Editing Jasenovac concentration camp (section)

===Systematic extermination of prisoners===

Besides sporadic killings and deaths due to the poor living conditions, many inmates arriving at Jasenovac were scheduled for systematic extermination. An important criterion for selection was the duration of a prisoner's anticipated detention. Strong men capable of labor and sentenced to less than three years of incarceration were allowed to live. All inmates with indeterminate sentences or sentences of three years or more were immediately scheduled for execution, regardless of their physical fitness.<ref>[[#State-Commission|State Commission, 1946]], pp. 9–11, 46–47.</ref>{{primary source inline|date=June 2022}}

Systematic extermination varied both as to place and form. Some of the executions were mechanical, following Nazi methodology, while others were manual. The mechanical means of extermination included:
*'''Cremation''': The Ustaše cremated living inmates, who were sometimes drugged and sometimes fully awake, as well as corpses. The first cremations took place in the brick factory ovens in January 1942. Croatian engineer Dominik "Hinko" Piccili (or Pičili) perfected this method by converting seven of the kiln's furnace chambers into specialized crematories.<ref>[[#State-Commission|State Commission, 1946]], pp. 14, 27, 31, 42–43, 70.</ref>{{primary source inline|date=June 2022}}{{sfn|Paris|1961|p=132}} Crematoria were also placed in Gradina, across the Sava River. According to the State Commission, however, "there is no information that it ever went into operation."<ref>[[#State-Commission|State Commission, 1946]], p. 43</ref> Later testimony, however, say the Gradina crematory had become operational.{{citation needed|date=June 2022}} Some bodies were buried rather than cremated, as shown by exhumation of bodies late in the war.{{Why|date=March 2015}} {{citation needed|date=March 2015}}
*'''Gassing and poisoning''': The Ustaše tried to employ poisonous gas to kill inmates arriving in Stara Gradiška. They first tried to gas the women and children who arrived from Djakovo with [[Nazi gas van|gas van]]s that Simo Klaić called "green Thomas".<ref>Dragan Roller, statement to the press during the Dinko Sakić trial, ''New York Times'', 2 May 1998.</ref> The method was later replaced with stationary gas-chambers with [[Zyklon B]] and [[sulfur dioxide]].<ref>"Zlocini Okupatora Nijhovih Pomagaca Harvatskoj Protiv Jevrija", pp. 144–145{{full citation needed|date=September 2015}}</ref><ref>Shorthand notes of the Ljubo Miloš trial, pp. 292–293. Antun Vrban admitted of his crimes:
"Q. And what did you do with the children
A. The weaker ones we poisoned
Q. How?
A. We led them into a yard... and into it we threw gas
Q. What gas?
A. Zyklon." (Qtd. {{harvnb|Shelach et al.|1990|pp=}})</ref>{{sfn|Sindik (ed.)|1985|pp=40–41, 58, 76, 151}} Jasenovac concentration camp did not have gas chambers.{{sfn|Mataušić|2008|p=7}}{{sfn|Ryan|1984|p=148}}

