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JASENOVAC MEMORIAL SITE JasenovacMemorial Site, with the Memorial Museum, was founded in 1968 at the suggestion of the Federation of War Veterans' Organisations (SUBNOR) of the Socialist Republic of Croatia, then part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
Jasenovac Concentration Camp Jasenovac Concentration Camp (named after nearby village) was a place of imprisonment, forced labor and executions, primarily for the Serb Christian Orthodox population which was, with the goal of creating an ethnically clean territory, to be completely eradicated from the Independent State of Croatia, as well as for Jews and Roma, who were discriminated against by racial laws.
A large number of Croats was killed in the camp as well – communists and Anti-Fascists, members of resistance movement (People’s Liberation Army), as well as members of their families and other opponents of the Ustasha regime.
Historical background - The Ustashas The organisation calledUstasha – a Croatian Revolutionary Organisation was started in the 1930’s in Croatian émigré circles (in Italy, Austria and Hungary). Members of the Ustashaorganisation were usually supporters of the policies of the Croatian Rights Party, whose leader, Ante Pavelic, had emigrated to Italy in January 1929. During the years that followed, the movement gathered in strength. The first military training camps were set up and a number of terrorist operations carried out (for example the organisation of the assassination of King Alexander Karadjordjevićof Yugoslavia in 1934 in Marseilles). After the collapse of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in April 1941, the Independent State of Croatia was created, ruled by the Ustasha movement with its leader, the Poglavnik, Ante Pavelic.
Historical background - Independent State of Croatia The Independent State of Croatia was founded on 10th of April 1941, with the full support of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. During the four years of its existence, the Independent State of Croatia was ruled by the Ustasha movement and its leader (Poglavnik), Ante Pavelic, who had made plans for the extermination of the Serbs while still an émigré. On 7 June 1941, on the occasion of Pavelić’s first visit to Hitler, the Ustasha movement gained the full support of Nazi Germany for carrying out genocidal policies aimed at the Serbian population.
The Victims The essence of the Ustasha movement and its policies in the Independent State of Croatia was embodied in the foundation of Jasenovac Concentration Camp. Jasenovac was a camp of death and a camp of evil. The Ustasha camps were founded for the extermination of certain nationalities, religious groups and ideological enemies of the Ustasha policies of genocide and terror. The JasenovacUstasha crimes were inflicted on tens of thousands of Serbs, Roma, Jews and members of other ethnicitys who lived on teritory of Independent State of Croatia. They were men, women and children.
Manner in which prisinors were killed Jasenovac Concentration Camp was very brutal place. Inside the camp there were no gas chambers. Victims were killed in primitive ways, often with eye to eye contact between perpetrator nad victim, by cutting victim's throats, hiting victim to the head with wooden mallets, hanging, beating or starving them to death and forcing them into hard physical labour.
Breakout from the camp In April 1945, comander of the camp ordered the liquidation of all the remaining prisoners. The camp and the village of Jasenovac were to be demolished and burnt to the ground, in order to cover up the traces of the crimes committed. The last group of around 700 women was liquidated on the evening of 21 April 1945. The same evening, the camp commandant ordered the remaining 1,073 men to be moved to the building of the women’s camp (in the eastern section of the camp). During the evening, the group leaders were selected and liquidated, and since the others guessed what was about to happen, about 600 men, led by Ante Bakotic, decided to break out from the camp on that rainy Sunday morning, 22 April 1945. Ninety-two survived. The same day, only a few hours later, the prisoners in the Tannery attempted a breakout. Of 167 inmates, only 11 were saved.
Commemoration As of 1966, aCommemoration is always held on Sunday closest to 22 April, the day of breakout of inmates from the camp in 1945.
Demolition of the camp Demolition of the buildings on the site of Jasenovac Concentration Camp began when Camp was mined and destroyed by Ustasha units as they withdrew from the Camp in April 1945. Immidiatly after the end of the Second World War demolition of the camp buildings continued and every trace of the existance of the camp was destroyed by the new Yugoslav goverment. The last visible remains of the camp were removed during the landscaping of the memorial complex and the construction of the Jasenovac Memorial Site.
Foundation of Jasenovac Memorial Site and it’s activities JasenovacMemorial Site, with the Memorial Museum, was founded in 1968 at the suggestion of the Federation of War Veterans' Organisations (SUBNOR) of the Socialist Republic of Croatia, then part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Jasenovac Memorial Site was founded with the task of compiling, scientifically processing and exhibiting museum and archive material concerning the UstashaJasenovac Concentration Camp, to care for the memorial area and the mass graves of the former Ustasha camp and, by telling the truth about what happened to the victims of the Jasenovac camps, to build an attitude of respect for human differences among young people today. The activities of the Memorial Museum include co-operating with survivors, projects involving exhibitions and publications, as well as organising commemorative events to honour the Jasenovac victims.
