In the Independent State of Croatia from April of 1941 until May of 1945, 74.762 children younger than 14 years lost their lives: 60.234 were killed (42.791 Serbian children, 5.737 Roma children, 5.434 Muslim, 3.710 Jewish, 2.289 Croat, and for 237 children, the nationality could not be determined. According to longtime researcher Dragoje Lukić, at least 19.432 children of Serbian, Jewish and Roma origin were killed in the Jasenovac concentration camps.

Marijana Amulić, inmate at the Camp V-Stara Gradiška recalls:

“The children lay helpless and without any strength to cry. They died slowly and quietly. Once, we were ordered to take all the sick children and place them in the attic room of the notorious Kula. Ante Vrba, commander of the camp, would later throw the poison gas into the room. After that, the camp was terribly silent, as if the camp ceased to exist.”

At the hearing of Ante Vrba in 1947, Vrba admitted that he killed 63 children with Zyclon poison gas.

Many children were taken away to special camps which were located in Gornja Rijeka, Sisak, and Jastrebarsko. They were converted to Catholic and raised in the spirit of the Ustasha. Little children who didn’t know when they were born received a new date of birth, April 10, the date of establishment of the Independent State of Croatia. Placed in unsanitary conditions without food and clothing, the children were dying every day from various diseases and hunger.

Gornja Rijeka

The camp was located on the Kalnik Mountain in the Rubido family castle. In the early spring of 1942, Jewish and Serbian children were imprisoned there along with women who were later moved to other camps or killed by the end of May. After June, Gornja Rijeka became a concentration camp for Serbian children from Kozara. The official name of the camp was “Home for refugee children”. The camp was under the Ustasha youth control, and its aim was to raise Serbian orphans in the Ustasha spirit and make them become Janissaries.

The first transport of 200 Serbian children from Uštica arrived on June 24, 1942. Later, several transportations brought children who were 7 to 10 years old. The boys were given wooden guns and dressed up in Ustasha uniforms which were made of paper fabric. Due to typhus, a large number of children died in Gornja Rijeka. The great humanist professor Dr. Kamilo Bresler from Zagreb managed to save a few children from the camp. He left us a testimony about the conditions in the camp:

“At the entrance, the Ustasha flag was waving from the mast. Two little boys stood in front, their faces haggard and worn, two little martyrs from Kozara in black chintz suites and caps with Ustasha signs. Wooden rifles were hanging from their shoulders, tied with a rope instead of a belt. They welcomed the Minister with silent, automatic movements. I had to hold my breath. From the faces of these children, I could already presume what I was going to see in the camp.”

Camp Sisak

The Sisak camp was established in August of 1942 and lasted until January 8, 1943. The children were placed in several buildings in the city: St. Vincent convent, Reis saltwork warehouse, building of the former Yugoslav hawk “Sokolana”.

All buildings were in bad condition and masses of children died of starvation and various diseases. The conditions in the camp were described in a study of the National Committee for the Investigation of the Crimes of the Occupation Forces and their Collaborators, which was made in March of 1947, according to the testimony of several witnesses:

“…The Administration of the camp did not maintain sanitary conditions in the camp, so children were absolutely neglected, smudged with excrement, and covered in lice and fleas. Due to the constant lack of food, children were completely exhausted. Gradually they turned into a skeletons covered with wrinkled and completely dehydrated skin. Since they had no hygienic conditions, children could not wash themselves. Feces remained on the same floor where children lay. Sick children were not separated from the healthy ones, and even children who were infectiously ill were transferred among other healthy children. Bottle pacifiers were not boiled and were given to children without any disinfectant, regardless of whether they were healthy or ill. In the camp, epidemics developed of enteric, typhus, scarlet fever and dysentery, and itching scabs covered the children’s bodies, so as a consequence, there was a huge mortality of children, 40-50 a day, as stated by the undertaker who buried the children…”

According to available data, about 7.000 children went through the camp at Sisak, out of whom between 1.152 and 1.631 died, according to different sources.

Jastrebarsko

The Jastrebarsko camp existed from July 12, 1942 until November of 1942. It was under the control of the Congregation of Sisters of St. Vinko Paulski. Children were placed in the abandoned barracks of the Italian Army, in the castle of Count Erdedija and in a Franciscan monastery near Jastrebarsko. Some 3,360 children passed through this camp.

As the camp in Jastrebarsko quickly reached maximum capacity, some of the children were transferred to the village of Reka, 3 km away from Jastrebarsko, where about 2,000 children were placed in the abandoned barracks of the Italian army. The barracks did not have minimum sanitary conditions for living. They were not cleaned and had no electricity, water or basic sanitary facilities…

The keeper of the local cemetery in Jastrebarsko, Franjo Ilovar, kept record of each day burials of children.
“Franjo Ilovar’s Diary” tells about the sad suffering of children in Jastrebarsko. On the first page of the book, it is recorded that on July 22, 1942, 107 children were buried. Every day from July 22nd to October 26, 1942, the gravedigger wrote down how many male and female children were buried. Children’s bodies were placed in wooden coffins and crates. Since they stuffed coffins with as many bodies as possible, the coffins had to be closed with force. At the end, the total number was:

“Buried a total of 468 children, October 26th 1942.”

Zorka Delic-Skiba was a five-year-old girl when she was brought to Jastrebarsko:

“Once, a nun Gracioza, gathered a few of us children from the cellar. One Ustasha, Petar Lovrin from Ljubija near Prijedor, went from one child to another, taking each child’s head, moving it backwards, so he could have access to the neck or throat. With a quick move of his hand, where he was holding a strange knife, long and narrow, with a blade at the top, he plunged it straight into the child’s throat…”