, Hurst & Company. London, 1999
^ Bošnjački Institut. Jasenovac: Žrtve rata prema podacima statističkog zavoda Jugoslavije. Bošnjački Institut Sarajevo, Sarajevo 1998.
http://www1.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%205930.pdf
Yad Vashem
Professor Josip Pecaric, Serbian myth about Jasenovac (summary)
Marijana Cota, “The Šakić Case - Disinformation and Ill Will”, The Home Club of the Bosnian Posavina, Zagreb 1999, p. 136.
Jasenovac
Le Operazioni della unita Italiane in Jugislavja. Rome 1978. pp. 141-148
C. Falconi,The silence of pius XII, London 1970,p. 3308
"Dr. Edmund Paris, "Genocide in satelite Croatia", P. 132
Dinko Sakic indictment, case file page 1298
Sakic trail, testimony of Simo Klaic, 23.3.99,http://public.carnet.hr/sakic/hinanews/arhiva/9903/hina-23-m.html
State-commission, p. 62
Avro Manhatten, "the Vatican's holocaust
Jasenovac, Savic\collumns\serbianna.com, confession of Miroslav Filipovic- Majstorovic at http://www.serbianna.com/columns/savich/007.shtml
^ Vladimir Zerjavic - How the number of 1.7 million casualties of the Second World War has been derived
M. Shelach (ed.), "The history of the holocaust:Yugoslavia. Jerusalem, 1999. P. 434"
Jasenovac - Donja Gradina: Večan pomen Jasenovac
Politika Newspapers & Magazines d.o.o. - Ilustrovana Politika
Vladimir Zerjavic - Anthropological Survey
State-commission for the investigation of the crimes of the occupation forces and their collabortors, p. 31-32 as hereby posted on: http://pavelic-papers.com/features/jasenovac1946.pdf
State-commission, p. 28-29
State-commission, p. 50,72
Wansee, Nuremberg trail documents, NG-2568-G
M. Shelach, p. 166-169, 171, 185-189, 192, 194-196, 208, 442-443
Tibor Lovrencic testimony, trail of Dinko Sakic
Dj. Schwartz, p. 301
A.A. Nachlass Kasche- 105
Dinko Sakic indictment, case file p- 1603
Eichmann crimes in Yugoslavia: facts and views, p. 8-9
M. Persen,"Ustaski Logori", p. 97
President Mesić in Vojnić
"Clear denouncement of crimes in Jasenovac and Bleiburg will stabilize Croatia and its position in the world."Nacional, 2002.

References

The Yugoslav Auschwitz and the Vatican, Vladimir Dedijer (Editor), Harvey Kendall (Translator) Prometheus Books, 1992.
Witness to Jasenovac's Hell Ilija Ivanovic, Wanda Schindley (Editor), Aleksandra Lazic (Translator) Dallas Publishing, 2002
Crimes in the Jasenovac Camp, State Commission investigation of crimes of the occupiers and their collaborators in Croatia, Zagreb, 1946.
Ustasha Camps by Mirko Percen, Globus, Zagreb, 1966. Second expanded printing 1990.
Ustashi and the Independent State of Croatia 1941-1945, by Fikreta Jelic-Butic, Liber, Zagreb, 1977.
Romans, J. Jews of Yugoslavia, 1941- 1945: Victims of Genocide and Freedom Fighters, Belgrade, 1982
Antisemitism in the anti-fascist Holocaust: a collection of works, The Jewish Center, Zagreb, 1996.
The Jasenovac Concentration Camp, by Antun Miletic, Volumes One and Two, Belgrade, 1986. Volume Three, Belgrade, 1987. Second edition, 1993.
Hell's Torture Chamber by Djordje Milica, Zagreb, 1945.
Die Besatzungszeit das Genozid in Jugoslawien 1941-1945 by Vladimir Umeljic, Graphics High Publishing, Los Angeles, 1994.
Srbi i genocidni XX vek (Serbs and XX century, Ages of Genocide) by Vladimir Umeljić, (vol 1, vol 2), Magne, Belgrade, 2004. ISBN 86-903763-1-3
Magnum Crimen, by Viktor Novak, Zagreb, 1948.
Caput, by Curzio Malaparte, Napoli, 1943.
Der koatische Ustasa-Staat 1941-1945, Schriftenreihe der Vierteljahrshefte fűr Zeitgeschichte, by L. Horry and Martin Broszat, Stuttgart.

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