Jesenovac (Jasenovac), Croatian Kajkavian and Šokac Jesenovac, Serbian: Jasenovac. It is a municipality, a small town, and a former concentration camp (1941-1951) in Posavina, north of the confluence of the Una River into the Sava, Sisak-Moslavina County. Other Kajkavian villages with similar names in Croatia are Jesenovec near Sesvete close to Zagreb and Jasenovec near Krapinske Toplice in Croatian Zagorje.
Abstract
Jesenovac (in Croat) or Jasenovac (Serbian) is a minor township in Croatia, at confluence of rivers Una and Sava. During a decade, in its vicinity was a major konz-lager of wartime Croatia (1941-1945) for Serbs and Jews, and then continued also in post-war Yugoslavia (1946-1951) for torturing and killing Croats. Its exaggerated number of victims was extremely varied, from cca. 20,000 only by rightists up to even 1,200,000 by leftists: so numerous registered "victims" persisted to recently alive at their homes, or then emigrated in Americas.
Name and language environment
The area of Jesenovac has always been predominantly Kajkavian in speech, so Kajkavian villages and hamlets still prevail north of the Sava and west of the confluence of the Una towards Dubica: e.g. Kajkavian villages Krapje, Puska, Trebež, Plesmo, Brečica etc. East of Jesenovac towards Gradiška in Lower Posavina are villages of the old Šokac dialect, which also still partially use the archaic Croatian dialect. Therefore, Jesenovac has always been predominantly a Croatian and semi-Kajkavian settlement, with only a smaller subsequent share of settled Orthodox Serbs from southern Bosnian Krajina, east of the confluence of the Una (now the Republic of Srpska).
Due to such a linguistic environment of archaic Croatian dialects, the newer 'Jasenovac' has always been publicly referred to as Jesenovac until the first Yugoslavia, as it was named after the vast floodplain forests of the field ash (Fraxinus oxycarpa) that surround it, and that tree is mostly called 'jesen' (and not wolfish 'jasen') in most old Croatian dialects (Kajkavian, Chakavian, Old Štokavian, etc.). Therefore, the so-called Jasenovac is a newly imposed Yugoslav toponym of Serbian origin, which was introduced only in the first Yugoslavia when it was still partially used alongside the original Jesenovac, and it was officially imposed and prevailed only in communist Yugoslavia through the concentration camp 'Jasenovac'. However, the local indigenous people from the surrounding villages in that municipality still predominantly call it by its original Croatian name Jesenovac up to this day.
Municipality of Jasenovac
The municipality of Jasenovac encompasses the easternmost part of the Sisak-Moslavina County and lies in Posavina, around the confluence of the Una River into the Sava. The area of the municipality is 168.5 sq.km, with a total of 2,391 inhabitants according to the 2001 census, the postal code is 44324 Jasenovac and the associated settlements are: Drenov Bok, Jasenovac, Košutarica, Krapje, Mlaka, Puska, Tanac, Trebež, Uštica, and Višnjica. Geographic coordinates: latitude = 45.27 S and longitude = 16.91 E.
Geography
The Municipality of Jesenovac lies on the northeastern edge of the Sisak-Moslavina County. It is a lowland alluvial area of central Posavina, surrounded by the rivers Sava, Una, the stream Trebež, and the canal Veliki Strug, with about ten associated settlements located on 168.5 km2. The climate is lowland and moderately continental, and Jesenovac itself is situated at an altitude of 194m. The largest part of the municipality is encompassed in the Lonjsko Polje Nature Park. The settlement of Jesenovac is 8 km away from the junction Novska on the X. pan-European corridor of the Posavina motorway Ljubljana-Bregana-Zagreb-Lipovac and also lies along the electrified railway line Novska - Sunja - Sisak.
History
Jesenovac is mentioned in 1536, when it was briefly captured by the Turks under the command of Usref-beg. Near Jesenovac at the confluence of the Una River, during the time of Napoleon, from 1805 to 1813, there was an imperial tripoint between Ottoman Turkey, Austro-Hungary, and Napoleon's Illyria. Earlier, Jesenovac was an important shipping port for river navigation on the Sava River to Sisak, and later a railway station on the Novska - Sisak line. In Jasenovac, there was a concentration camp that operated during the wartime of the NDH, but continued even after the war in Yugoslavia, and was only abolished in 1951 (more details at the end of the text).
