The Jasenovac concentration and extermination camp was the largest of its kind in the Independent State of Croatia (ISC) [Nezavisna Država Hrvatska] and one of the largest concentration camp complexes in Europe during World War II. It was named after the village of Jasenovac, which is located around 100 kilometres southeast of Zagreb. The Jasenovac camp complex was the second largest killing site of Roma after the concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau.
The Camp and its Structure
The ISC authorities began building the Jasenovac camp system at the end of July 1941 and extended it continuously during the following months. The decision to establish a new camp complex within the German-occupied part of Croatia was linked to the dismantling of the Gospić complex, whose area (Velebit and the island of Pag) was claimed by the Italian military authorities to secure the Italian occupation zone. The area of Jasenovac was chosen for the camp due to its location in the isolated wetland area of Lonjsko Polje, near the confluence of the Una and Sava rivers. Additional factors were the already existing transport infrastructure (railways and roads), and an industrial complex with chain factories, sawmills, grain mills and brickworks, which had all belonged to the Serbian Bačić family before they were forced to emigrate to Serbia at the beginning of World War II. The head of Bureau III of the Ustaša Surveillance Service (UNS) [Ustaška nadzorna služba], Vjekoslav ‘Maks’ Luburić (1914–1969), who managed and oversaw the whole concentration camp system in the ISC, partially adapted the model of camp management after his visit to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Oranienburg near Berlin in September 1941.1Kevo, “Počeci logora Jasenovac,” 478; Goldstein, Jasenovac, 98–99.
The Jasenovac camp system was composed of several camps: Camp I Krapje and Camp II Bročice were the first to open but had to be dissolved in November 1941 due to heavy flooding by the Sava river. Camp III Ciglana (meaning ‘Brickworks’), officially named ‘Labour Service of the Ustaša Defence Detention Camp No. III’ [Radna služba Ustaške obrane sabirni logor Br. III], was the largest and most lethal part of the Jasenovac complex. It functioned both as a forced labour and extermination camp and played a key role in the genocide of Roma, including the Uštica subcamp and [Donja] Gradina killing site. Camp IV Kožara, which roughly translates to ‘Leatherworks’, was opened in an existing tannery facility of the village of Jasenovac in January 1942. It was the smallest camp in size, where skilled prisoners had to produce leather goods for the Croatian war effort. Camp V Stara Gradiška was located in a fortress of a former Austro–Hungarian garrison town and held predominantly women and children, including hundreds of Roma women.
Mass Arrests and Deportations
The first groups of detainees were deported to the Jasenovac camp in August 1941, predominantly Serbs and Jews, as well as Croatian communists and other opponents of the regime. Most of them were transferred from the Gospić camp complex, which was located in the Croatian coastal areas that were claimed by the Italian army in that period of time. According to witness testimonies, it is likely that some Roma were among the deportees from Slana and Jastrebarsko. The first larger groups of Roma were deported during the same period from the Danica camp near Koprivnica, followed by deportations of Roma from the wider Virovitica area in the autumn of the same year. The deportations of Roma to the Jasenovac camp intensified from January to spring 1942, particularly from Vrginmost (today Gvozd), Križevci, Virovitica, Pisarovina, Vrbovsko, Županja, Karlovac and Duga Resa.2Hrečkovski, Slavonski Brod u NOB i socijalističkoj revoluciji, 381, 386–387, 397, 399; Kovačev and Vojak, “Usporedna kronologija stradanja Roma,” 118; Vojak, “Forgotten Victims of World War II,” 198.
