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JewishHistoryעברית

Jasenovac camp complex

Date
August 1941 – April 1945
Location
Jasenovac, Independent State of CroatiaCroatia
Then part of
Independent State of Croatia
Perpetrators
  • Ustaša (Militia / auxiliaries)
  • Independent State of Croatia (State)
Killed (estimate)
12,000 – 25,000[1]Jews murdered in the Jasenovac camp system. USHMM estimates 12,000–20,000 Jewish dead there, of a total 77,000–99,000 people killed at the complex, and states that more than 30,000 Croatian Jews were killed in Croatia or at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Yad Vashem states that about 25,000 Jews were murdered at Jasenovac.
Country

30% – 78% of the Jewish population of Independent State of Croatia (c. 1937)[42]

Worldwide

0.072% – 0.15% of the worldwide Jewish population (c. 1939)[4]

Category
Genocide, Massacre
Confidence
DisputedUSHMM gives 12,000–20,000 Jews killed at Jasenovac. Yad Vashem gives about 25,000. USHMM notes that totals for Jasenovac remain hard to fix because documents were destroyed and postwar figures were contested.

Summary

After the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941, the Ustaša proclaimed the Independent State of Croatia. Between August 1941 and February 1942 its authorities established the Jasenovac complex of five camps on the Sava River. Ustaša militia and Croatian political police murdered Jews, Serbs, Roma and political opponents there, including at nearby killing sites at Granik and Gradina. In August 1942 and May 1943 Croat authorities transferred about 7,000 surviving Jews, including many still at Jasenovac, to German custody for deportation to Auschwitz-Birkenau. The last camps were dismantled in April 1945.

Sources

  1. Jasenovac. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  2. Axis Invasion of Yugoslavia. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  3. Murder of the Jews of the Balkans and Slovakia. Yad Vashem

Jewish population (estimates)

  • Worldwide: 16,500,000 – 16,633,675[4]c. 1939DellaPergola's revised core estimate for 1 January 1939 is 16.5 million. The American Jewish Year Book 1948–49 compiled 16,633,675 at the end of 1939.
  • Independent State of Croatia: 32,000 – 39,400[42]c. 1937USHMM Losses: "Croatia with Dalmatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina" Jewish population in 1937: 39,400. USHMM Yugoslavia article: approximately 32,000 Jews of Croatia at the start of Ustasha rule (about two-thirds incarcerated by end of 1941). NDH borders (including Bosnia-Herzegovina), not the later Croatian republic.

Sources for population estimates

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  3. Jewish Population of Europe in 1933. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  4. Jewish Population of the World. American Jewish Year Book 1948–1949, via Berman Jewish Policy Archive (1949)
  5. Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein, Voluntary Conversions and Diaspora: A Human Capital Interpretation of Jewish History. American Economic Association annual meeting paper (2007)
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  54. Jacqueline Shields, Jewish Refugees from Arab Countries. Jewish Virtual Library
  55. Lebanon Virtual Jewish History Tour. Jewish Virtual Library
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  58. Archives juives n°45/2 — Les Juifs d'Algérie. Archives Juives / Les Belles Lettres (2012)
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  64. All-Union 1959 census — ethnic composition of the USSR. Demoscope Weekly (РГАЭ РФ fond 1562)
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