Jasenovac Camp Memorial Area

Jasenovac Memorial Site is in the immediate vicinity of the former Jasenovac concentration camp, Camp III (Brickworks). In the Memorial Site the original sites of buildings and execution sites within the camp itself are marked by earth mounds and hollows. The path to the Flower Memorial is paved with railway sleepers. They denote symbolically part of the preserved railway track used to transport prisoners to the camp. Along with the memorial area, Jasenovac Memorial Site is responsible for the original, preserved camp building known as The Tower, the Stara Gradiška Camp cemetery, the Roma cemetery in Uštica and the mass graves in Krapje, Mlaka and Jablanac. Jasenovac Memorial 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, Jasenovac Memorial Site and the Memorial Museum were founded“in order to preserve in perpetuity the remembrance of the victims of the Fascist terror and the soldiers of the People’s War of Liberation who fell in the Second World War in Jasenovac and Stara Gradiška Camps, and in order to preserve the achievements of Anti-Fascism.”(Act on Amendments to the Act on Jasenovac Memorial Site, OG 21/01). Jasenovac Concentration Camp was a place of imprisonment, forced labor and executions, primarily for the Serb 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 the People’s Liberation Army of Croatia, as well as members of their families and other opponents of the Ustasha regime. The activities of Jasenovac Memorial Site have developed in different directions and include compiling, researching, scientifically processing, preserving and exhibiting the museum buildings and documents on how the Jasenovac Ustasha camp system operated; an educational programme; organising exhibitions and publications; ongoing co-operation with surviving prisoners and organising commemorative events in honour of the Jasenovac victims.Besides the Memorial Museum, the Education Centre is also part of Jasenovac Memorial Site. After the chaos of the 1991-1995 war in Croatia/ former Yugoslavia/, restoration followed, and the new permanent 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. This method of presentation enabled visitors to the Museum to gain access to more information and allowed considerable more museum items to be presented than would have been possible using traditional displays.With this aim in mind, a database was created in which 65 topics were chronologically and thematically compiled in detail. An integral part of the database and the new permanent exhibition of the Memorial Museum of Jasenovac Memorial Site is the List of Individual Victims of Jasenovac Concentration Camp.

At the beginning of the Second World War, the village of Jasenovac had a mixed Croatian and Serbian population. All the local Serbs were expelled on 8 May 1942 by the Ustashas and sent to the camps in Jasenovac and Stara Gradiška, where some were killed and others sent to other camps in the Independent State of Croatia or the Third Reich. The Croatian villagers remained in their homes until 23 April 1945, when the Ustashas forced them to retreat with them to the west. The village of Jasenovac lived throughout the war years under a kind of camp regime, so that any contact between prisoners and villagers was extremely risky and anyone offering the prisoners help was in danger of being killed themselves. Since the buildings of Camp IV (Tannery) were in the centre of the village, and the villagers had to pass close by the largest part of the camp, Camp III (Brickworks) on the way to their fields, there was contact between them and some prisoners. The villagers would secretly throw corn cobs and bread over the fence, although they risked their lives in doing so. Others helped the camp Communist Party organisation and kept alive communications between the camp and the outside world.

The museum was founded in 1968 and the memorial area Jasenovac has then started collecting documents from the Historical Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina; and the former Museum of revolution in Zagreb. Concerning the original material, it is mostly memories of survivors, items found in mass graves and personal items like photographs and documents, given to the Museum by the families. So, research-wise, the Museum does not hold significant material but it will remain a top priority for Croatia because Jasenovac was the largest concentration camp in the region, and its employees can give researchers advice on which other archive-holding institution they should contact if they are investigating a fate of a specific person, or about the conditions in general.

The institution provides (apart from the permanent exhibition) a list of individual victims of the Jasenovac concentration camp which is available to visitors and to the public for the first time since the opening of the Memorial Museum in 1968. From the more comprehensive list of vicitims of the WW2 on the area of former Yugoslavia, the museum has taken the names of all those whose deaths noted as having taken place in the Jasenovac Concentration Camp complex to come up with a final list of names(as final as possible).Hundreds of sources were used (books, documents, photographs, statements given by relatives and friends of the Jasenovac victims, field research and photographs of monuments to the victims of Fascist terrorism). 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, the museum has collected (until March 2013) a list of dates, names and details for 83,145 victims. According to the data gathered, 39,570 men, 23,474 women and 20,101 children under the age of 14 were killed in Jasenovac Concentration Camp.

The institution provides (apart from the permanent exhibition) a list of individual victims of the Jasenovac concentration camp which is available to visitors and to the public for the first time since the opening of the Memorial Museum in 1968. From the more comprehensive list of vicitims of the WW2 on the area of former Yugoslavia, the museum has taken the names of all those whose deaths noted as having taken place in the Jasenovac Concentration Camp complex to come up with a final list of names(as final as possible). Hundreds of sources were used (books, documents, photographs, statements given by relatives and friends of the Jasenovac victims, field research and photographs of monuments to the victims of Fascist terrorism).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, the museum has collected (until March 2013) a list of dates, names and details for 83,145 victims. According to the data gathered, 39,570 men, 23,474 women and 20,101 children under the age of 14 were killed in Jasenovac Concentration Camp.