The systematic deportation of Roma across the ISC began with a circular of 19 May 1942. The Ministry of Interior instructed police and military bodies to carry out the ‘evacuation’ [evakuacija] of the whole Roma population to the Jasenovac camp. The circular did not state any reason for the measure, which led to various historiographic speculations regarding the decision-making process and timing. There is, for example, no evidence to support the hypotheses that the decision was influenced by Nazi Germany or that the timing was related to camp accommodation capacities and seasonal weather conditions.3Such theses can be found in Lengel-Krizman, Genocid nad Romima, 42; Lengel-Krizman, “Genocide Carried Out on the Roma,” 162–163. Most historians agree that the Ustaša carried out the persecution of the Roma independently. Opinions differ, however, as to whether the deportations were planned well in advance or the result of progressive radicalisation. Various explanations have been put forward for the comparatively ‘late’ decision. These include uncertainty about the definition of ‘Gypsies’ after Bosnian Muslim organisations had already intervened in 1941 against the registration of a certain group of sedentary Muslim Roma (‘White Gypsies’) as ‘Gypsies’. A connection with the second wave of deportations of Jews in the course of 1942 has also been suggested. More widespread is the assumption that the Ustaša provision to deport all Roma to the Jasenovac camp was linked to the prioritisation of mass deportations of the Serb and Jewish populations.4Biondich, “Persecution of Roma-Sinti in Croatia” 35–36, 43–44; Goldstein, Jasenovac, 523–524, 896; Korb, “Ustaša Mass Violence Against Gypsies in Croatia,” 76–77, 80–81. The latter deliberation is questionable considering that in June 1942, after a military offensive by the ISC armed forces, with the help of allied units (especially German ones), around 68,000 predominantly Serb civilians were deported en masse to Jasenovac and other camps like Sisak. All in all, the available sources do not allow any definitive conclusions to be drawn on these questions.
Shortly after the issue of the circular, mass arrests and removals of Roma to the Jasenovac camp were carried out in various parts of the ISC, mainly in Central Croatia and Slavonia, but also in the northern areas of Bosnia. The arrests and deportations were mostly conducted by ISC police bodies (gendarmes [oružnici], regular police [redarstvenici]) and by military units (Ustaša and Home Guard [domobrani]). In some areas, organisations of local ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche) were involved as well.
The wave of mass deportations lasted from the end of May to the beginning of September 1942, reaching its peak during the summer months. The first one was conducted on 28 May 1942, when the Zagreb Police deported 69 Roma. On 5 July 1942, the authorities of Županja reported about the deportation of more than 2,000 Roma in 83 railway wagons. Županja thus became the largest mass deportation site, followed by Vukovar (1,605 individuals) and Vinkovci (1,154) in the summer of 1942. 5Further deportations took place from Valpovo, Ogulin, Zemun, Duga Resa, Vojnić, Đakovo, Orehovica, Našice, Podravska Slatina (today Slatina), Daruvar, Virovitica, Grubišno Polje, Slavonska Požega, Brod na Savi (today Slavonski Brod), Nova Gradiška, Novska,Igrišće and Hrvatski Karlovci (today Sremski Karlovci in Serbia). See Biondich, “Persecution of Roma-Sinti in Croatia,” 36–38; Goldstein, Jasenovac, 524–527; Korb, “Ustaša Mass Violence Against Gypsies in Croatia,” 81–86; Kovačev and Vojak, “Usporedna kronologija stradanja Roma,” 118–119; Miletić, Koncentracioni logor Jasenovac, knj. 1, 291–297, 299–300; Vojak, “Forgotten Victims of World War II,” 198–203; Vojak, “Roma Resistance in the Independent State of Croatia,” 125–127; Vojak, Papo, and Tahiri, Stradanje Roma u Nezavisnoj Državi Hrvatskoj, 261–271. After the completion of the large deportation wave, some smaller ones followed intermittently, with the last recorded as being the deportation of 30 Roma from Gundinci in 1943.6Hrečkovski, Slavonski Brod u NOB i socijalističkoj revoluciji, 401–402; Kolesar, “Gundinačke žrtve,” 88. In his article, Hrečkovski had listed 19 Roma victims from Gundinci, whilst Kolesar was able to identify a further eleven. Apart from the Roma, four Slovaks and one Jew were also deported from Gundinci to Jasenovac in 1943 and murdered.
