World War II persecution of Serbs
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During World War II, between 500,000 and 750,000 Serbs were killed, predominately in the Jasenovac genocide by the Croatian Ustaše. [1]
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[edit] Background
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] 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. [2][3] It is estimated[by whom?] that, during WWII, between 500,000 and 1,200,000 Serbs were killed.[original research?] 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.[4]
[edit] 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.[5]
[edit] 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 10,000 to 30,000 Serbs were killed and another 100,000 driven out.[6][7][8][unreliable source?]
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." [9][10]
[edit] See also
- Serbophobia
- Jasenovac concentration camp
- Glina, Croatia
- Occupation of Vojvodina, 1941-1944
- Kragujevac massacre
- Prebilovci
- The Holocaust
[edit] References
- ^ United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
- ^ Hitler's Pope, John Cornwell, Viking Penguin, New York 1999 (p250).
- ^ Ustaša: Croatian Separatism and European Politics 1929-1945, Lord Byron Foundation for Balkan Studies, London 1998 (pp144-145 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. (page 196)
- ^ Rastko project: Albanian Skenderbeg SS Division
- ^ Нацистички ген оцид над Србима - Православље - НОВИНЕ СРПСКЕ ПАТРИЈАРШИЈЕ
- ^ www.glas-javnosti.rs
- ^ Bogdanović, Dimitrije. "The Book on Kosovo". 1990. Belgrade: Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, 1985. page 2428.
- ^ Genfer, Der Kosovo-Konflikt, Munich: Wieser, 2000. page 158.