Population
According to the last census of the population from 2001, the municipality of Jasenovac had 2,391 inhabitants, where Croats make up: 91% of the population distributed in 10 settlements: Jasenovac (Jesenovac) 780 inhabitants, Drenov Bok - 143, Košutarica - 282, Krapje - 179, Mlaka (Jesenovačka) - 30, Puska - 321, Tanac - 167, Trebež (Jesenovački) - 77, Uštica - 214, Višnjica Uštička - 198.
In the Sisak-Moslavina County, the largest recent depopulation of the population is in the area of the municipality of Jasenovac, compared to 1991, by about 30%. According to the 1991 census, there were 3,599 inhabitants in the municipality, while today there are only about 2,500, and a large share of the population, over 60%, are people over 60 years old.
Municipal Administration
The mayor of the Municipality of Jasenovac for many years has been Marija Mačković (HDZ), who has revitalized Jasenovac after the Homeland War. Although Mayor Mačković operates with a small budget, there is always something happening in that municipality, and the reason for this is the numerous state aids, as Jasenovac falls under areas of special state care. The Municipal Council of Jasenovac has 15 members, headed by Zoran Prpić.
Economy
The Municipality of Jasenovac before the Homeland War did not have significant industrial capacities, while tourism was an important item of the Jasenovac economy due to natural beauty and cultural heritage. The excellent traffic position near the highway and railway, as well as the border with BiH), and the natural resources of abundant ash and pedunculate oak forests, as well as Sava gravel, are of great importance for the development of the economy. However, the severe consequences of the recent Homeland War are still visible, and thus the economy is gradually recovering. Currently, the main works are being carried out in two municipal zones, the industrial zone and the small crafts zone with a market, which will significantly impact the improvement of the economic situation in the future.
Sport
The most famous football club is NK Jasenovac founded in 1919. The most successful club is actually the Jasenovac Athletic Club JAK, whose member Milan Kotur won 1st place at the European Junior Championships in the 400m hurdles (Kaunas, Lithuania) in 2005, and 3rd place at the U23 European Championships (Debrecen, Hungary) in 2007. Milan is a five-time senior champion of Croatia in the 400m hurdles.
Monuments and Landmarks
The Posavina village Krapje, located on the banks of the Sava River near Jasenovac, has been declared a village of architectural heritage where the European Heritage Day is celebrated every year in September. A unique experience amidst the beautiful Posavina nature and tradition, but above all with the old-Posavina architecture of local houses with numerous nests of storks, encourages tourists to visit this quaint village, which represents a significant cultural landmark of the Municipality of Jasenovac and the entire county.
Memorial Area Jasenovac, is one of the largest monuments of the Holocaust and concentration camps in our area. Since 2002, experts from Croatia and abroad have been collaborating in the creation of a new concept for the Jasenovac Memorial Area, with the help of the Holocaust Museum in Washington and Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. The goal of the new concept, which relates to the opening of a new permanent exhibition and a new educational center, is primarily to identify the victims and their individual sufferings, of which over 60 thousand have been listed by name so far.
Konclogor Jasenovac 1941.- 1951.
The Sabirni camp Jasenovac was the largest concentration camp in the Independent State of Croatia from 1941 to 1945, but also later in post-war Yugoslavia from 1946 to 1961, when it was the second largest Yugoslav camp after Goli Otok. There has been no other concentration camp in wartime and post-war Europe that has been subjected to so much stretching, forgery, minimization and exaggeration, as well as notorious fabrications and forgeries - as around Jasenovac, whose main aspects are, for example:
- The only name of the place is falsified: instead of the originally Croatian Jesenovac - the Serbian Јасеновац has been imposed.
- The shortened duration of the camp is also falsified: instead of 1941-1951, it is falsely and persistently repeated only until 1945 - although that camp operated at least until 1948, and was certainly abolished only in 1951.
