Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/doi.org/10.52328/t.9.1.2
The murder of one hundred and six patients of the Vrapče Psychiatric Hospital in the light of Ustasha ideology and internal politics
Danijel Matijević
orcid.org/0009-0000-6890-9139
; Centre for Holocaust and Genocide Research in South Eastern Europe / YUFE - MSCA Postdoctoral Fellow / University of Rijeka
Abstract
Addressing an untold episode of Ustaša regime's multiple “entwined” genocides during World War II, this article details the murder of one hundred and six patients of Zagreb's psychiatric hospital “Vrapče,” which Ustaša authorities committed in the late stages of the war. According to available documentation, Ustaša authorities planned the action since mid-1944, to then raid the hospital and arrest one hundred and seven patients – sixty nine Serbs, thirty six Jews, and
two Croats, one of whom escaped during the arrest – on October 1, 1944, transporting them all to concentration and death camps. None of the patients taken from the hospital ever returned. This episode of Ustaša genocidal violence demonstrates the movement's unrelenting
zeal, even at such a late stage in a war they were clearly losing, and the dynamics of its complex ideology, pointing at some key differences between Ustašism and Nazism as related but distinct ideological systems under the umbrella of twentieth-century European fascism.
Keywords
Independent State of Croatia (ISC or NDH); Holocaust against Jews; Ustaša genocide against Serbs; Samudaripen against Roma; Psychiatric Clinic “Vrapče” in Zagreb
Hrčak ID:
347382
URI
Publication date:
25.5.2026.
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