Dinko Šakić

Dinko Šakić Ljubomir (* 8. September 1921 in Studenci , Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes ; † 20th July 2008 in Zagreb , Croatia ) was from April to November 1944, a Croatian concentration camp commandant of the Ustasha led Jasenovac concentration camp in fascist Independent State of Croatia (NDH) and war criminals convicted of being responsible for the murder of thousands of Serbian and Jewish civilians there .

Live and act

Early years and background

Šakić was born in 1921 in Studenci in what was then the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (1918–1929). From the age of two he lived with his family in Bosanski Brod . In 1934 he was at the age of 13 years due to the proliferation of Ustasha referred propaganda school. The Ustasha at the time was a right-wing extremist - terrorist secret society , of an independent Greater Croatia pursued as a goal. When he reached the age of majority, he was supposed to answer in court, but he fled to Berlin beforehand . From there he became an official member of the Ustaše on April 20, 1938 at the age of 17.

During the Ustaše regime

Šakić began his career as a concentration camp commandant in 1941 in the Stara Gradiška women's and children's camp .

In April 1941, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (1918–1941) was invaded, occupied and divided among the Axis powers by Nazi Germany and the fascist Kingdom of Italy . Šakić was 19 years old when the Independent State of Croatia (1941–1945) was proclaimed on April 10, 1941 after the German troops marched into Zagreb under the rule of the now fascist or clerofascist Ustasha . The Ustaša regime, supported by Croatian Catholic dignitaries , then carried out a planned genocide of Serbs , Jews and Roma , which also killed Croatian and Bosnian Muslim opponents of the system and other minorities.

With the establishment of the Ustascha state, Šakić's father Mate was placed as a fanatical Ustascha member as the mayor of Bosanski Brod, who finally took an active part in the expulsion of Serbs and their forced Catholicization around Slavonski Brod and Bosanski Brod . Resistance was rewarded with Mates' orders to be deported to Jasenovac and Gospić concentration camps. Šakić himself joined a Ustaša legion in Vienna in mid-April 1941 .

At the end of 1941, Šakić returned to Croatia as a member of the Ustaška mladež (Croatian for "Ustascha youth") and at the age of 20 became deputy camp commandant of the Jasenovac concentration camp, more precisely of the Stara Gradiška satellite camp . Both were notorious for the crimes committed there. Before that, he patrolled Bosanski Brod and Slavonski Brod , armed . In April 1944 he finally became the commandant of the Jasenovac camp. Most of the Serbs who were held there died in the concentration camps, but also numerous Jews and Roma. Most of them were murdered in a sadistic way.

At the beginning of 1945, Šakić, together with former concentration camp commanders such as Ljubo Miloš , Miroslav Filipović and Dominik Hinko Pićili, prepared the organized destruction of evidence and the closure of the Jasenovac concentration camp after the Yugoslav partisans repeatedly attacked to liberate the camp. For example, corpses were dug up, burned and the prisoners who were still alive began to be murdered. In the last days of April, all remaining prisoners were finally murdered, documents and records destroyed and the camp blown up. On May 2, the units of the partisan army reached the burned down Jasenovac camp. Šakić went on the run like his father, but Mate Šakić was captured in time. In 1945 he was found guilty by the State War Crimes Commission, sentenced to death and executed that same year.

Escape and capture

The seaside resort of Santa Teresita .

In the post-war turmoil, Šakić and Ustascha leader Ante Pavelić , the Poglavnik , fought through the rat lines from Zagreb to Austria in the Alps , before he and his wife Nada Šakić , a sister of Ustascha General Vjekoslav Luburić , followed a ship in Genoa in 1947 Argentina climbed. Before that, they were helped by Krunoslav Draganović , a clergyman of the Ustaše.

Dinko Šakić became the textile dealer Ljubomir Bilanović. From Argentina he was active in emigrated Ustaša circles and participated in the preparation of several terrorist attacks against Yugoslav ambassadors and embassies. In the early 1990s he appeared at a veterans' meeting in Ustaše uniform. In 1998, due to international pressure on Croatia , he was extradited from Argentina to Zagreb and later his wife Nada.

Before that, he had lived undisturbed 300 kilometers southeast of Buenos Aires in the seaside resort of Santa Teresita for more than 50 years before the “ Nazi hunter ” Efraim Zuroff found him there. Dinko Šakić was charged and the proceedings against Nada Šakić, who was overseeing the Stara Gradiška women's camp, were dropped. Although she is said to have surpassed her husband in atrocities at times, the Croatian public prosecutor said the evidence against her was insufficient.