Roma in the Jasenovac Camp Complex
Roma detainees, unlike other detainees, were often not officially registered individually, but only by the number of ‘railway wagons’ they were transported in. When entering the Jasenovac camp itself, they were divided into two groups: women and children, as well as ‘unfit’ and elderly people were sorted into one group, ‘stronger and more resilient’ male Roma in the other. A small part of the latter was separated and deported to labour and concentration camps in Germany shortly after arriving in Jasenovac.7Gruenfelder, “U radni stroj,” 100. After the selection, the valuables of the remaining Roma were confiscated. Roma who were brought to the camp by carts were stripped of all belongings that they had with them, including their carts and horses, in front of the camp.
During the first deportations of Roma to Jasenovac, the new arrivals were placed in the north-eastern part of the Jasenovac camp, which was cordoned off with barbed wire and controlled by guards. This section of the camp was called Camp III C, in which the conditions were reportedly extremely harsh. Witnesses testified that the Roma prisoners were kept in the open air and received almost no food, which led to a high mortality rate. Every day, several corpses were brought from this section and buried behind the barbed wire. With the increasing arrival of new groups of Roma, the initial space in the camp was too small; the new detainees were thus located in the area of the nearby village of Uštica as part of Camp III. Until the war, this village was inhabited predominantly by Serbs, who were evicted and deported by the Ustaša authorities on 8 May 1942 via Jasenovac to other camps. Soon, this part of the Jasenovac camp system also became too small for an increasing number of Roma detainees.
New arrivals were therefore led directly to the former village of Gradina (today Donja Gradina) on the other side of the Sava river (located in Bosnia and Herzegovina), which served as the camp’s main killing field. To a lesser extent, Roma prisoners, mostly women, were also placed in Stara Gradiška (Jasenovac Camp V). First transports of Roma women to Stara Gradiška had already taken place in a transfer from Jasenovac at the end of 1941. The women were placed in a part of the old-town camp called ‘Kula’ [Tower], where mostly Serb and Jewish as well as some Croatian inmates were kept. A significant number of Roma were deported to and immediately murdered in this part of the camp in the autumn of 1944 from the wider area of Bosanska Gradiška (today Gradiška), including the village of Mokrice.8Amulić and Huber, Otpor u logoru Stara Gradiška, 89 and 93; Gruenfelder, “U radni stroj,”, 100; Kovačević, “Prvi dan u logoru Jasenovac,” 117–118, 120; Vojak, “Forgotten Victims of World War II,” 200–202.
The Ustaša authorities of Jasenovac Camp III used male Roma inmates to carry out heavy physical work in the brickworks, sawmill and embankments on the Sava river. Several Roma were selected for forced labour in Gradina, where they had to dig and fill mass graves in the course of mass executions; some of them were even forced to take an active part in the killing process. The Roma forced labourers were murdered by the Ustaša camp guards in early 1945.9Goldstein, Jasenovac, 531–532; Riffer, Grad mrtvih, 46, 58, 155–156; Vojak, “Forgotten Victims of World War II,” 204; id., “Roma Resistance in the Independent State of Croatia,” 127–128. A few of the male Roma managed to escape and join the partisans. According to non-Romani camp survivors, some of the Roma inmates were forced to sing and entertain Ustaša guards, and in June 1942 the camp commandant Luburić allegedly even ordered that a special orchestra be formed from a group of Roma musicians (probably from Zemun), which performed concerts. However, these Roma musicians were murdered after a short time.10Iveković, Nepokorena zemlja, 14–15; Nikolić, Jasenovački logor, 262–263; Riffer, Grad mrtvih, 154.