- A part of the subsequently attributed photo documentation has been falsified: along with rare original recordings from Jasenovac, recordings of repression from distant Istria, Lepoglava, etc. were inserted as false evidence (discovered by Croatian, Slovenian, and American experts).
- As victims, over a thousand persons have been proven to be added who never were in Jasenovac, as they lived at home for decades, or moved to America, or perished elsewhere far from Jasenovac.
- There is a huge range of various bidding and strained estimates about the victims: from only 20,000 from Croatian right sources to as much as 1,200,000 from Yugoslav-Serbian estimates, i.e. even 60 times more! Today available data mostly indicate the disappearance of around 60,000 to 100,000 victims.
- For those truly or probably missing after entering Jasenovac, a significant part has not yet been specified place: whether they perished in Jasenovac itself, or were transferred to other concentration camps of the NDH and to foreign camps of the Axis powers, which was a common practice.
- Above all, the time range of the missing victims is also still unclear and concealed: whether all disappeared only in wartime Jasenovac 1941/45, or at least part (especially Croats) got stuck in post-war Jasenovac 1946-1951.
Conclusion in NDH 1941.- 1945.
The creation of concentration camps for the detention, forced labor, and liquidation of numerous Serbs, Jews, Roma (Gypsies), and undesirable Croats (opponents of the Axis) was a consequence of the policy of racial and national segregation in the Independent State of Croatia, proclaimed by the Ustaše after April 1941, under the auspices and influence of the Axis powers of Germany. The first legal provisions of the new state, NDH, were mostly a reflection of the ideological determinants of German Nazism and Italian Fascism, emphasizing Croatian national and state specificity. Therefore, the very first Legal Provision for the Defense of the People and the State from April 17, 1941, provided for the death penalty for violations of the vital interests of the Croatian people and the survival of the NDH, and this provision became the legal basis for later repressions. Soon, other similar provisions followed: the Legal Provision on Racial Affiliation and the Legal Provision on the Protection of Aryan Blood and Honor of the Croatian People from April 30, 1941, and the Order on the Organization of the Scope of Work of the Racial-Political Commission from June 4, 1941. To implement these legal provisions, extraordinary and mobile summary courts with broader powers were established alongside regular ones. They soon expanded their activities to opponents of the Ustaše regime or those suspected of being members of communist groups, regardless of their national or religious affiliation. Individual and mass arrests and deportations of Serbs, Jews, Roma, and undesirable Croats (including Muslims), with or without judicial sentences, necessitated the creation of new prisons and camps alongside the existing ones.
Concentration Camp Jasenovac 1941-45.
The concentration camp Jasenovac was made up of several camps established in a short period at varying distances around Jasenovac. Preparations for the establishment of a new camp began on July 24, 1941, when the Directorate of Melioration and Regulatory Works ordered wood "for the construction of wooden barracks in Jasenovac." Although the place Jasenovac is mentioned, the first detainees were transported to Camp I near the village Krapje and to Camp II near the village Bročice. These first two camps were soon disbanded due to frequent floods from the canal Veliki Strug, which made it impossible for the detainees to work and stay in the camps, and the surviving detainees were relocated to the new Camp III. Ciglana by the Sava River not far from the settlement of Jasenovac, where an industrial facility already existed. Alongside this largest and central concentration camp, other branches of the camp gradually emerged: the work group Kožara from 1942 in Jasenovac itself, the camp Stara Gradiška, the second largest, located in the former Yugoslav camp, and the camp economies Mlaka, Jablanac, Gređani, Bistrica, and Feričanci. This entire complex of camps was organized based on the model of the collection camps of the Third Reich, under the official name "Ustaška obrana - Zapovjedničtvo sabirnih logora Jasenovac". It was under the command and supervision of the UNS (Ustaška nadzorne službe), i.e., its Office III. Ustaške obrane, whose functions were the establishment, organization, administration, and security of the camp.
