Editing Jasenovac concentration camp (section)

==Creation and operation==
{{primary sources|section|date=June 2022}}
[[File:Jasenovac camps.svg|thumb|450px|Location of main camp Ciglana and additional camps.]]
[[File:Plan of Jasenovac main camp.svg|thumb|Plan of Jasenovac main camp]]
[[Jadovno concentration camp]] was the first camp used for extermination by the Ustaše. Jadovno was operational from May 1941 but was closed in August of the same year, coinciding with the formation of the camp at Jasenovac in the same month. The Jasenovac complex was built between August 1941 and February 1942. The first two camps, [[Krapje, Croatia|Krapje]] and Bročice, were closed in November 1941.{{sfn|EotH|1990|pp=739–740}}

Three newer camps continued to function until the end of the war:
* Ciglana (Jasenovac III)
* Kožara (Jasenovac IV)
* [[Stara Gradiška concentration camp|Stara Gradiška]] (Jasenovac V)

=== Camp Command ===
[[File:Ustaše militia execute prisoners near the Jasenovac concentration camp.jpg|thumb|[[Ustaše militia]] executing people over a mass grave near Jasenovac concentration camp]]
At the top of the Jasenovac command chain was the Ustaše leader, [[Ante Pavelić]],{{sfn|Goldstein|2018|p=297}} who signed the Nazi-style Race Laws, and led the Ustaše genocides against Jews, Serbs and Roma.{{sfn|Tomasevich|2002|pp=381, 404}} Jasenovac inmate, [[Ante Ciliga]], wrote that “Jasenovac was the original 'Balkan' creation of Ante Pavelić. Hitler's camps were only…the starting point”.{{sfn|Goldstein|2018|p=303}} Pavelić entrusted the organization of mass killing in the camps to the [[Ustaše Surveillance Service]] (UNS), placing at its head his close associate, [[Dido Kvaternik]].{{sfn|Goldstein|2018|p=35}} Giuseppe Masucci, secretary to the Vatican's representative in the NDH, considered Kvaternik the worst of Ustaše, noting he told him Croatian Jews committed "300,000 abortions, rapes and deflorations of young girls."{{sfn|Goldstein|2018|p=299}} As the Ustaše terror against Serbs and others, of which Jasenovac was the apogee, ignited wider Partisan resistance, the Germans in October 1942 pressured Pavelić to remove and exile Dido Kvaternik.{{sfn|Tomasevich|2002|p=440}} Kvaternik later blamed Pavelić for Ustaše crimes, claiming he merely executed Pavelić's orders.{{sfn|Goldstein|2018|p=301}}

The camp was constructed, managed and supervised by Department III of the "Ustaše Supervisory Service" (''Ustaška nadzorna služba'', ''UNS''), a special police force of the NDH. Among the main Jasenovac commanders were the following:

* [[Vjekoslav Luburić|'''Vjekoslav "Maks" Luburić''']]. Upon returning from exile, Luburić in May–July 1941 commanded [[Vjekoslav Luburić#Initial cleansing operations|multiple massacres of hundreds of Serb civilians]] in Lika, thus igniting the Serb uprising.{{sfn|Bergholz|2016|pp=107–108, 110}}{{sfn|Goldstein|2013|pp=115–121, 155–156}}{{sfn|Adriano|Cingolani|2018|p=193}} Promoted to Head of Bureau III of the Ustaše Surveillance Service, which oversaw all NDH concentration camps, he travelled to Germany in September 1941 to study SS concentration camps,{{sfn|Korb|2010|p=297}}{{sfn|Mojzes|2011|p=57}} using these as a model for Jasenovac. A German memorandum described Luburić as "a neurotic, pathological personality".{{sfn|Frucht Levy|2011|p=67}}  Following the Kozara offensive in which Luburić's troops [[Vjekoslav Luburić#Kozara Offensive|slaughtered hundreds of Serb civilians]]{{sfn|Goldstein|2013|p=399}}{{sfn|Komarica|Odić|2005|p=60}} and the Ustaše imprisoned tens-of-thousands in Jasenovac, he "adopted" 450 displaced Serb boys, dressed them in black Ustaše uniforms, dubbing them his "little [[janissaries]]"{{sfn|Dulić|2005|p=253}} (according to the Ottoman system, in which boys taken from Christian families in the Balkans were inducted into the Ottoman military). Luburić's experiment failed to turn the boys into Ustaše, most died in Jasenovac of malnutrition and diseases.{{sfn|Dulić|2005|p=253}}
* [[Ljubo Milos|'''Ljubo Miloš''']] was appointed commander of Jasenovac in October 1941. Croatian politician [[Vladko Maček]], imprisoned by the Ustaše in Jasenovac, later wrote that he asked Miloš if he "feared God's punishment" for the atrocities he committed in Jasenovac. Miloš replied, "I know I will burn in hell for what I have done. But I will burn for Croatia."{{sfn|Maček|2003|p=168}}{{sfn|McCormick|2008|pp=77–78}} Many Jasenovac inmates testified to Miloš's crimes, including pretending to be a doctor, then cutting inmates open with a knife, from throat to stomach.{{sfn|Goldstein|2018|p=324}} After leading Jasenovac guards in the slaughter and pillaging of nearby Serb villages, Miloš was tried and jailed at German insistence,{{sfn|Škiljan|2005|p=335}} but soon released on Luburić's intervention.
* [[Miroslav Filipovic|'''Miroslav Filipović''']]. Luburić brought Filipović to Jasenovac, after the Germans jailed Filipović for participating as an Ustaše chaplain in the mass slaughter of up to 2,300 Serb civilians near Banja Luka in February 1942, including killing an entire class of school children, which Filipović personally instigated by slitting the throat of a schoolgirl.{{sfn|Goldstein|2018|pp=326–327}} He rose to commander of Jasenovac-III in May 1942, and in October of Stara Gradiška.{{sfn|Goldstein|2018|p=328}} Having been a [[Franciscans|Franciscan]], the inmates called him "Brother Satan", and testified that he personally killed numerous prisoners, including children.{{sfn|Goldstein|2018|pp=328–333}} While Ljubo Miloš blamed Filipović for ordering mass killings, Filipović in turn blamed Luburić, who he said instructed him "that Serbs must be ruthlessly exterminated", portraying himself as merely an obedient Ustaše follower.{{sfn|Goldstein|2018|p=333}}

Other individuals managing the camp at different times included [[Ivica Matković (Ustaša)|Ivica Matković]], [[Ante Vrban]], and [[Dinko Šakić]]. The camp administration also used Ustaše battalions, police units, ''Domobrani'' units, auxiliary units made up of Bosnian Muslims, as well as Germans and Hungarians. The Ustaše interned, tortured and executed men, women and children in Jasenovac. The largest number of victims were Serbs, but victims also included Jews, Roma (or "gypsies"), as well as some dissident Croats and Bosnian Muslims (i.e. [[Yugoslav Partisans|Partisans]] or their sympathizers, all categorized by the Ustaše as "Communists").<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.jusp-jasenovac.hr/Default.aspx?sid=7083|title=JUSP Jasenovac – Muslims in Jasenovac Concentration Camp|website=jusp-jasenovac.hr|access-date=27 June 2018|archive-date=20 January 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220120041619/http://www.jusp-jasenovac.hr/Default.aspx?sid=7083|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Upon arrival at the camp, the prisoners were marked with colors, similar to the use of [[Nazi concentration camp badges]]: blue for Serbs, and red for communists (non-Serbian resistance members), while Roma had no marks. This practice was later abandoned.{{citation needed|date=June 2022}} Most victims were killed at execution sites near the camp: Granik, Gradina, and other places. Those kept alive were mostly skilled at needed professions and trades (doctors, pharmacists, electricians, shoemakers, goldsmiths, and so on), and were employed in services and workshops at Jasenovac.{{sfn|EotH|1990|p="Jasenovac"}}