Mass Murder
A significant number of Roma were tortured and killed in the Jasenovac camp, while Jasenovac survivors testified after the war about numerous atrocities committed by Ustaša camp guards against Roma. It is said that the camp commandants Ljubomir ‘Ljubo’ Miloš (1919–1948) and Miroslav Filipović Majstorović (1915–1946) personally took part in the cruel torture and killing of Roma prisoners. According to some testimonies, many Roma women were raped and killed shortly after arriving at the Jasenovac camp.11Goldstein, Jasenovac, 529–530; Vojak, “Roma Resistance in the Independent State of Croatia,” 135–136.
Most of the Roma who arrived in Jasenovac from July 1942 onwards were usually taken directly to Gradina and murdered without passing through the camp. They were led in groups to the Sava river and taken by ferries and boats to the other side. From there, they were escorted on foot through the wooded area to pits that had been dug out to serve as mass graves. The Ustaša guards carried out the murders in a particularly cruel manner, using wooden hammers, knives and axes. Gradina was the biggest killing site of Roma and other victim groups within the Jasenovac camp complex. The Roma who remained in Uštica were also murdered within a few months and buried in mass graves on the outskirts of the village. With the exception of small groups of forced labourers, who were murdered at a later date, there were no Roma left in Jasenovac by the end of 1942.12Biondich, “Persecution of Roma-Sinti in Croatia,” 35–36; Goldstein, Jasenovac, 530–531; Korb, “Ustaša Mass Violence Against Gypsies in Croatia,” 86–88; Lengel-Krizman, Genocid nad Romima, 40–53; Riffer, Grad mrtvih, 154–155.
In April 1945, the Ustaša prepared the liquidation of the Jasenovac camp and carried out mass executions in the process. Around 600 of the prisoners therefore attempted a desperate escape on 22 April 1945, which fewer than 80 survived. During these events, the Roma prisoner Tihomir ‘Tiko’ Nikolić (1918–1988) managed to hide in the camp and subsequently escaped during the night with significant injuries. Nikolić is the only known Romani inmate to survive the end of the Jasenovac camp complex.13Goldstein, Jasenovac, 535–536; Motl and Mihovilović, Zaboravljeni, 492–493.
In the last days of April, the Ustaša killed all remaining prisoners and destroyed the Jasenovac camp together with the evidence of their crimes. On 2 May 1945, the remains were liberated by the Yugoslav Partisan Army.
Number of Victims
The number of Roma victims of the Jasenovac camp, as well as other victim groups, has been and continues to be the subject of both scientific and non-scientific discussions. As part of the political conflicts mostly between Serbian and Croatian politicians, especially during the disintegration of socialist Yugoslavia and the establishment of new states in the 1980s and 1990s, the determination of ‘real’ numbers of victims of the Jasenovac camp became the subject of a heated and polemical debate.
In this context, Croatian revisionists tried to diminish or even deny victims of Ustaša murder in Jasenovac, while Serbian nationalists brought exaggerated figures of up to more than a million Jasenovac concentration camp victims into play. These polemical debates continue to a certain degree to the present day.14Sundhaussen, “Jasenovac,” 53–59. The polemical debates partly also touch questions of Roma victim numbers. In extreme cases of Croatian revisionism, even the pure fact of Ustaša mass murder of Roma in the Jasenovac camp is called into question. See, for example, Koić and Banić, “Nema nikakvih dokaza,” 38–47. For further examples, see Papo Hutinec, “Memorialisation of Roma Genocide,” 112–115. With regard to scientific historiographical contributions on Roma victims, estimates reach from 15,000 to 40,000, with the lower numbers being mainly based on name lists and demographic comparisons of pre- and post-war censuses. The higher numbers are usually derived from subjective witnesses estimates or purely theoretical considerations.15The demographer Vladimir Žerjavić estimated a total number of 16,000 Roma victims in the Independent State of Croatia (15,000 from proper Croatian territory, 1,000 from Bosnia and Herzegovina), the statistician Bogoljub Kočović 23,000 (17,000 in Croatia, 5,000 in Bosnia and Herzegovina). According to the historian Antun Miletić, a total of 23,658 Roma (19,532 in Croatia and 4,126 in Bosnia and Herzegovina) were murdered in the Jasenovac camp system. Much higher numbers, albeit based on insufficient sources, are proposed by Dušan Nikodijević and Milan Bulajić, who both estimate around 40,000. While Nikodijević generalises witness statements, Bulajić refers to the indictment against Ante Pavelić. Other historians, like Ivo Goldstein, point to the 16,173 names compiled by researchers of the Jasenovac Memorial Site as the (so far) most reliable number. See Žerjavić, Population Losses, 150–151 and 156; Kočović, Žrtve, 48–57; Miletić, Ubijeni u koncentracijskom logoru, 445–450, 793–798; Nikodijević, “Brojevi žrtava,” 100 and 109; Bulajić, Jasenovac, 124–125; Goldstein, Jasenovac, 536. On the development of the historiographical discussion on victim numbers see Geiger, “Pitanje broja žrtava logora Jasenovac u hrvatskoj i srpskoj historiografiji;” Vojak, “Forgotten Victims of World War II,” 204–207.
