Jasenovac - Agricultural panhandle. Concentration Camp

Here is what is left of this World War II concentration camp. Drive west from Zagreb to the agricultural panhandle of Croatia, on the motorway, toward Osijek. There is the town of Jasenovac, near the Bosnian border. There is no sign, but turn off anyway, to find the site, now just an ignored park.

You will find no information of what happened here except for a Croatian language small relief map on a metal pedestal. Its relics and photos were apparently moved to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. A check there affirms: See www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/jasenovac/.






This leaves little, if anything, to remind those at the actual site what happened. I understand that the area was destroyed in the 1940's, and then abandoned during the 1990's wars. See www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/jasenovac/. Even so, something more should have been left at Jasenovac. Where do families go to remember? The area is essentially a wildlife preserve, with a flat, mowed area with humps in the ground, and the outlines of rectangles, a museum building with windows broken and WC locked.

Then there is a path on railway ties leading past a lovely still pond to a deserted tulip monument, but the pool areas inside are all dried up.

There was a bouquet of flowers from someone, but no memorials or lists of names that I saw.

You can see a railroad spur, with a locomotive, caboose and boxcars that brought the people in, left as an exhibit. Its cargo long gone.

There is nothing of the people who died there - not even stacks of glasses and passports and dental work, as at Auschwitz or Dachau. The Memorial Museum is locked and windows broken. Not even a WC.


If you go, you will be alone, except for a possible tractor



and a cyclist or two, but go.

At least look up the pictures of the horrors on the internet, and the discussions of religion-motivated executions, not just Nazi. Documents reviewedThe versions of the involvement of church and other officials vary widely. Do your own research. Example, www.jasenovac.org/exhibits.php, for a history of the Ustache activities.

We don't do much better. We hide our Jim Crow era, with entry to the Jim Crow Museum by appointment. See www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/FAQ.

In Croatia, even the German soldiers get better treatment. See the Zagreb post on Miragoj Cemetery. Lists of names, birth dates, dates of death, even though in a common grave.



This is the burial place at St. Peter's, Zagreb, of Archbishop Aloysius Stepinac, who had a role in preventing/enabling deaths by Nazi, depending on what sources you believe, that some see as heroic, others as a betrayal. See, for example, grayfalcon.blogspot.com/2005/04/forgotten-genocide. for a blog on Jasenovac, including comments on Stepinac. See also www.emperors-clothes.com/croatia/stepinacfile.doc"

There is an elaborate coffin on display near the altar in Zagreb at St. Peter's, that tour guides say is Stepinac's coffin, but other sources say he really is buried at the wall. See Jasenovac photos, discussion.

Jewish history in Croatia, including through WWII and after: See Jews in Croatia. The site points out that Dubrovnik has the second oldest synagogue in teh world.