Manual methods were executions that took part in utilizing sharp or blunt craftsmen tools: knives, saws, hammers, et cetera. These executions took place in various locations:
*'''Granik''': Granik was a ramp used to unload goods of Sava boats. In winter 1943–44, season agriculture laborers became unemployed, while large transports of new internees arrived and the need for liquidation, in light of the expected Axis defeat, were large. Vjekoslav "Maks" Luburić devised a plan to utilize the crane as a gallows on which slaughter would be committed, so that the bodies could be dumped into the stream of the flowing river. In the autumn, the Ustaše NCO's came in every night for some 20 days, with lists of names of people who were incarcerated in the warehouse, stripped, chained, beaten and then taken to the "Granik", where weights were tied to the wire that was bent on their arms, and their intestines and neck were slashed, and they were thrown into the river with a blow of a blunt tool in the head. The method was later enhanced, so that inmates were tied in pairs, back to back, their bellies cut before they were tossed into the river alive.<ref>[[#State-Commission|State Commission, 1946]], pp. 13, 25, 27, 56–57, 58–60.</ref>{{primary source inline|date=June 2022}}
*'''Gradina''': The Ustaše utilized empty areas in the vicinity of the villages of Donja Gradina and Uštica, where they encircled an area marked for slaughter and mass graves in wire. The Ustaše slew victims with knives or smashed their skulls with mallets. When Roma arrived in the camp, they did not undergo selection, but were rather concentrated under the open skies at a section of camp known as "III-C". From there the Roma were taken to liquidation in Gradina, working on the dike (men) or in the corn fields in Ustice (women) in between liquidations. Thus Gradina and Uštica became Roma mass grave sites. Furthermore, small groups of Roma were utilized as gravediggers that actually participated in the slaughter at Gradina. Thus the extermination at the site grew until it became the main killing-ground in Jasenovac. At Gradina, 105 mass graves, covering a total area of 10,130 m<sup>2</sup> have been found.<ref name=":13">{{cite web|title=JUSP Jasenovac – Donja Gradina|url=http://www.jusp-jasenovac.hr/Default.aspx?sid=6746|access-date=2020-09-15|website=www.jusp-jasenovac.hr|archive-date=2020-09-16|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200916200736/http://www.jusp-jasenovac.hr/Default.aspx?sid=6746|url-status=live}}</ref> A further 22 mass graves, the extent of which has not yet been confirmed, have also been found.<ref name=":13" /> Separately, at Uštica, 21 mass graves with a surface area of 1218 m<sup>2</sup> have been found.<ref name=":3">{{cite web|title=JUSP Jasenovac – Uštica|url=http://www.jusp-jasenovac.hr/Default.aspx?sid=6756|access-date=2020-09-15|website=www.jusp-jasenovac.hr|archive-date=2020-09-16|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200916202358/http://www.jusp-jasenovac.hr/Default.aspx?sid=6756|url-status=live}}</ref>
* '''Limani Graves.''' Prior to early 1942, when liquidations of prisoners began at Gradina, most inmates were killed inside the Jasenovac III camp. A special detail of prisoner-gravediggers was ordered every day to bury the bodies in huge trenches dug close to the camp fence. In this area, called Limani. seven mass graves are located, with a total surface area of 1,175 m<sup>2</sup>.<ref name=":15">{{cite web|title=JUSP Jasenovac – Camp Grave Limani|url=http://www.jusp-jasenovac.hr/Default.aspx?sid=6779|access-date=2020-09-17|website=www.jusp-jasenovac.hr|archive-date=2021-05-14|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210514141422/http://jusp-jasenovac.hr/Default.aspx?sid=6779|url-status=live}}</ref>
* '''Međustrugovi and Uskočke šume'''. These are sites of mass murders of prisoners from Stara Gradiška, mainly during 1944. In 1946, 967 victims were exhumed (311 men, 467 women and 189 children) from 4 mass graves.<ref name=":14">{{Cite web|title=JUSP Jasenovac – MEĐUSTRUGOVI AND USKOČKE ŠUME|url=http://www.jusp-jasenovac.hr/Default.aspx?sid=6782|access-date=2020-09-17|website=www.jusp-jasenovac.hr|archive-date=2021-05-14|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210514132603/http://jusp-jasenovac.hr/Default.aspx?sid=6782|url-status=live}}</ref> The remains were later interred in a common cemetery at Stara Gradiška, while identified victims were returned to where they had come from, mostly the Srijem area. About a thousand additional victims are buried in Međustrugovi Woods in one enormous mass grave.<ref name=":14" />
* '''Krapje''' When Krapje (Camp I) and Brocice (Camp II) were closed in November 1941, of the 3,000 to 4,000 prisoners then in the camps, only about 1,500 were transferred to the new Camp III (Brickworks), the rest were killed.<ref>{{Cite web|title=JUSP Jasenovac – Jasenovac Camp III (Brickworks)|url=http://www.jusp-jasenovac.hr/Default.aspx?sid=7291|access-date=2020-09-17|website=www.jusp-jasenovac.hr|archive-date=2021-05-14|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210514132229/http://jusp-jasenovac.hr/Default.aspx?sid=7291|url-status=live}}</ref> At Krapje three mass graves are found – a central mass grave, a second mass grave, in which mostly Jewish victims were buried, and a third large grave, where the executed employees of Zagreb Electrical Trams were buried.<ref name=":16">{{Cite web|title=JUSP Jasenovac – Krapje|url=http://www.jusp-jasenovac.hr/Default.aspx?sid=6763|access-date=2020-09-17|website=www.jusp-jasenovac.hr|archive-date=2021-05-14|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210514142016/http://jusp-jasenovac.hr/Default.aspx?sid=6763|url-status=live}}</ref>
*'''Mlaka and Jablanac''': Two sites used as collection and labor camps<ref>{{cite web | url = http://www.jusp-jasenovac.hr/Default.aspx?sid=5964 | language = hr | title = Jablanac | publisher = Jasenovac Memorial Area | access-date = 15 September 2020 | archive-date = 16 September 2020 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20200916035540/http://www.jusp-jasenovac.hr/Default.aspx?sid=5964 | url-status = live }}</ref> for the women and children in camps III and V, but also as places where many of these women and children, as well as other groups, were executed in the countryside around these two villages. Five mass graves were identified in and around Mlaka.<ref name=":17">{{cite web | url = http://www.jusp-jasenovac.hr/Default.aspx?sid=5963 | language = hr | title = Mlaka | publisher = Jasenovac Memorial Area | access-date = 15 September 2020 | archive-date = 16 September 2020 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20200916225912/http://www.jusp-jasenovac.hr/Default.aspx?sid=5963 | url-status = live }}</ref>
*'''Velika Kustarica''': According to the state-commission, as far as 50,000 people were killed here in the winter amid 1941 and 1942.<ref>[[#State-Commission|State Commission, 1946]], pp. 38–39</ref>{{primary source inline|date=June 2022}}{{better source needed|date=September 2020|reason=The Memorial Area website has zero mentions of this toponym. https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Ajusp-jasenovac.hr+Velika+Kustarica}} There is evidence suggesting that killings took place there at that time and afterwards.{{citation needed|date=March 2016}}

The Ustaše carried out extensive means of torture and methods of killing against detainees which included but not limited to: inserting hot nails under finger nails, mutilating parts of the body including plucking out eyeballs, tightening chains around ones head until the skull fractured and the eyes popped and also, placing salt in open wounds.{{sfn|Paris|1961|p=189}} Women faced rape, having their breasts severed from their bodies, pregnant women had their wombs cut out.<ref name="auto">Richard West. ''Tito and the Rise and Fall of Yugoslavia'', Faber & Faber, November 15, 2012.{{ISBN missing}}{{page needed|date=June 2022}}</ref>{{sfn|Paris|1961|p=189}} Many of these mutilated and murdered bodies were disposed of into the adjacent river. The Ustaše took pride in the crimes they committed and wore necklaces of human eyes and tongues that were cut out from their Serb victims.{{sfn|Paris|1961|p=284}}