# Jasenovac and Donja Gradina (1941–1945)

URL: https://allhistories.com/bosnia/timeline/1941-jasenovac-and-donja-gradina
Location: Donja Gradina, Kozarska Dubica
Themes: Key Events

In August 1941 the Ustaše Surveillance Service began building a system of camps around Jasenovac, at the confluence of the Una and the Sava on the border between Croatia and Bosnia. Under commanders such as Vjekoslav "Maks" Luburić and Miroslav Filipović, it became the largest extermination and concentration camp in the Balkans and the only one of its size not run by the Germans. Prisoners from all over Bosnia — Serbs from the Kozara and Krajina, Jews from Sarajevo, Roma, and Croat and Muslim anti-fascists — were brought to the camp. Many were killed on arrival at Donja Gradina, across the Sava, where they were murdered with knives, mallets and firearms and buried in mass graves. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum estimates that between 77,000 and 99,000 people were killed at Jasenovac, the majority Serbs, followed by Jews, Roma and political opponents; the Jasenovac Memorial Site holds a list of more than 80,000 named victims. Higher figures circulated in Yugoslavia and are rejected by most historians. On 22 April 1945 surviving prisoners attempted a break-out in which most were killed. Donja Gradina, now in Republika Srpska, is a memorial site, and the number of Jasenovac victims remains a fiercely contested political issue in the region.

## Why it matters
Jasenovac was the centre of the Ustaše genocide, and its Bosnian killing field at Donja Gradina is the largest site of mass murder in the country's history.

Ruler at the Time: [Ante Pavelić](https://allhistories.com/bosnia/rulers/ante-pavelic)

King of Croatia (nominal, NDH): Tomislav II

## Sources
- [Wikipedia — Jasenovac concentration camp](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jasenovac_concentration_camp)
- [United States Holocaust Memorial Museum — Holocaust Encyclopedia](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/)
- [Jasenovac Memorial Site](https://www.jusp-jasenovac.hr/)
- [Wikipedia — Second World War (period overview)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_in_Yugoslavia)