Indictment, Trial and Conviction

The former concentration camp and today's Lepoglava prison (2010)

Šakić were charged with crimes against humanity and violations of international law . The procedure began in Zagreb in 1999. He was previously taken to the Remetinec prison near Gradec . The public prosecutor had charged Šakić as a mass murderer who was responsible for the deaths of several thousand people in the Jasenovac concentration camp. Who is guilty that people died of starvation and epidemics , were tortured and beaten to death, hung up or shot. According to eyewitnesses , he is said to have actively participated in the crimes himself. He grinned awkwardly several times during the reading of the indictment . During Šakić's leadership in 1944, there is evidence that at least 2401 people were murdered in the Jasenovac concentration camp. He was found guilty of war crimes against civilians as indicted by the Zagreb District Court in October 1999 and sentenced to 20 years in prison in Lepoglava , which had served as the Lepoglava concentration camp during the Ustasha regime . The trial of Dinko Šakić was the first war crimes trial against Ustaša people in today's Croatia.

death

Šakić died on July 20, 2008 at the age of 87. At the time, he was the last surviving concentration camp commandant in custody. He was buried in Ustasha uniform in the Mirogoj cemetery in Zagreb, which led to controversy and international criticism.

public perception

On television, Šakić boasted of his deeds and was considered a symbol of the terror of the Croatian Ustaše state against Serbs, Jews, Roma and opponents of the regime, so that he was referred to in the media as "the butcher".

After Croatia's 3-0 victory over Germany in the quarter-finals at the 1998 World Cup in France , young people roared across the Ban Jelačić square in Zagreb and chanted "Dinko Šakić".

family

Dinko Šakić was married to Nada Šakić , a sister of the Ustasha general and war criminal Vjekoslav Luburić . She was a guard in the Stara Gradiška concentration camp, a satellite camp of the Jasenovac concentration camp.

literature

Daniel Stahl: Nazi Hunt. South America's dictatorships and the prosecution of Nazi crimes (= contributions to the history of the 20th century. 15). Wallstein-Verlag, Göttingen 2013, ISBN 978-3-8353-1112-1 (also: Jena, University, dissertation, 2012).
ŠAKIĆ, Dinko . In: Darko Stuparić (ed.): Tko je tko u NDH: Hrvatska 1941. – 1945 [Who is who in the NDH: Croatia 1941–1945] . Minerva, Zagreb 1997, p. 375 (Croatian).

Web links

Dinko Šakić (Serbian) ( Memento from June 29, 2001 in the Internet Archive )
Documentation: Nazi collaborators - Dinko Šakić on YouTube

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d haGalil : Ex-commandant of the Jasenovac concentration camp will shortly be on trial: charges brought against Dinko Sakic - indictment: involved in the deaths of 2,000 people
↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k ^l ^m ⁿ ^o ^p ^q Thilo Thielke , Croatia. The last trial , Der Spiegel, issue 27/1999 (also online )
↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j jusp-jasenovac.hr: Dinko Šakić (Croatian)
↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Večernje novosti : Šakići krvavih ruku (Serbian)
^ ^A ^b Wolfgang Benz , Barbara Distel : The Place of Terror - History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps. Volume 9: Labor education camps, ghettos, youth protection camps, police detention camps, special camps, gypsy camps, forced labor camps. Verlag CH Beck , Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-406-57238-8 , p. 329.
↑ ^a ^b New York Times : Dinko Sakic, Who Led WWII Death Camp, Dies at 86 (English)

personal data
SURNAME	Šakić, Dinko
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Bilanović, Ljubomir
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Croatian concentration camp commander and war criminal
DATE OF BIRTH	September 8, 1921
PLACE OF BIRTH	Studenci
DATE OF DEATH	July 20, 2008
Place of death	Zagreb

[hG-1] Galil : Ex-commandant of the Jasenovac concentration camp will shortly be on trial: charges brought against Dinko Sakic - indictment: involved in the deaths of 2,000 people

[SO-2] ↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k ^l ^m ⁿ ^o ^p ^q Thilo Thielke , Croatia. The last trial , Der Spiegel, issue 27/1999 (also online )

[JUSP-3] ↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j jusp-jasenovac.hr: Dinko Šakić (Croatian)

[VN-4] ↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Večernje novosti : Šakići krvavih ruku (Serbian)

[WBBD-5] A ^b Wolfgang Benz , Barbara Distel : The Place of Terror - History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps. Volume 9: Labor education camps, ghettos, youth protection camps, police detention camps, special camps, gypsy camps, forced labor camps. Verlag CH Beck , Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-406-57238-8 , p. 329.

[NYT-6] New York Times : Dinko Sakic, Who Led WWII Death Camp, Dies at 86 (English)