===Inmate population===
Serbs constituted the majority of inmates in Jasenovac.{{sfn|Pavlowitch|2008|p=34}} Serbs were generally brought to Jasenovac concentration camp after refusing to convert to [[Catholicism]]. In many municipalities around the [[NDH]], warning posters declared that any Serb who did not convert to [[Catholicism]] would be deported to a concentration camp.{{sfn|Paris|1961|p=157}} The Ustaše regime's policy of mass killings of Serbs constituted [[genocide]].<ref>{{cite web|title=Ustasa|url=https://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%205904.pdf|publisher=yadvashem.org|access-date=25 June 2018|archive-date=8 August 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190808002505/https://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%205904.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref>{{sfn|Frucht Levy|2009}}{{sfn|Mylonas|2003|p=115}}{{sfn|Crowe|2013|pp=45–46}}{{sfn|McCormick|2014}}<ref>{{cite web| url=http://public.mzos.hr/fgs.axd?id=10921| author=Ivo Goldstein| title=Uspon i pad NDH| publisher=[[Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb]]| access-date=20 February 2011| url-status=dead| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110717114852/http://public.mzos.hr/fgs.axd?id=10921| archive-date=17 July 2011| author-link=Ivo Goldstein}}</ref>{{sfn|Totten|Parsons|1997|p=430}}

The Jasenovac Memorial Area list of victims is more than 56% Serbs, 45,923 out of 80,914. In some cases, inmates were immediately killed upon acknowledging Serbian ethnicity, and most considered it to be the sole reason for their imprisonment.<ref>[[#State-Commission|State Commission, 1946]], pp. 30, 40–41.</ref>{{primary source inline|date=June 2022}} The Serbs were predominantly brought from the [[Kozara]] region, where the Ustaše captured areas that were held by Partisan guerrillas.{{sfn|Sindik (ed.)|1985|pp=40–41, 98, 131, 171}} Although the Germans were not directly present in Jasenovac concentration camp, they participated in the internment of peoples after the "cleansing actions" from the Partisan war-affected areas, especially during the Kozara offensive, in addition they were also taking inmates to forced labor in Germany and other camps in the occupied Europe.{{sfn|Mataušić|2008|p=8}} These were brought to the camp without sentence, almost destined for immediate execution, accelerated via the use of [[machine-gun]]s.

[[File:Odlok NDH.JPG|thumb|A report on the deportation of [[Travnik]] area Jews to Jasenovac and Stara Gradiška camps, March 1942]]
Jews, the primary target of Nazi genocide, were the second-largest category of victims of Jasenovac. The number of Jewish casualties is uncertain, but estimates range from about 8,000{{sfn|USHMM}} to around 25,000, almost two thirds of the Croatian Jewish population of 37,000.<ref name="yadvashem-5930">{{cite web|url=http://www1.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%205930.pdf|publisher=Yad Vashem|title=Croatia|access-date=2007-10-23|archive-date=2013-11-04|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131104235511/http://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%205930.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref>

Most of the executions of Jews at Jasenovac occurred prior to August 1942. Thereafter, the [[Independent State of Croatia#Establishment of NDH|NDH]] deported them to [[Auschwitz concentration camp|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. {{citation needed|date=March 2015}} 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, where nutrition, hydration, shelter and sanitary conditions were all below the rest of the camp's own abysmally low standards.<ref name="SC-43-44">[[#State-Commission|State Commission, 1946]], pp. 43–44.</ref>{{primary source inline|date=June 2022}} The figures of murdered Roma are estimated between 20,000 and 50,000.<ref name="SC-43-44"/>{{primary source inline|date=June 2022}}

