Nazi Holocaust was bigger and worse than previously thought.

[Jan Klimkowski]

Then there's the genocidal slaughter of Serbs, Jews and Romany by the Croatian fascist Ustaše at Jasenovac, with around 800,000 to 1 million slaughtered, including over 20,000 children.

Some were slashed to death with the Ustaše's so called "Serb-cutter" - see photo.

How many people today have even heard of Jasenovac?

Jasenovac concentration camp (Croatian, Serbian: Logor Jasenovac; Serbian Cyrillic: Логор Јасеновац; Yiddish: יאסענאוואץ; Hebrew: יסנובץ‎, sometimes spelled "Yasenovatz") was an extermination camp established in the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) during World War II. It was the only extermination camp that was not operated by the Germans, and was among the largest camps in Europe.[3] The camp was established by the governing Ustaše regime in August 1941 in marshland at the confluence of the Sava and Una rivers near the village of Jasenovac, and was dismantled in April 1945. It was "notorious for its barbaric practices and the large number of victims".[4] In Jasenovac, the majority of victims were ethnic Serbs, whom the Ustaše wanted to remove from the NDH, along with the Jews and Roma peoples.[5]

Jasenovac was a complex of five subcamps[6] spread over 210 km2 (81 sq mi) on both banks of the Sava and Una rivers. The largest camp was the "Brickworks" camp at Jasenovac, about 100 km (62 mi) southeast of Zagreb. The overall complex included the Stara Gradiška sub-camp, the killing grounds across the Sava river at Donja Gradina, five work farms, and the Uštica Roma camp.[1]

Serbs constituted the majority of inmates in Jasenovac.[5][31][32] The Jasenovac Memorial Area list of victims of Jasenovac includes over 56% Serbs.[33] In several instances, inmates were immediately killed for confessing their Serbian ethnicity and most considered it to be the only reason for their imprisonment.[34] The Serbs were predominantly brought from the Kozara region, where the Ustaše captured areas that were held by Partisan guerrillas.[35] These were brought to the camp without sentence, almost destined for immediate execution, accelerated via the use of machine-guns. The exact number of Serbian casualties in Jasenovac is uncertain, but the lowest common estimates range around 60,000 people, and it is estimated to be the most significant part of the overall Serbian casualties of World War II.[36]
A report on the deportation of Travnik area Jews to Jasenovac and Stara Gradiška camps, March 1942

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[37] to almost two thirds of the Croatian Jewish population of 37,000 (meaning around 25,000).[38] 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 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.[39] The figures of murdered Roma are the most controversial, with the number being between 20,000 and 50,000.[39]

Anti-fascists consisted of various sorts of political and ideological antagonists of the Ustaše regime. In general, their treatment was similar to other inmates, although known communists were executed right away, and convicted Ustaše or law-enforcement officials,[40] or others close to the Ustaše in opinion, such as Croatian peasants[dubious discuss], were held on beneficial terms and granted amnesty after serving a duration of time. The leader of the banned Croatian Peasant Party, Vladko Maček was held in Jasenovac from October 1941 to March 1942, after which he was kept under strict house arrest.[41]

Jasenovac camp also consisted of a unique camp for children in Sisak. Around 20,000 children of Serbian, Jewish and Roma ethnicities perished in Jasenovac.[42]

The Ustaše in Jasenovac also imprisoned numerous people of other ethnicities, including Ukrainians, Romanians and Slovenes.[43]

Mass murder and cruelty
This May 1945 picture shows bodies disposed of without burial, thrown into the river Sava near Sisak.

According to Jaša Almuli, the former president of the Serbian Jewish community, Jasenovac was a much more terrifying concentration camp, in terms of cruelty, compared with, for example, Auschwitz. In the late summer of 1942, tens of thousands of Serbian villagers were deported to Jasenovac from the Kozara region in Bosnia, where NDH forces were fighting against the Yugoslav Partisans.[67] Most of the men were executed in Jasenovac and women were sent to forced labor camps in Germany. Children were taken from their mothers and either killed or dispersed to Catholic orphanages.[68]

