Ustaše camps

The Independent State of Croatia, created under German and Italian tutelage, equipped itself within its first weeks with racial legislation and a network of camps that it administered itself. Jadovno, in the karst of the Velebit, operated for several months, victims being thrown into the sinkholes; Jasenovac, a complex of camps on the Sava, was the largest and most enduring; Đakovo and Loborgrad received women and children, Stara Gradiška both.

The Croatian singularity lies in the autonomy of the Ustasha: the Jews, the Serbs, and the Roma were killed there by a local administration, with its own guards and its own methods, without the Germans having had to concern themselves with it. This is what makes the counting of victims difficult and contested to this day, the archives having been partly destroyed at the time of liberation.