Anti-fascists consisted of various sorts of political and ideological opponents or antagonists of the Ustaše regime. In general, their treatment was similar to other inmates, although known [[Communism|communists]] were executed right away, and convicted Ustaše or law-enforcement officials,<ref>[[#State-Commission|State Commission, 1946]], p. 32</ref>{{primary source inline|date=June 2022}} or others close to the Ustaše in opinion, such as Croatian peasants, 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.{{sfn|Tomasevich|2001|p=359}} Unique among the fascist states during World War II, Jasenovac contained a camp specifically for children in [[Sisak]]. Around 20,000 Serb, Jewish and Roma children perished at Jasenovac.{{sfn|Jasenovac Memorial Site List of individual victims}}

==== Women and children ====
Of the 83,145 named victims listed in the Jasenovac Memorial Site, more than half are women (23,474) and children (20,101) below  the age of 14. Most were held at [[Stara Gradiška concentration camp|Stara Gradiška]] camp of the Jasenovac complex, specifically designed for women and children,{{sfn|Jasenovac Memorial Site List of individual victims}} as well as associated camps in [[Jablanac Jasenovački|Jablanac]] and [[Mlaka, Sisak-Moslavina County|Mlaka]], while children were also held in other Ustaše concentration camps for children at [[Sisak children's concentration camp|Sisak]] and [[Jastrebarsko children's camp|Jastrebarsko]]. Many of the children in the camps were among the tens-of-thousands of Serb civilians captured during the German-Ustaše [[Kozara Offensive|Kozara offensive]], after which many of their parents sent to forced labor in Germany, while the children were separated from the parents and placed in Ustaše concentration camps. In addition nearly all the Roma women and children in the NDH were exterminated at Jasenovac, as well as thousands of Jewish women and children, among the up to two-thirds of all Croatian Holocaust victims killed at Jasenovac. The terrible conditions the children were held in were described by one of the female inmates Giordana Friedländer:<blockquote>When I entered the room I had something to see. One child was lying with his head in feces, the other children in urine were lying on top of each other. I approached one of the girls with the intention of lifting her out of the pool of dirt, and she looked at me as if smiling. She was already dead. One 10-year-old boy, completely naked, was standing by the wall because he could not sit down. Out of him hung his gut covered in flies.{{sfn|Goldstein|2018|loc="Tragedija djece s Kozare" chapter}}<ref name=":11">{{Cite web|title=Tragedija djece s Kozare – istina o krvavoj brutalnosti ustaša|url=https://www.autograf.hr/tragedija-djece-s-kozare-istina-o-krvavoj-brutalnosti-ustasa/|access-date=2020-09-13|website=autograf.hr|date=10 December 2018|language=en-US|archive-date=2023-04-07|archive-url=https://archive.today/20230407201804/https://www.autograf.hr/tragedija-djece-s-kozare-istina-o-krvavoj-brutalnosti-ustasa/|url-status=live}}</ref></blockquote>Later the commandant of the camp, Ante Vrban, ordered the room sealed and with a mask on his face inserted [[zyklon gas]] into the room, killing the remaining children.{{sfn|Goldstein|2018|loc="Tragedija djece s Kozare" chapter}}<ref name=":11" /> At his trial the commandant of Ante Vrban, admitted to these killings.{{sfn|Dulić|2005|p=272}}

===Living conditions===
[[File:Executed prisoners in Jasenovac.jpg|thumb|The bodies of prisoners executed by the Ustaše in Jasenovac<ref name="ushmm1">{{cite web|url=http://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1053017|title=The bodies of prisoners executed by the Ustasa in Jasenovac. – Collections Search – United States Holocaust Memorial Museum|website=collections.ushmm.org|access-date=2016-09-02|archive-date=2016-08-31|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160831094236/http://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1053017|url-status=live}}</ref>]]
The living conditions in the camp evidenced the severity typical of Nazi death camps: a meager diet, deplorable accommodation, and the cruel treatment by the Ustaše guards. As in many camps, conditions would be improved temporarily during visits by delegations{{spaced ndash}}such as the press delegation that visited in February 1942 and a [[Red Cross]] delegation in June 1944{{spaced ndash}}and reverted after the delegation left.{{sfn|EotH|1990|p=739}}

