Editing Jasenovac concentration camp (section)

=== 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"}}