The camp in Jastrebarsko, a town on the railway line between Zagreb and Karlovac, central Croatia, was set up in July 1941 by the Ustaša Surveillance Service [Ustaška nadzorna služba] of the Independent State of Croatia [Nezavisna Država Hrvatska]. It occupied the outbuildings and cellars of the former Erdődy castle.
Established as a collection and transit camp, it held about 3 000 detainees transferred from the camps in Gospić and Jadovno and on the island of Pag (Slana and Metajna). Compared to these camps, the conditions in Jastrebarsko were less restrictive. The inmates were allowed to write to their families and receive parcels. There was no forced labour or systematic torture, although this did not rule out individual cases of arbitrary violence by the camp guards. Most of the detainees were Serbs and Jews, but they also included Croatian communists. Beginning in mid-September 1941, most of the detainees from this camp were deported to other camps: Danica, Kruščica [Bosnian: Krušćica], Jasenovac and Lobor (also named Loborgrad), the latter being a camp for women and children.
According to survivors of the Jastrebarsko camp, like Helena ‘Jelka‘ Pachl-Mandić (1917–2000), Roma were also among the inmates. Antea Korčulanin (1923–2003) testified about ‘a Roma family, father and son’.1Pachl-Mandić, ”Jedna logoraška odiseja”, 359; Peršen, Ustaški logori, 105. The identity and subsequent story of these Romani prisoners have yet to be established.
In July 1942, a Franciscan monastery in Jastrebarsko became the site of an Ustaša detention camp for children, which was in service until November 1942.
