Jasenovac Camp Archive

🇬🇧 From autumn 1942, Zvonimir Brekalo arrived in the camp as a military chaplain. He received the rank of Ustasha captain. Brekalo was born in Bosanska Gradiška. In Jasenovac, he maintained a service for detainees and partly for soldiers in the Ustaša defense, the unit that secured the camp. In Jasenovac, he worked in the Training Department of the Ustaše Defense with Professor Janjić and First Lieutenant Penavić. In November 1944, several captured partisans suffering from typhus were brought to the camp. Despite warnings not to visit them, Brekalo went to give them the anointing of the sick. He became infected and died, despite attempts at treatment in the camp hospital.

🇭🇷 Od jeseni 1942. u logor je za vojnoga dušobrižnika stigao Zvonimir Brekalo. Dobio je čin ustaškoga satnika. Brekalo je rođen u Bosanskoj Gradiški. U Jasenovcu je održavao službu za zatočenike i djelomično za vojnike u Ustaškoj obrani, postrojbi koja je osiguravala logor. U Jasenovcu je radio u Odgojnome odjelu Ustaške obrane s profesorom Janjićem i natporučnikom Penavićem. U studenome 1944. u logor je dovedeno nekoliko zarobljenih partizana koji su bolovali od tifusa. Usprkos upozorenjima da ih ne posjećuje, Brekalo je otišao dati im bolesničko pomazanje. Zarazio se i umro, unatoč pokušajima liječenja u logorskoj bolnici. Hrvatski tjednik (9.11.2023.) str.43

🇭🇷 Nož za snopove ili (njem garbenmesser) je specijalizirani nož i alat za žetvu. Noževima za snopove razrezivali su se vezani snopovi žita prije vršidbe. Nož je bio u širokoj upotrebi prije rata u Europi, proizvodili su ga Solingen i druge tvrtke, tako da je uvezen, a možda i izrađen u logorskoj radionici. Srpska propaganda, od ovog noža napravila je priču da je služio za klanje zatočenika (t.zv. srbosjek). Za takvu upotrebu nema ni svjedočenja bivših zatočenika. 🇬🇧 A sheaf knife or (in German garbenmesser) is a specialized knife and harvesting tool. Sheaf knives were used to cut the tied sheaves of grain before threshing. The knife was in widespread use before the war in Europe, manufactured by Solingen and other companies, so it was imported and possibly made in the camp workshop. Serbian propaganda made a story out of this knife that it was used to slaughter detainees (the so-called Serbcutter). There are no testimonies of former detainees for such use.

🇭🇷 Nadbiskup Alojzije Stepinac s djecom za koju se brine Karitas 2. kolovoza 1941. u Hrvatskom Leskovcu 🇬🇧 Archbishop Alojzije Stepinac with children cared for by Caritas on August 2, 1941 in Hrvatski Leskovac

🇭🇷 Zagreb, 24. kolovoza 1942. Djeca za vrijeme ručka u dvorištu Zavoda za odgoj gluhonijeme djece u Zagrebu. 🇬🇧 Zagreb, August 24, 1942 Children during lunch in the yard of the Institute for the Education of Deaf -Mute Children in Zagreb

🇭🇷 Susreti logoraša i rodbine u gostionici Prema nekim svjedočenjima logorske su vlasti dopuštale susrete zatočenika s rodbinom u mjesnoj gostionici. "Dragan Čolaković opisuje sastanak nekih logoraša s rođacima u Špicmilerovoj gostionici u Jasenovcu. 📚 U ždrijelu pakla. U: Poruke. Jasenovac, br. 1, od 4. srpnja 1970., str. 2. 🇬🇧 Meetings of inmates and relatives in the inn According to some testimonies, the camp authorities allowed detainees to meet their relatives in a local inn. "Dragan Čolaković describes a meeting of some camp inmates with their relatives in Špicmiler's inn in Jasenovac. 📚U ždrijelu pakla. In: Poruke. Jasenovac, no.1, dated July 4, 1970, p.2.