*'''Systematic starvation''': Again, typical of death camps, the diet of inmates at Jasenovac was insufficient to sustain life: In camp [[Bročice]], inmates were given a "soup" made of hot water with starch for breakfast, and beans for lunch and dinner (served at 6:00, 12:00 and 21:00).{{citation needed|date=June 2022}} The food in Camp No. III was initially better, consisting of potatoes instead of beans; however, in January{{When|date=March 2010|reason=Which year?}} the diet was changed to a single daily serving of thin "turnip soup," often hot water with two or three cabbage leaves thrown into the pot. By the end of the year, the diet changed again, to 3 daily portions of thin gruel made of water and starch.<ref>Lazar Lukajc: "Fratri i Ustase Kolju", interview with Borislav Seva, pp. 625–639.</ref>{{publisher missing|date=June 2022}}{{ISBN missing|date=June 2022}} To still their terrible hunger, "people ate grass and leaves, but these were very difficult to digest". As a special treat prisoners ate a dead dog, and there were "cases of scatophagia – inmates removing undigested beans and the like from the feces in the Ustasha latrine".{{sfn|Goldstein|Goldstein|2016|p=272}} People began to die of starvation already in October 1941.
*'''Water''': Jasenovac was even more severe than most death camps in one respect: a general lack of potable water. Prisoners were forced to drink water from the Sava river.
*'''Accommodation''': In the first camps, Bročice and Krapje, inmates slept in standard concentration-camp barracks, with three tiers of bunks. In the winter, these "barracks" freely admitted rain and snow through their roofs and gaps in their walls. Prisoners would have to wade through ankle deep water inside the cabin. Inmates who died were often left inside the "barracks" for several days before they were removed. In Camp No. III, which housed some 3,000 people, inmates initially slept in the attics of the workshops, in an open depot designated as a railway "tunnel", or simply in the open. A short time later, eight barracks were erected.<ref>[[#State-Commission|State Commission, 1946]], pp. 19–20, 40.</ref>{{primary source inline|date=June 2022}} Inmates slept in six of these barracks, while the other two were used as a "clinic" and a "hospital", where ill inmates were sent to die or be executed.<ref>[[#State-Commission|State Commission, 1946]], pp. 20, 39 (testimonies: Hinko Steiner, Marijan Setinc, Sabetaj Kamhi, Kuhada Nikola)</ref>{{primary source inline|date=June 2022}}
*'''Forced labor''': As in all concentration camps, Jasenovac inmates were forced daily to perform some 11 hours of hard labor, under the eye of their Ustaše captors, who would execute any inmate for the most trivial reasons.<ref>[[#State-Commission|State Commission, 1946]], pp. 20–22</ref>{{primary source inline|date=June 2022}} The labor section was overseen by Ustaša's Dominik "Hinko" Piccili (or Pičili) and Tihomir Kordić. Piccili (or Pičili) would personally lash inmates to force them to work harder.<ref>[[#State-Commission|State Commission, 1946]], pp. 30–31</ref>{{primary source inline|date=June 2022}}

