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Excavations on the site of the concentration camp Stara Gradiška immediately after the World War II and estimation of the number of victims
Davor Kovačić
Sažetak
The former Yugoslav and the present Serbian historiography have been continually submitting arbitrary assessments of the number Jasenovac camp victims.
According to these assessments, approximately 600.000 to 700.000 people lost their lives in Jasenovac and around 75.000 in Stara Gradiška camp. The excavations carried out by the Government of the People’s Republic of Croatia, accounts given by the survivors of the camps and the list of the World War II victims dating from 1964 and kept secret from the wider public, point to a reasonable conclusion that such estimates have been scientifically unsubstantiated and prejudiced and that the actual number of victims in Stara Gradiška and in Jasenovac, is twice as small than formerly estimated.
Taking into consideration the above information a possible conclusion can be drawn that the actual number of victims of both Stara Gradiška and Jasenovac camps will never be determined. However, the fact that modern Serbian historiography has recently made certain steps forward and that the former estimates of around 700.000 or more victims of Jasenovac are currently being abandoned, it is to be expected that, on the basis of existing lists of the World War II victims, written resolutions according to which people were sent to labour camps, facts in various monographs and publications for certain regions and settlements and other sources, it will become possible in the near future to establish as an accurate number of victims from both Jasenovac and Stara Gradiška camps as possible, as well as an approximate number of all victims of the World War II on the territory of former Yugoslavia. It is also to be expected, based on sources and documents examined in this article, that the maximum number of victims from Stara Gradiška camp is around 9.000.
When examining data on camp terror victims we must not disregard the fact that victims were not only those who lost their lives directly in the war but also those who died of various diseases, exhaustion and hunger. Analysis of this subject matter draws special attention to the fact that in some cases same people could be found registered in different places, which additionally increases the number of victims and thus represents a deadly weapon for one-time political use. History science and contemporary Croatian historiography has a task to investigate, joined with other related fields of science, all causes and facts which brought to such and similar tragic events.
Ključne riječi
Second World War; NDH/ISC; Independent State of Croatia; concentration camps; Jasenovac; Stara Gradiška; human losses; excavations; estimates
Hrčak ID:
20126
URI
Datum izdavanja:
10.11.2003.
Posjeta: 5.271 *