Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.5559/pi.16.31.03
Some Insights into the Housing and Healthcare of Children from Kozara in Children’s Shelters of 1942
Igor Vukić
; Društvo za istraživanje trostrukog logora Jasenovac
Ilija Kuzman
; School of Medicine, University of Zagreb
Abstract
After the offensive of the Croatian and German army in the area of the Kozara mountain in the summer of 1942, a refugee camp was created with a large number of starving and sick children. When the Partisan resistance was crushed, large groups of children from the camp were temporarily moved to a number of reception centres (concentration camp Stara Gradiπka, shelters in the villages of Mlaka, Jablanac, Uštica, and elsewhere). Then, without prior preparations, they were all moved to further temporary shelters with the goal of providing general care and healthcare. The children were later placed in foster homes. The organization of placing the children into any form of housing depended for the most part on the State. From available documents, it is clear that the children in the camps were given housing and food, as well as adequate healthcare, meaning that the children were not discriminated against or neglected. The basic purpose of this paper is to show that children from Kozara and Potkozarje in 1942 had adequate general care and healthcare, in accordance with the capacities of medicine at the time in the given circumstances of war. This is done by using original archive materials and statements of participants of the events (court records). We wrote this paper because today there is an abundance of opinions in various media that the children were starved, poisoned, and tortured. Here we want to point out that these claims are arbitrary and unfounded, spread by the Yugoslav communist regime after the end of World War II, as well as certain social, political, and even scientific groups. Therefore, the terms „children’s camps“ or „Ustasha camps“ are inappropriate, and instead, the terms „reception centres“ or „children’s shelters“, even „children’s hospitals“ should be used.
Keywords
World War II; Independent State of Croatia; Children’s Shelter Jastrebarsko; Children’s Shelter Sisak; Institute for the Education of Deaf-Mute Children; Children’s Home at Josipovac; infectious diseases
Hrčak ID:
276005
URI
Publication date:
6.1.2022.
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