World War II persecution of Serbs
The Serbian Genocide refers to the attempt in extermination made towards ethnic Serbs in 1939-1945 by predominantly ethnic Albanian, Croat Fascists and Nazi (Axis) occupational forces.
During World War II, there was widespread persecution of Serbs, with the Croatian Ustaše regime murdering 330,000–600,000, while 250,000 were expelled, and another 200,000 were forced to convert to Catholicism. The victims were predominantly Serbs, but included 37,000 Jews.[1] The estimate by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum say that Croat authorities murdered between 330,000 and 390,000 ethnic Serb residents of Croatia and Bosnia during the period of Ustaše rule, out of which between 60,000 and 70,000 were murdered in Jasenovac concentration camp.[2] The Jasenovac memorial lists 75,159 names killed in this concentration camp.[3]
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[edit] Background to the ethnic persecution
Following the invasion of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1941, the Kingdom was divided into several occupation zones. A rump Serbia remained, following the country's dismemberment. The territory was divided among the occupiers as follows:
- Third Reich - Slovenia was included in the Reich and Banat, while occupied and separated from Serbia.
- Hungary occupied the Bačka, Baranja, Međimurje and Prekmurje.
- Bulgaria occupied the south (including the territory of today's Republic of Macedonia).
- Italy occupied Montenegro (which included much of today's southern Serbia) and also territory including the province of Kosovo in which Albanians formed a majority, and which was governed as an entity together with the reoccupied Albania.
- The small rump of Serbia itself was under German military occupation and Serbian quisling soldiers-politicians.
- A Nazi puppet state was established, under Ustaša rule, which embraced most of the territory of present-day Croatia and the whole of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This Axis satellite was known as the NDH (Nezavisna Država Hrvatska) or Independent State of Croatia.
[edit] Ustashe Persecution in the Independent State of Croatia
Under its leader Ante Pavelić, the Ustaša subjected ethnic Serbs, together with much smaller minorities of Jews and Roma, to a campaign of genocidal persecution.[4][5] Of that number, according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Ustaše killed 330,000–390,000 ethnic Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia.[6]
[edit] Nazi persecution in occupied Serbia
In October 1941, the German occupying army killed 2,500 to 5,000 people in the Kragujevac massacre.
[edit] Vojvodina
During the four years of occupation, Axis forces committed numerous war crimes against the civilian population in Vojvodina where about 50,000 people were murdered and about 280,000 arrested, violated or tortured. The victims were mostly Serbs but also included Jews and Roma.[7]
[edit] Albanian role and Kosovo
During World War II, with the fall of Yugoslavia in 1941, Italians placed the land inhabited by ethnic Albanians under the jurisdiction of an Albanian quisling government. That included Kosovo.
Kosovo's inclusion into a geo-political Albanian entity was followed by extensive persecution of non-Albanians (mostly Serbs) by Albanian fascists. Most of the war crimes were perpetrated by the Skenderbeg SS Division and the Balli Kombëtar. Some 40,000 to 60,000 Serbs were killed and another 200,000 driven out.[8][9][10][11][12][13]
Mustafa Kruja, the then Prime Minister of Albania, was in Kosovo in June 1942, and at a meeting with the Albanian leaders of Kosovo, he said: "We should endeavor to ensure that the Serb population of Kosovo be – the area be cleansed of them and all Serbs who had been living there for centuries should be termed colonialists and sent to concentration camps in Albania. The Serb settlers should be killed."[14][15]
In April 1943, Heinrich Himmler created 21st Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Skanderbeg (1st Albanian) manned by Albanian and Kosovar Albanian volunteers. From August 1944, the division participated in operations against Yugoslav Partisans and in massacring local Serbs population.[16]
[edit] See also
- Serbophobia
- Jasenovac concentration camp
- Glina, Croatia
- Occupation of Vojvodina, 1941-1944
- Kragujevac massacre
- Prebilovci massacre
- The Holocaust
[edit] References
- ^ "Croatia". Shoah Resource Center - Yad Vashem. http://www1.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%205930.pdf. Retrieved 4 January 2010.
- ^ "Jasenovac". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005449. Retrieved 4 January 2010.
- ^ "LIST OF INDIVIDUAL VICTIMS OF JASENOVAC CONCENTRATION CAMP". JUSP Jasenovac. http://www.jusp-jasenovac.hr/Default.aspx?sid=6711. Retrieved 4 January 2010.
- ^ Hitler's Pope, John Cornwell, Viking Penguin, New York, 1999, p. 250.
- ^ Ustaša: Croatian Separatism and European Politics 1929-1945, Lord Byron Foundation for Balkan Studies, London, 1998, pp. 144-145 etc.
- ^ Staff. Jasenovac concentration camp, Jasenovac, Croatia, Yugoslavia. On the website of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
- ^ Enciklopedija Novog Sada, Sveska 5, Novi Sad, 1996, p. 196.
- ^ Rastko project: Albanian Skenderbeg SS Division
- ^ Нацистички ген оцид над Србима - Православље - НОВИНЕ СРПСКЕ ПАТРИЈАРШИЈЕ
- ^ www.glas-javnosti.rs
- ^ Carl Savich,B.A. in Political Science from the University of Michigan, M.A. in History and a J.D. in Law. http://www.serbianna.com/columns/savich/054.shtml
- ^ http://globalresistance.com/serbo-croatian/articles/zlocinci.htm
- ^ Pavle Dzeletovic Ivanov:21. SS-divizija Skenderbeg (Svedocanstva) http://www.booknear.com/Pavle-Dzeletovic-Ivanov-author_1.htm
- ^ Bogdanović, Dimitrije: "The Book on Kosovo", 1990. Belgrade: Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, 1985, p. 2428.
- ^ Genfer, Der Kosovo-Konflikt, Munich: Wieser, 2000, p. 158.
- ^ Williamson, G. The SS: Hitler's Instrument of Terror