The most important method for determining the (minimum) number of victims is undoubtedly the compilation of lists of names of deported and murdered Roma. A census of World War II victims in Yugoslavia, conducted by Yugoslav authorities in 1964, had listed only 1,471 Roma among a total of 59,188 Jasenovac camp victims. However, this list was generally considered incomplete and with certain shortcomings, which is why the data were not published until 1992 and 1998. With the help of further research, the number of identified victims grew over the years. Beginning from 2007, employees of the Jasenovac Memorial Site compiled a ‘List of individual victims of the Jasenovac concentration camp’, which can be considered the most comprehensive estimate so far. With regard to Roma victims, the list proved that many of them had been listed earlier under a different nationality or subsumed under ethnically unidentified persons. The list is updated regularly.
In 2025, out of a total of 83,145 victims, 16,173 were identified as Roma, among them 5,608 children under the age of fourteen and 4,877 women.16Jasenovac Memorial Site, “List of individual victims;” Mihovilović, “Dosadašnji rezultati;” Smreka and Mihovilović, Poimenični popis žrtava. Problematic aspects of the current list are, among others, 2,484 incomplete or even lacking names of Roma victims: In 926 cases, only the surname (or father’s name) is known, while 1,558 persons are listed without any name. Of these, 641 Roma victims are listed in the Stara Gradiška camp (V), while the vast majority was murdered in proper Jasenovac (camp III), including its subcamps and execution sites. Roma victims, most of whom died in 1942, make up about 19 percent of the total number of victims listed and thus constitute the second largest victim group after the Serbs. Overall, the Jasenovac camp complex was the second-largest site of mass murder of Roma in World War II Europe after the concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. While the latter became an international symbol of the Shoah and the genocide of Roma, Jasenovac never reached a comparable level of awareness, which is partly due to its post-war history.
Aftermath and Commemoration
After the end of World War II, Yugoslav authorities tried some of the former Jasenovac camp commandants responsible for mass crimes, including those against Roma detainees. Miroslav Filipović Majstorović, Ljubo Miloš and others were arrested, sentenced to death and executed. Roma survivors testified in some of these trials as witnesses, including in the trial against the former ISC Minister of Interior, Andrija Artuković (1899–1988), in 1986. The last major trial took place in Zagreb in 1998, when Dinko Šakić (1921–2008), one of the former Jasenovac camp commandants, was extradited from Argentina and sentenced to 20 years in prison the following year.17“Dinko Šakić.”