The Sabirni camp Jasenovac was the first systematically built camp complex on the territory of the Independent State of Croatia and the largest in terms of the area it occupied, the number of inmates who passed through it, and the number of victims who perished in it. It was simultaneously a multifunctional camp:
- patience to which men, women, and children from all parts of NDH were directed, but also
- transient as a significant portion of the detainees were sent for forced labor in Germany and other camps of the Axis powers, furthermore
- labor camp i.e. the free 'largest factory' in NDH with forced labor,
- penal to which one was sent by court verdict for committing a criminal offense and
- prisoner i.e. captured partisans and Chetniks, as well as a camp for liquidation. It was a place of demise for many who came there and did not racially fit in like Jews, or members of undesirable nations (Serbs and Roma), but also for unsuitable Croatian opponents of the Ustaša regime and their family members.
End of the war 1945.
After the Allied bombings of the camp in March and April 1945, which destroyed many facilities in the camp, the commander of the Ustaša Defense Vjekoslav Maks Luburić ordered the liquidation of the camp and the remaining detainees. The last group of women was liquidated on the evening of April 21, and on April 22, part of the last male detainees attempted to break out of the camp, and of the 600, 107 detainees survived the breakout. The same day, a few hours later, the breakout of detainees from Kožara began, where only 11 out of 176 were saved.
After a week, on May 2 and 3, 1945, the '1st Battalion of the XXI Assault Division of the Yugoslav Army' entered the abandoned place Jasenovac and the camp, tasked with preserving traces until the arrival of the state commission for determining the crimes of the occupiers. The first insight into the situation in the Jasenovac III. Brick Factory camp, in Gradina and Uštica, was conducted by the 'District Commission for Determining the Crimes of the Occupiers and Their Accomplices' from Nova Gradiška on May 11, 1945. The State Commission of Croatia for Determining Crimes arrived in Jasenovac on May 18, 1945. Information about the appearance, organization of work, daily life, and the last days of the camp was provided to the Commission by surviving inmates and participants of the breakout. A month later, on June 18, when the flooded Sava River receded into its bed, the State Commission of Croatia conducted a third inspection.
Titov south camp 1946.- 1951.
Today it has been more or less confirmed that most of the Ustaše war concentration camps were abused and continued to operate in the aftermath with the reverse victims: especially Lepoglava (up to today), Stara Gradiška (1928-1995), Jasenovac (1941-1951), etc. Thus, shortly after the war, the concentration camp Jasenovac became shrouded in a veil of secrecy with no access, as a public taboo about which one could only know and write from official Yugoslav reports. After some time, it became somewhat clear to many that something very suspicious was still happening there, unlike other war concentration camps in Europe that were mostly publicly closed and preserved.
The first indication of these strange events were the columns of Croatian prisoners from the Cross Road 1945, which partly ended without return in that Jasenovac 1945/46, and it has since been shown that in post-war Jasenovac, the Yugoslav partisans systematically liquidated a significant number of home guards and Ustaša soldiers, as well as numerous civilian refugees (men, women, and children) who were fleeing en masse from the invasion of partisans through Slovenia towards Austria, and were killed on their return from the 'Cross Road'. According to a public statement (April 2009) by Prof. Dr. Zvonimir Šeparović on behalf of the Croatian Victimology Society, there was documentation in the Jasenovac archive about the post-war activities of that Yugoslav camp as early as the 1980s, which was then removed (destroyed?) by the partisan SUBNOR before the breakup of Yugoslavia.
Only after the breakup of Yugoslavia in 1991, did the first witnesses and eyewitnesses of the suffering in the Yugoslav camps and post-war Jasenovac finally dare to speak. Among others, the Society of Political Prisoners and finally the Croatian Victimology Society, which has been organizing professional congresses since the 1990s, engaged in this, where a number of more reliable indicators have been developed. Previous estimates confirm at least 15,000 victims, mostly Croats and some local Volksdeutsche, from post-war Jasenovac. Later findings of numerous traces of Croatian folk costumes with ducats there confirm that the majority of those liquidated in post-war Jasenovac were Croatian civilians and women from Slavonia.
