Jasenovac: the largest concentration and extermination camp in Croatia. Jasenovac was in fact a complex of several subcamps, in close proximity to each other, on bank of the Sava River about 63 miles (100 km) south of Zagreb. The women's camp of Stara Gradiska, which was farther away, also belonged to the complex.

Jasenovac was established in August 1941 and was dismantled only in April 1945. The creation of the camp and its management and supervision were entrusted to Department II of the Croatian Security Police (Ustaska Narodna Sluzba, UNS), headed by Vjekoslav (Maks) Luburic, who was personally responsible for everything that happened there. Scores of Ustase (Croatian fascists) served in the camp. The cruelest was former priest Miroslav Filipovic-Majstorovic, who killed scores of prisoners with his own hands.

Some six hundred thousand people were murdered at Jasenovac, mostly Serbs, Jews, Gypsies, and opponents of the Ustase regime. The number of Jewish victims was between twenty and twenty-five thousand, most of whom were murdered there up to August 1942, when deportation of the Croatian Jews to Auschwitz for extermination began. Jews were sent to Jasenovac from all parts of Croatia - from Zagreb, from Sarajevo, and from other cities and smaller towns. On their arrival most were killed at execution sites near the camp: Granik, Gradina, and other places...

In April 1945 the partisan army approached the camp. In an attempt to erase traces of the atrocities, the Ustashe blew up all the installations and killed most of the inmates. An escape attempt by the prisoners failed, and only a few survived.