Jasenovac Memorial Site during Croatian War of Independence 1991-1995 • In October 1991, joined forces of Yugoslav National Army and local Serbs occupied village of Jasenovac and Jasenovac Memorial Site. During that period Jasenovac was part of self declared state Republic of Serbian Krajina and it wasn't controled by official Croatian goverment. • The building of the Memorial Museum was prepared for evacuation, but before its contents could be moved to an area outside the war zone, Jasenovac and the Memorial Site were occupied on 8 October 1991. The museum inventory was transferred to Bosanska Dubica and from there, to Banja Luka, both citys in Bosnia-Herzegovina which were controled by Bosnian Serb forces. Until May 1995, Jasenovac Memorial Site was inaccessibleto museum staff and conservationists. • In a report by an observation mission of the European Community published in May 1994, an inspection of the condition of cultural monuments and museums in the occupied part of the Republic of Croatia revealed that the Memorial Museum was completely empty and that there was no information on the whereabouts of the Jasenovac Memorial Museum inventory, but that the memorial area and memorial itself had not been damaged. • In May 1995 Croatian Army started offensive and regained control of village Jasenovac and Jasenovac Memorial Site. Special commission of the Ministry of Culture responsible for listing and assessing war damage to cultural monuments confirmed the actual extent of the damage. It was confirmed that 7,705 museum exhibits had disappeared or been destroyed, along with about 2,500 titles from the library.
Renovation of Jasenovac Memorial Site • Using the microfilmed library inventory and in co-operation with the Republic of Croatia’s Ministry of Culture, complete, expert documentation was prepared as a basis for submitting a request for the return of the museum, archive and documentary inventory removed from Jasenovac Memorial museum. • The Ministry of Culture and Jasenovac Memorial Site sought the return of the museum inventory with the help of international institutions. On the basis of an agreement signed between the Holocaust Museum in Washington and the Ministry of Culture, part of the museum and archive inventory (7,705 items) which was being stored in Banja Luka, Bosnia-Herzegovina, was sent for safekeeping to the Holocaust Museum in Washington for one year, in October 2000, for the purposes of conservation, restoration and cataloguing. In December 2001 it was returned to the Memorial Site.
Memorial Museum The new exhibition in the Jasenovac Memorial Site Memorial Museum was formally opened on 27 November 2006. Since it was impossible to display all the museum and archive material in a space of only 350 m², it was decided to adopt a multimedia approach, i.e. to present the museum inventory using different media, including photographic prints and documents, glass cabinet displays, digital presentations on screens, audio-visual presentations of survivor witness statements, etc.
Education Centre The basic tasks of Jasenovac Memorial Site are to preserve the memory of the Jasenovac victims and to teach non-violence, democracy and human rights. In Jasenovac Memorial Site Education Centre, young people are made aware of the consequences of denying human dignity. They learn to recognise problems before they arise, prevent and halt all forms of violence and protect potential victims.
International co-operation • Since 2002 Jasenovac Memorial Site has been co-operating with many museums and memorial institutions in Europe, the United States of America and Israel. Through the operations of IPAM (International Partnership Among Museums) Jasenovac Memorial Site has established a good bilateral relationship with the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington and the Jasenovac curators have received training in all museological subjects. It is also important to mention our co-operation with the Auschwitz Birkenau Memorial Museum, the Imperial War Museum in London, YadVashem in Jerusalem, the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam and the Memorial de la Shoah in Paris. In 2005 the Republic of Croatia became a regular member of the Task Force for International Co-operation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research, and through its international network of institutions and museums, Jasenovac Memorial Site, whose director is a member of the national delegation to the work group for memorials and museums, has worked with all members of the International Task Force. Jasenovac Memorial Site co-operates with the Ministries of Culture and Science, Education and Sport in the Republic of Croatia in organising international seminars relating to commemorations of the Day of Holocaust Remembrance on 27 January, and organises many workshops at Jasenovac Memorial Site, in the Memorial Museum and Education Centre, for all visitors, as well a for groups of pupils and students from abroad.
President of Croatia Ivo Josipovic and president of Israel Shimon Peres while visiting Memorial Museum in July 2010
The Flower Monument in Jasenovac Bogdan Bogdanović (Belgrade, 1922 - Vienna, 2010), architect, artist and philosopher designed the Flower Memorial in Jasenovac. It was built in 1966 on the site of the former Jasenovac Camp III (Brickworks). In September 1960 the Central Committee of the Federation of War Veterans’ Organisations of Yugoslavia invited architects to present proposals for commemorating the Jasenovac concentration camp. Bogdanovic’s proposal was accepted: a Flower Memorial – “a sign of eternal renewal – an edifice as a superstructure facing two ways – with a crypt looking towards the victims, in whom its roots and crown are planted, and a kind of inverse cupola – looking towards the light and the sun. Symbolically, towards life and freedom…”
LIST OF INDIVIDUAL VICTIMS OFJASENOVAC CONCENTRATION CAMP • The Jasenovac victims are not just numbers. They are men, women and children, with names and personal histories. As a means of paying respect to the inmates of Jasenovac and in a desire to preserve their memory as a warning to future generations, the Jasenovac Memorial Site has compiled a List of Individual Victims of Jasenovac Concentration Camp and made it available to visitors and to the public for the first time since the opening of the Memorial Museum in 1968. We have used hundreds of sources (books, documents, photographs, statements given by relatives and friends of the Jasenovac victims and field research), of which 169 are mentioned in abbreviation in the List. We have made critical comparisons of data for each individual and thus compiled a list of the men, women and children who died in Jasenovac Concentration Camp. The list contains biographical details of the victims (name and surname, father’s name, place, district and date of birth, ethnic affiliation), how the person met his or her death (means of death, person responsible, year and place of death, camp or execution site where the victim was killed) and information on the sources which were used in each individual case, as well as conflicting details from different sources for each victim. Working in this way, we have collected (until 18 April 2010) a list of dates, names and details for 80,914 victims. According to the data gathered, 38,236 men, 22,767 women and 19,911 children under the age of 14 were killed in Jasenovac Concentration Camp.