For that southern concentration camp Jasenovac, an impartial Ljubica Štefan (who was awarded in Israel the title of Righteous Among the Nations for wartime rescue of Jews in the NDH) previously published a good documentary overview of post-war victims and testimonies: Post-war Tito's camp Jasenovac 1945.- 1947/48 (2nd Victimology Congress 1998). Among other data, the then victims and surviving eyewitnesses of this post-war Jasenovac have so far been confirmed by name, e.g.: Dr. Ivan Paspa, Eduard Mikša, Stjepan Ereš, Matija Helman, Slavko Bašić, Ivan Ruševljan, Drago Ercegović, the Lovas brothers, ...and many others (cf. Ivan Vukić, Ljubica Štefan).
Meanwhile, some post-war commanders of the Yugoslav camp Jasenovac are finally known: for example, already after the war around 1947, the well-known comrade Major Zvonko Ivanković-Vonta commanded over the prisoners in the Yugoslav camp Jasenovac (cf. Glas Koncila 2017 and Hrvatski tjednik, March 2017). Therefore, it is an ideological subterfuge and false manipulation that the camp Jasenovac allegedly existed 'only until 1945', while the indoctrinated partisan descendants falsely excuse themselves and persistently repeat that there is allegedly 'no evidence' for its continued operation.
The latest monographic study on the documented activities of the post-war Yugoslav camp Jasenovac (at least from 1945 to 1948) has recently been published by Stipo Pilić and Blanka Matković (HAZU Zadar 2014): The Post-War Prisoner Camp Jasenovac According to Testimonies and New Archival Sources, and the latest additions to it so far in 'Hrvatski tjednik' 2014-2017. After these publications, there is mostly no longer any doubt about the previously persistently concealed undeniable truth: the continuation of the work of the Yugo-Communist concentration camp Jasenovac, at least from 1945 to 1948 (and perhaps even longer until 1951?), in which post-war tortured and at least until 1948 partly liquidated Yugo-Communist undesirables, several thousand predominantly Croatian victims.
Number of Victims of Jasenovac
Regarding the number of victims of the Jasenovac camp, their religious and national structure, there are various estimates and assumptions. Excessive exaggerations and downplaying, as well as the misuse of the number of victims for daily political purposes, were possible because the actual number of victims has never been objectively or officially verified, and the nominal lists of war victims (1946, 1950, and 1964) have never been fully published, and even the most recent ones are partially superficial because living so-called victims or relatives of recently deceased "victims" are coming forward later. For example, according to a partial nominal list from 1964, which states that the list is incomplete, 50,002 people died in the Jasenovac camp and 9,587 in Stara Gradiška, i.e., a total of 59,589 recorded victims.
- 1,000 - 3,000 victims according to research by Mr. Mladen Ivezić published in the book "Jasenovac - numbers"
- 50,002 victims according to the named list of victims published in Yugoslavia in 1964.
- 60,000 to 70,000 victims according to the estimate published in the book Franjo Tuđman "The Abyss of Historical Reality"
- 70,000 victims according to research by Dr. Bogoljub Kočović,
- 83,000 victims according to research by Vladimir Žerjavić
- 60,000 to 90,000 victims according to the estimate by Slavko Goldstein
- 100,000 victims according to the estimate by the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington
- 500,000 - 600,000 victims according to the estimate by the State Commission of Croatia for the Establishment of Crimes of Occupiers and Their Collaborators in 1945.
- 650,000 victims, a number cited by the Jewish Center Simon Wiesenthal
- 700,000-1.2 million victims, which historian Vladimir Dedijer gives in the book "New Contributions"
Demographic analyses by Prof. Vladimir Žerjavić and Dr. Bogoljub Kočović, who worked independently of each other, have produced similar results and approximate estimates. These two expert demographers have not been refuted by coherent scientific arguments so far. Dr. Kočović estimated that around 70,000 people lost their lives in Jasenovac, while Žerjavić estimated that around 83,000 individuals perished in Jasenovac: 45,000 to 52,000 Serbs, 13,000 Jews, 12,000 Croats and Muslims, and 10,000 Roma. Recent research by the Jasenovac Memorial Center, published in "The List of Victims of KCL Jasenovac" in 2008, is similar, where victims are listed by name and surname from the Center's archives, with 75,159 victims of various nationalities recorded, of which 57,614 individuals are noted to have died in the Jasenovac camp, 12,220 in the Stara Gradiška camp, and for 8 individuals, the place of death is unknown.
