World War II persecution of Serbs

During World War II, between 500,000 and 750,000 Serbs were killed.

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.
*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.

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. ["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).] ["Genocide in Satellite Croatia", Edmond Paris, American Institute for Balkan Affairs, Chicago 1961.] It is estimated that, during WWII, between 500,000 and 1.2 million Serbs were killed. 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. [Staff. [http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005449 Jasenovac concentration camp] , Jasenovac, Croatia, Yugoslavia. On the website of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.] Senior German officers and diplomats in the region cited figures up to twice as high. For instance, Hitler's high plenipotentiary in SE Europe, Hermann Neubacher, later wrote: "When leading Ustaše state that one million Orthodox Serbs (including babies, children, women and old men) were slaughtered, this in my opinion is a boasting exaggeration. On the basis of reports I received, I estimated that three quarters of a million defenceless people were slaughtered." ["Genocide in Satellite Croatia", Edmond Paris, American Institute for Balkan Affairs, Chicago 1961, p100.]

Persecution in occupied Serbia

In October 1941, the German occupying army killed 2,500 to 5,000 people in the Kragujevac massacre.

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. [Enciklopedija Novog Sada, Sveska 5, Novi Sad, 1996. (page 196)]

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. ] ] [http://www.rastko.org.yu/kosovo/istorija/savic_skenderbeyss.html Rastko project: Albanian Skenderbeg SS Division] [ [http://www.pravoslavlje.org.yu/broj/912/tekst/nacisticki-gen-ocid-nad-srbima/print/lat Нацистички ген оцид над Србима - Православље - НОВИНЕ СРПСКЕ ПАТРИЈАРШИЈЕ ] ] [ [http://arhiva.glas-javnosti.co.yu/arhiva/2003/09/07/srpski/F03090601.shtml www.glas-javnosti.co.yu ] ] [ [http://www.kosovo.net/roots.html Roots of Kosovo's Fascism ] ]

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." [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.] -->

See also

*Serbophobia
*Jasenovac concentration camp
*Glina, Croatia
*Occupation of Vojvodina, 1941-1944
*Kragujevac massacre
*Prebilovci
*The Holocaust

References