He divided the "Jasenovac labor force" into 16 groups, including groups of construction, brickworks, metal-works, agriculture, etc. The inmates would perish from the hard work. Work in the brickworks was hard.<ref>Compare with Elizabeta Jevric, "Blank pages of the holocaust: Gypsies in Yugoslavia during World-war II", pp. 111–112, 120</ref> Blacksmith work was also done, as the inmates forged knives and other weapons for the Ustaše. Dike construction work was the most feared.{{citation needed|date=June 2022}}
*'''Sanitation''': Inside the camp, squalor and lack of sanitation reigned: clutter, blood, vomit and decomposing bodies filled the barracks, which were also full of pests and of the foul stench of the often overflowing latrine bucket.{{citation needed|date=June 2022}} Due to exposure to the elements, inmates suffered from impaired health leading to epidemics of [[typhus]], [[typhoid]], [[malaria]], [[pleuritis]], [[influenza]], [[dysentery]] and [[diphtheria]]. During pauses in labor (05:00–06:00; 12:00–13:00, 17:00–20:00) inmates had to relieve themselves at open latrines, which consisted of big pits dug in open fields, covered in planks. Inmates would tend to fall inside, and often died. The Ustaše encouraged this by either having internees separate the planks, or by physically drowning inmates inside. The pit would overflow during floods and rains, and was also deliberately drained into the lake, from which inmate drinking water was taken.{{citation needed|date=June 2022}} The inmate's rags and blankets were too thin to prevent exposure to frost, as was the shelter of the barracks.<ref>[[#State-Commission|State Commission, 1946]], p. 20.</ref>{{primary source inline|date=June 2022}} Clothes and blankets were rarely and poorly cleansed, as inmates were only allowed to wash them briefly in the lake's waters once a month<ref>[[#State-Commission|State Commission, 1946]], p. 20</ref>{{primary source inline|date=June 2022}} save during winter time, when the lake froze. Then, a sanitation device was erected in a warehouse, where clothes were insufficiently boiled.{{citation needed|date=June 2022}}
*'''Lack of personal possessions''': Inmates were stripped of their belongings and personal attire. As inmates, only ragged prison-issue clothing was given to them. In winter, inmates were given thin "rain-coats" and they were allowed to make light sandals. Inmates were given a personal food bowl, designed to contain {{Convert|0.4|liters}} of "soup" they were fed with. Inmates whose bowl was missing (e.g.: stolen by another inmate to defecate in) would receive no food.{{citation needed|date=June 2022}} During delegation visits, inmates were given bowls twice as large with spoons. At such times, inmates were given colored tags.
*'''Anxiety''': The fear of death, and the paradox of a situation in which the living dwell next to the dead, had great impact on the internees. Basically, an inmate's life in a concentration camp can be viewed in the optimal way when looking at it in three stages: arrival to camp, living inside it, and the release. The first stage consisted of the shock caused by the hardships in transit to camp. The Ustaše would fuel this shock by murdering a number of inmates upon arrival and by temporarily housing new-arrivals in warehouses, attics, in the train tunnel and outdoors.<ref>[[#State-Commission|State Commission, 1946]], pp. 16–18.</ref>{{primary source inline|date=June 2022}}

After the inmates grew familiar with the life in camp, they would enter the second and most critical phase: living through the anguish of death, and the sorrow, hardships and abuse. The peril of death was most prominent in "public performances for public punishment" or selections, when inmates would be lined in groups and individuals would be randomly pointed out to receive punishment of death before the rest. The Ustaše would intensify this by prolonging the process, patrolling about and asking questions, gazing at inmates, choosing them and then refrain and point out another.<ref>[[#State-Commission|State Commission, 1946]], pp. 23–24.</ref>{{primary source inline|date=June 2022}}<ref>Marijana Cvetko testimony, ''New York Times'', 3 May 1998. "War crimes revive as Croat faces possible trial"</ref> As inmates, people could react to the Ustaše crimes in an active or passive manner. The activists would form resistance movements and groups, steal food, plot escapes and revolts, contacts with the outside world.<ref>[[#State-Commission|State Commission, 1946]], pp. 53–55.</ref>{{primary source inline|date=June 2022}}