Despite its outstanding importance as an in-situ location, the site of the former Jasenovac concentration camp itself was neglected in post-war Yugoslavia for more than two decades. Initiatives of veteran unions, survivors and local residents to build a monument received no support by Yugoslav central authorities, but the number of unofficial ceremonies rose over the years and led to a gradual change of attitude.18Karge, Steinerne Erinnerung, 187–201. The Jasenovac Memorial Site was opened in 1968, and its later permanent exhibitions briefly mentioned Roma victims of the Jasenovac camp. In the area of Uštica, Pero Car (1920–1985), president of the Association of Croatian Liberation War Fighters (SUBNOR), erected a memorial plaque in early July 1971 in memory of the Roma victims of the Jasenovac camp, which read: ‘The world is full of powers, but nothing is stronger than a human being. Roma Cemetery 1942–1945.’ [Pun je sila svijet al‘ ništa od čovjeka jače nije. Romsko groblje 1942–1945.]
At that time, a total of 21 mass graves were recorded on 4,700 square metres. This memorial plaque was one of the first and rare monuments erected in memory of the Roma victims of World War II in socialist Croatia (Yugoslavia). After that, the first delegations of Roma visiting this memorial site were recorded. Uštica as a place of remembrance for Roma victims was planned in the 1980s for further arrangement, and as a site of the former Jasenovac camp in 1983, it became an integral part of the Jasenovac Memorial Site.19Papo Hutinec, “Memorialisation of Roma Genocide,” 96 and 100; Vojak, “Between Oblivion and Recognition,” 128–131.
This development was interrupted by the breakup of Yugoslavia and the wars that followed in the 1990s, which caused heavy damage to the Jasenovac Memorial Site and a dispersion of the museum’s exhibits. The museum opened a new permanent exhibition in 2006, in which Roma were presented in slightly more detail than before, but in contrast to other victim groups still without individual life stories, apart from the survivor Nadir Dedić (1928/30–2023).20Radonić, Der Zweite Weltkrieg in postsozialistischen Gedenkmuseen, 56–61 and 135–138.
Uštica was neglected and unmaintained until 2012, when it was restored on the initiative of Roma NGOs and Roma political representatives. Commemorative ceremonies are held annually in Uštica, like the European Holocaust Memorial Day for Sinti and Roma (which is called the International Day of Remembrance for Roma Victims of Genocide in World War II/Samudaripen [Međunarodni dan sjećanja na romske žrtve genocida u Drugom svjetskom ratu/Samudaripen] in Croatia).
On 2 August 2020, the Romski memorijalni centar Uštica [Roma Memorial Centre Uštica] was opened on the initiative of the alliance of Roma organisations ‘Kali Sara’ and Roma political representatives and with the support of state and local authorities as a memorial-educational centre for research and education on Roma victims of the Jasenovac camp.21Papo Hutinec, “Memorialisation of Roma Genocide,” 107–112; “Romski memorijalni centar Uštica;” Vojak, “Between Oblivion and Recognition,” 131–134. New elements of commemoration were added in 2023 to the Uštica cemetery: The memorial complex ‘Wall of pain’ [Zid boli], inaugurated on 2 August 2023, consists of dark marble slabs bearing the names of the Roma murdered in Jasenovac. The plaques line an ‘Avenue of Romani Victims’ [Aleja romskih žrtava] and surround a central monument, on which the number of the 16,173 victims is given and the words ‘You are not forgotten’ are written in three languages (Romanes, Croatian and English). In the same year, the sculpture ‘Righteous Among the Nations’ was installed in the garden of the memorial centre in memory of Hajrija Imeri-Mihaljić (biographical data unknown). In 2025, furthermore, the mural ‘Elegy of the Roma People’ [Elegija romskog naroda] created by the artist Marija Šoln (born 1986) was installed.
The Donja Gradina Memorial Site (Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina) with its mass graves serves as a memorial centre for the victims of the Jasenovac camp and hosts various commemorative activities, as a prayer in memory of Roma victims, held on the first Sunday after Orthodox Easter as well as scientific and other activities related to the memory of Roma victims.22“Molitva nevinim žrtvama u Jasenovcu;” “Vijenac i minuta šutnje.” On the history of the Donja Gradina Memorial Site see Karge,Steinerne Erinnerung, 212–224.
