Ustaška nadzorna služba

The complete structure of the Ustasha Surveillance Service, the most powerful police establishment of the Independent Croatian state (during World War II), can be found in the collection and these materials have been used as basic source material for numerous scientific papers, doctorates, and publications of local and foreign researchers. Contains records of activities of the Ustasha Surveillance Service regional office in Sarajevo, with documentation regarding fight against Partisans and Serbian (Chetniks) resistance, daily and weekly intelligence reports about the political situation in the region, investigation of the activities of the local individuals suspected in the clandestine Communist work or contacts with Communist partisans and Chetniks, reports about attacks and murders organized by Chetniks and partisans against local supporters of the Ustasha regime, etc. Most materials in the collection are closely related to the military actions, security situation, and reports on the activities of Chetnik and Partisan groups. Therefore, the collection will be helpful to military historians. The collection's uniqueness is characterized by detailed and close correspondence between the Ustasha security apparatus in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the main Ustasha security office (RAVSIGUR). In addition, the collection contains detailed reports on the mass violence, massacres, and other atrocities committed by the Ustasha corps [Ustaška vojnica]. Moreover, the collection contains many reports from the Ustasha movement organizations, which are usually fragmented in other archival collections. Researchers of the Holocaust will find materials such as orders for deportations of Jews useful. Such files are preserved for the cases of Tuzla and Travnik. Many petitions from the victim's families make inquiries about or ask for the release of their loved ones. Various local security offices sent recommendations regarding the deportations of Serbs and Jews. Therefore, the collection helps to examine the decision-making on the local level and antisemitism from below. When it comes to antisemitism, daily reports from the military authorities are particularly useful since they often contain recommendations to deport all Jews in some localities based on the antisemitic assumption that Jews were allegedly a ‘security threat’. The collection contains detailed reports on the deportations of Serbs from Croatia to Serbia through the town of Bijeljina. Information on the deportations of Jews from Bijeljina is also preserved. Similarly, reports on individual arrests of Serbs and Jews in Petrovo Selo can be found in the collection. There are various testimonies of victims, mainly Serbs, who were questioned by various security agencies of the Independent State of Croatia.