On the night of 29 August 1942, the prison guards made bets among themselves as to who could slaughter the largest number of inmates. One of the guards, Petar Brzica, boasted[69] that he had cut the throats of about 1,360 new arrivals.[70] Other participants who confessed to participating in the bet included Ante Zrinušić, who killed some 600 inmates, and Mile Friganović, who gave a detailed and consistent report of the incident.[71][dead link] Friganović 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 Pavelić, which the old man refused to do, even after Friganović had 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 Nikolić.[72]
Srbosjek
An agricultural knife nicknamed "Srbosjek" or "Serbcutter", strapped to the hand. It was used by the Ustaše militia for the speedy killing of inmates at Jasenovac

Brzica and others used a knife that became known as the Srbosjek, meaning "Serb-cutter".[73][74][75][76][77][dead link]

This knife was originally a type of agricultural knife manufactured for wheat sheaf cutting.[78][79][80]

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.[81] 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.[79]

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".[82][83] Gebrüder Gräfrath was taken over in 1961 by Hubertus Solingen.[84]

Estimates by Holocaust institutions

The Yad Vashem Center has in one place stated 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".[38] In the 1990 Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, Menachem Shelach and Israel Gutman wrote:

"Some six hundred thousand people were murdered at Jasenovac, mostly Serbs, Jews, Gypsies, and opponents of the Ustaše 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."

Israel Gutman (ed.) , Encyclopedia of the Holocaust[27]

On the other hand, however, as of 2009, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum estimates that the Ustaše 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 Ustaše 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[37]
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. Bogoljub Kočović estimated that of that number, there were between 370,000 and 410,000 ethnic Serbs who died in the Independent State of Croatia.[31][132]

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. Žerjavić actually first calculated 53,000, later brought up to 70,000 and eventually to 80,000.[citation needed]

In the 1980s, Vladimir Žerjavić published two books in which he concluded that approximately 83,000 people had perished at Jasenovac, 50,000 of them Serbs.[7] Žerjavić's research was criticised by Antun Miletić, director of Belgrade's military archives, who in 1997 claimed the figure for Jasenovac was 1.1 million.[7] Another critic of Žerjavić, Milan Bulajić, former director of the Museum of the Victims of Genocide in Belgrade, maintained that the numbers were in the range 700,0001 million.[7] However, since he retired from his post, a researcher from the Museum has endorsed the figure of approximately 100,000 deaths.[7] Žerjavić's research has been considered trustworthy by authorities on World War II Yugoslav history such as Jozo Tomasevich[8] and Sabrina Ramet.[7]

Commentators in Serbia[who?] have criticized these estimates as far too low, since the demographic calculations assumed arbitrarily that the growth rate for Serbs in Bosnia (which was absorbed by the Independent State of Croatia during the Second World War) was equal to the total growth rate throughout the former Yugoslavia (1.1% at the time).[citation needed] According to Serbian sources,[which?] 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.
Camp officials and their fate

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

Eugen Dido Kvaternik was head of all camps in the NDH territory until 1943. He emigrated to Argentina, where he died in a traffic accident.
Andrija Artuković was the creator and signatory of most of the decrees pursuant to which genocide and acts of terror were carried out against the population of the Independent State of Croatia, on the grounds of racial, religious, national or ideological affiliation. From October 1942 to April 1943 he was Minister of Religion and Education. Later, he fled to the USA, from which he was extradited to Yugoslavia and tried by them.
Miroslav Majstorović, an Ustaše infamous for his command periods in Jasenovac and Stara-Gradiška,[133] 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,[134] 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, in 2008 he died in prison.
Petar Brzica was an Ustaša officer who, on the night of 29 August 1942, allegedly slaughtered over 1,360 people. Brzica's fellow Ustaše 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 Matković, in March 1943.[135] Brzica's post-war fate is unknown.
Hinko Dominik Picilli's fate is also unknown.
Ivica Brkljačić, commander, was executed.
Tomo Sabol, 1942 Ust. Poručnik (Obrana), commandant of the women's prison at Stara Gradiška concentration camp
Nada Šakić was guard in the concentration camp Stara Gradiška, a subcamp of the concentration camp Jasenovac.
Ljubo Milos (ex-second in command of the Jasenovac concentration camp and former commander of the Lepoglava prison, executed after the war, by Partisans.
Ivica Matkovic was executed by the Partisans.