However, even these seemingly redundant and documentary lists later prove to be unreliable and need to be corrected again. For example, after the insight of relatives or neighbors of the alleged victims from those lists, it has already been shown that several hundred 'missing' individuals were never in Jasenovac nor did they ever come there, but rather lived elsewhere at home for decades after the war, or moved abroad after the war and thus did not perish, or that some perished in the war but elsewhere far from Jasenovac: The most fictitious, i.e., subsequently added 'victims' on the Jasenovac list so far include 167 from Solin, 101 from Podgora, 47 from Siverić, 7 from Livno (the Kozomara family), ...etc. (M. Prpa 2008). Above all, in a number of other cases, the date or at least the year of death is not clearly marked, which raises doubts as to whether they perished in the wartime concentration camp from 1941 to 1945, or in the post-war Yugoslav camp from 1945 to 1951.
Conclusion
Thus, around that camp 'Jasenovac', for half a century of Yugoslavia, at least 3 key lies have been persistently accumulated:
- 1. The number of victims is often inflated,
- 2. The camp operated for a long decade, not just until 1945 (at least until 1948),
- 3. That Serbified place is called JEsenovac in Croatian (and not "Јасеновац").
Society for the Research of Jasenovac
"The Society for the Research of the Triple Camp Jasenovac" is an initiative prompted by a group of intellectuals interested in re-examining the version of the history of the Jasenovac Concentration Camp, as officially promoted by the Public Institution Memorial Area Jasenovac. Under that name (April 2015), an online service also operates that promotes the views of the initiative's members and seeks to provide an overview of articles that question the official version of the history of the Jasenovac Concentration Camp.
Initiators state: “Until 1990, the official number of victims of the Jasenovac camp was 700,000. This number could not be publicly doubted, under the threat of imprisonment. Now, the prevailing claim in Croatian public is that around 80,000 people were killed in the camp.” The initiators believe “that this is also a grossly exaggerated number,” and are convinced “that a comprehensive investigation would confirm the assessment that it was a labor and collection camp, as its official name stated, where detainees were not brought with the intention of being killed.”
They also state that "there are testimonies that the camp continued to operate even after 1945, and the detainees were opponents of the communist regime and supporters of Stalin's Informburo. Hence the adjective 'triple'" camp. The members of the initiative have so far published several texts on the issue of the Jasenovac Concentration Camp, emphasizing that "none of these works have been banned in Croatia, nor have any proceedings been initiated against the authors for any potential violation of the law."
The initiative is led by historian Stjepan Razum and journalist Igor Vukić, and the founding assembly of that Society was held in Zagreb on June 6, 2014. The competent City Office for City Administration of Zagreb refused to register the new association, so the founders appealed to the Ministry of Administration of the Republic of Croatia. In the meantime, their post-war, and undesirable data for the Yugoslav partisans, have been published consecutively for the last few years by Hrvatski tjednik, Glas Koncila and similar right-national magazines.
Literature
- State Archive in Sisak, Sisak.
- Matija Helman: Diary from the Camp. Family Archive, 1962.
- Ljubica Štefan: Post-war Tito's Camp Jasenovac 1945.- 1947/48. 2nd Croatian Victimology Congress, 1998.
- Matko Marušić: Jasenovac Camps - Research, destroys the false myth about Jasenovac to dust and ashes! Croatian Weekly, July 2015, no. 562: 38 - 39, Zadar.
- Nataša Mataušić: On the Concentration Camp Jasenovac, Informatica Museologica, 31(1-2)" MDC, Zagreb, 2000., pp. 108-113.
- Nataša Mataušić, Jasenovac 1941-1945. - Death Camp and Labor Camp, SPJ, 2003.
- Mile Prpa: _The Theft of Victims and the Jasenovac
External connections
War conclave 1941.-1945.
Portable jugologor 1946.-51.
Links
Reference
Completed and elaborated by GNU-license, almost from Croatian Wikislavia (and partly a stub in Croatian Wikipedia).