All inmates suffered psychological trauma to some extent: obsessive thoughts of food, paranoia, delusions, day-dreams, lack of self-control. Some inmates reacted with attempts at documenting the atrocities, such as survivors Ilija Ivanović, Dr Nikola Nikolić and Đuro Schwartz, all of whom tried to memorize and even write of events, dates and details. Such deeds were perilous, since writing was punishable by death and tracking dates was extremely difficult. Schwartz said that a father and his three sons were killed for writing. The witness wrote his memories on a piece of paper in tiny script and hid it in his shoe.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Schwarz |first=Duro |date=1956 |title=Memoirs of Ing. Duro Schwarz, born, 1901, regarding his experiences in Jasenovac camp, 1941-1942 |url=https://collections.yadvashem.org/en/documents/3731420 |access-date=2025-01-15 |website=European Holocaust Research Infrastructure |language=en, sr, hr}}</ref>

===Mass murder and cruelty===
The Croatian anti-Communist émigré, [[Ante Ciliga]], whom the Ustaše imprisoned in Jasenovac for one year, described Jasenovac as a huge killing machine, whose main purpose, like that of Auschwitz, was "extermination", although "the primitivistic cruelties of Jasenovac distinguished this Balkan Auschwitz."{{sfn|Goldstein|2018|p=105}} According to Jaša Almuli, the former president of the Serbian Jewish community, Jasenovac was a much more terrifying concentration camp in terms of brutality than many of its German counterparts, even Auschwitz.{{citation needed|date=April 2022}}

In the late summer of 1942, tens of thousands of ethnic Serb villagers were deported to Jasenovac from the [[Kozara]] region in [[Bosnia and Herzegovina|Bosnia]], where NDH forces were fighting the [[Yugoslav Partisans|Partisans]].{{sfn|Shelach et al.|1990|pp=432–434}} Most of the men were murdered in Jasenovac, and the women were sent to forced labor camps in [[Germany]]. Children were either murdered or dispersed to Catholic orphanages.{{sfn|Shelach et al.|1990|pp=192, 196}} According to survivors' testimonies, at the special camp designed for children, Catholic nuns murdered children under their watch with a motion similar to swinging a baseball bat: a child gripped by the legs would be swung so forcefully that the head's impact against the wall was fatal. These claims could not be verified or certified.{{sfn|Israeli|2013|p=135|}}

On the night of 29 August 1942, prison guards made bets among themselves as to who could slaughter the largest number of inmates. One of the guards, [[Petar Brzica]], boasted<ref>Alan Greenhalgh. ''The Glass Half Full''; {{ISBN|0-9775844-1-0}}, p. 68{{publisher missing}}</ref> that he had cut the throats of about 1,360 new arrivals.<ref name="blum">{{cite book|first=Howard|last=Blum|title=Wanted!: The Search for Nazis in America|publisher=Quadrangle/New York Times Book Co.|year=1977|isbn=0812906071}}{{page needed|date=September 2015}}</ref>

Other participants who confessed to participating in the bet included Ante Zrinušić-Sipka, who killed some 600 inmates, and Mile Friganović, who gave a detailed and consistent report of the incident.<ref>{{cite web|title=Hidden History: The Horror of Jasenovac|author=Wanda B. Schindley|url=http://www.jasenovac-info.com/cd/biblioteka/wschindley-jasenovac_en.html|publisher=Jasenovac-info.com|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090501115807/http://www.jasenovac-info.com/cd/biblioteka/wschindley-jasenovac_en.html|archive-date=1 May 2009}}</ref> Friganović admitted to having killed some 1,100 inmates. He specifically recounted his torture of an old man named [[Vukasin Mandrapa]]; he attempted to compel the man to bless [[Ante Pavelić]], which the old man refused to do, even after Friganović had cut off both his ears and nose 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 Nikolić.<ref>Avro Manhattan, ''The Vatican's Holocaust'', p. 48.</ref>{{ISBN missing|date=June 2022}}