Testimony of Eng. Dušan Ličina, born in Žepče, after the war with residence in Zagreb, Šenoina 24/I., from May 19, 1945, There were about 800 people in camp 3c during my stay... When I came there [to work on the economy, op. a.] I came across some Jews and Croats, and this later spread so much that around 200 of us worked in that economy. When the economy was already expanded, it was led by Ustasha lieutenant Cvitan Zovko, who was born in Mostar and was a railway official in Bosnia. He was certainly the best of all Ustashas I met in the camp. Zovko Ivan and Čačić Ivan were with him. Now life in the economy itself was better as far as nutrition was concerned, because Cvitan knew how to even give us milk and cigarettes, and the procedure was also better, because no one bothered us at work. We performed daily all the work that belongs to the economy."

🇭🇷 Iskaz inž. Dušana Ličine, rođenoga u Žepču, nakon rata s prebivališ- tem u Zagrebu, Šenoina 24/I., od 19. svibnja 1945. U logoru 3c bilo je oko 800 ljudi za vrijeme mojeg boravka... Kad sam tamo došao [na rad na ekonomiji, op. a.] naišao sam na nešto Židova i Hrvata, a to se je kasnije tako proširilo, da je nas oko 200 radilo u toj ekonomiji. Vodstvo je imao, kada je ekonomija već bila proširena, ustaški poručnik Cvitan Zovko, koji je rodom iz Mostara, a bio je u Bosni željeznički činovnik. To je svakako bio najbolji od svih ustaša koje sam sreo u logoru. Uz njega su bili Zovko Ivan i Čačić Ivan. Sada je život u samoj ekonomiji bio bolji što se tiče prehrane, jer nam je Cvitan znao dapače dati i mlijeka i cigareta, a i postupak je bio bolji, jer nas na samom radu nije nitko mučio. Mi smo obavljali dnevno sve radove, koji u ekonomiju spadaju."

🇭🇷 Mijo Biličić, partizan iz Dugoga Sela, proveo je neko vrijeme u Jasenovcu i dočekao kraj rata: »Uhvaćen sam kao partizan i iz Karlovca upućen na tzv. ‘preodgoj’. Bio sam tada star 21 godinu… Poslije šest mjeseci provedenih u Staroj Gradiški bio sam prebačen u Jasenovac… Ostao sam živ zahvaljujući tome što sam s jednom grupom od oko 500 zatočenika u proljeće 1945. godine prebačen u Austriju i tamo sam dočekao oslobođenje i slobodu« 📚(»Kod kuće mi je ostala slijepa majka«, »Poruke«, br. 2[3], 21. lipnja 1971., str. 3.). 🇬🇧 Mijo Biličić, a partisan from Dugo Selo, spent some time in Jasenovac and saw the end of the war: "I was caught as a partisan and sent from Karlovac to the so-called "re-education". I was then 21 years old... After spending six months in Stara Gradiška, I was transferred to Jasenovac... I stayed alive thanks to the fact that I was transferred to Austria with a group of about 500 prisoners in the spring of 1945, and there I met liberation and freedom."

Alleged picture of corpses of camp inmates after the breakthrough on April 22, 1945. 🇬🇧 What is disputed in that description? First of all, a breakthrough was made from a building in the eastern part of the camp that was not surrounded by barbed wire. In the descriptions of the camp, there is no mention of a wooden barrack that would be located in that part of the camp (in the photo in the center above). Furthermore, none of the three commissions for the determination of crimes, which were tasked with "recording" the situation, mention such a scene in their reports, which certainly would not have gone unrecorded. In addition, all the corpses they found were in the stage of decomposition, which the ones in the photo were not. When this photo was taken, who took it and whether it really shows the corpses in Jasenovac, are questions that cannot be answered with certainty. Jasenovac photomonography Nataša Mataušić (page 40.) Zagreb, 2008.