THE BREAKTHROUGH OF JASENOVAC CAMP INMATES

BIJELJINA, APRIL 21 /SRNA/ - The surviving inmates of Jasenovac, the infamous concentration camp of the Independent State of Croatia /NDH/, tried on April 22, 1945, in a desperate attack on the guards, to get their freedom, but only 169 out of 1,073 succeeded.

The Ustashas killed hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews and Roma in the largest "death factory" in the Balkans during World War II. The Jasenovac concentration camp was the largest death camp in the then fascist NDH, on the territory of the occupied Kingdom of Yugoslavia. It was formed in August 1941, and was designed by one of the biggest war criminals, Maks Luburić, who was also the first commander of the camp. The camp was destroyed by the Ustashas in April 1945 in order to hide their crimes. "Labour camp Jasenovac", as the Croatian state administration calls it, was an execution site for Serbs, Roma and Jews of all ages, genders, social, educational and other profiles, as well as for anti-fascists, helpers and sympathizers of Serbs, Roma and Jews. The Jasenovac camp system was infamous for its barbaric methods and large number of victims. Professor Gideon Greif, a historian specializing in the Holocaust and the author of the extremely important monograph "Jasenovac - Auschwitz of the Balkans - the Ustasha Empire of Cruelty," states that Jasenovac was "far more brutal than Auschwitz". In the process of "purification of the Croatian nation," Serb children were killed, along with adults. During four years, between April 1941 and May 1945, 73,316 children were killed in the Ustasha NDH. During World War II, Croatia was the only place in Europe with special camps for children. Only between December 1941 and April 1942, the Ustasha killed 19,544 boys and girls of Serb background, whose identities were established later. They were killed, according to testimonies, in the most terrible ways, but were also dying of disease, starvation, thirst and freezing. Many children were killed in Jasenovac in mid-September 1942. The bodies of the children were brought with 15 carts to the brick factory and burned. A similar fate befell 300 children who were executed in Gradina in October of the same year. A huge number of children, around 12,000, were saved from the Ustasha pogrom thanks to Diana Budisavljević and dozens of noble people who were helping her. The number of victims in the Jasenovac concentration camp has never been accurately determined. The camp archive was destroyed twice - at the beginning of 1943 and in April 1945. The Croatian National Commission, established in 1945, stated in its report to the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg that the number of victims was between 500,000 and 700,000. German generals from World War II gave very different data on the number of Serbs killed in the NDH, but they all have one thing in common: they all mention hundreds of thousands of victims. In 1943, Alexander Lehr spoke of 400,000 killed Serbs, Lothar Renduli, a German colonel-general, states that about "500,000 Orthodox were killed," General Hermann Neubacher mentions "more than 750,000 killed" and SS General Ernst Fick - 600,000. After World War II, in order to equalize the victims, sacrifices and merits for the liberation of the country, the communist authorities did everything possible to mention Jasenovac as little as possible. No films or serials were made about the largest execution ground in the NDH, and the communist leader Josip Broz Tito never visited Jasenovac.