====Srbosjek====
[[File:Srbosjek (knife) used in Croatia - 1941–1945.jpg|thumb|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]]
The Ustaše slaughtered inmates with a knife that became known as the "Srbosjek" ({{lang-sr-Cyrl|Србосјек}}, {{lit|Serb-cutter}}).{{sfn|Wagner|Kennedy|Barrett Osborne|Reyburn|2007|pp=[https://archive.org/details/libraryofcongres0000wagn/page/640 640], 646–647, 683|loc='At Jasenovac, a series of camps in Croatia, the ultranationalist, right-wing Ustaše murdered Serbs, Jews, Romani, Bosnian Muslims, and political opponents not by gassing, but with hand tools or the infamous graviso or Srbosjek ("Serb cutter") – a long, curved knife attached to a partial glove and designed for rapid, easy killing.'}}{{sfn|Israeli|2013|page=135}}{{sfn|Crowe|2013|p=71}}{{sfn|Freund|2013|loc='The Ustashe even employed a special knife they called a "Srbosjek", or "Serb-cutter", to slaughter as many Serbs as possible.'}}{{sfn|Hunt|1994|pp=289–301}}

The construction was originally a type of wheat sheaf knife, manufactured prior to and during World War II by the German factory [[Gebrüder Gräfrath]] from [[Solingen|Solingen-Widdert]], under the trademark "Gräwiso".{{sfn|Dedijer|1992}}{{sfn|Born|1987|p=65|loc="Beliebt war das sogar wettbewerbsmäßig organisierte Kehledurchschneiden mit einem speziellen Krumm-messer Marke Gräviso"}}{{sfn|Nikolić|1969|pp=72–73|loc='Na koncu noža, tik bakrene ploščice, je bilo z vdolbnimi črkami napisano "Grafrath gebr. Solingen", na usnju pa reliefno vtisnjena nemška tvrtka "Graeviso" [Picture with description]: Posebej izdelan nož, ki so ga ustaši uporabljali pri množičnih klanjih. Pravili so mu "kotač" – kolo – in ga je izdelovala nemška tvrtka "Graeviso"'}} 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, {{Convert|12|cm|4=-long|adj=mid}} 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.{{sfn|Nikolić|1969|pp=72–73|loc='Na koncu noža, tik bakrene ploščice, je bilo z vdolbnimi črkami napisano "Grafrath gebr. Solingen", na usnju pa reliefno vtisnjena nemška tvrtka "Graeviso" [Picture with description]: Posebej izdelan nož, ki so ga ustaši uporabljali pri množičnih klanjih. Pravili so mu "kotač" – kolo – in ga je izdelovala nemška tvrtka "Graeviso"'}} Its agricultural purpose was to enable field workers to cut wheat sheaves open before threshing them. The knife was fixed on the glove plate to prevent injuries and to increase work speed.{{citation needed|date=June 2022}}

===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}}

===Inmate help===
In July 1942, [[Diana Budisavljević]], with the help of a German officer, Albert von Kotzian, obtained written permission to take the children from the Stara Gradiška concentration camp.{{sfn|Ajduković|2006}} With the help of the Ministry of Social Affairs, including Kamilo Bresler, she was able to relocate child inmates from the camp to Zagreb, and other places.{{sfn|Ajduković|2006}}

The [[Red Cross]] has been accused of insufficiently aiding the persecuted people of Nazi Europe. The local representative, Julius Schmidllin, was contacted by the Jewish community, which sought financial aid. The organisation helped to release Jews from camps, and even debated with the Croatian government in relation to visiting the Jasenovac camp.{{citation needed|date=July 2022}} The wish was eventually granted in July 1944. The camp was prepared for the arrival of the delegation, so nothing incriminating was found.{{sfn|Shelach et al.|1990|pp=313–314}} Inmate resistance groups were aided by contacts among the Ustaše. One of these groups, operating in the tannery, was assisted by an Ustaša, Dr Marin Jurčev and his wife, who were later hanged for this on orders of [[Dinko Šakić]], as was any Ustasha found guilty of consorting or collaborating with inmates were executed.{{citation needed|date=June 2022}}