Extermination Camp Stara Gradiska (Jasenovac V)

The extermination camp Stara Gradiška was established in the end of 1941 and was liberated in April 1945 by the Red Army. In total, 75.000 woman and children are murdered at Stara Gradiška.

Stara Gradiška was a sub-camp of the notorious concentration and extermination camp Jasenovac. It was housed in a prison complex and meant for woman and children of Jews, Serbs, gypsies and anti-fascist Croats. Stara Gradiška was operated by Germans and members of the Ustaše.

The camp is mainly notorious because of the various experiments with poison gas on woman and children. Those who weren't gassed, were killed by torture, execution or beaten to death. The gassing were temporary stopped in 1943 due an inspection of the Red Cross.

In the beginning of April 1945, partisans began to approach the camp. The Ustaše cleared the camp and the survivors were deported to the Lepoglava prison and from there to Jasenovac. Most of them were killed at Lepoglava or Jasenovac.

After the war, the prison complex was used till the '80's for holding political enemies of the Communist regime. In 1991 the prison was officially closed. There are plans for the future to turn the prison into a museum and to place a memorial in memory of the victims of Stara Gradiška.

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Source

• Text: Kaj Metz
• Photos: TracesOfWar.com