Sajmište concentration camp

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Memorial on the edge of the former concentration camp

The Sajmište concentration camp , also known as the Jewish camp and later Semlin detention camp , was a concentration camp near Belgrade during the Second World War, alongside the Banjica concentration camp .

It was administratively located on the territory of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH). Today the area belongs to Novi Beograd , Serbia . Initially, the camp was set up for Serbian Jews . The number of camp inmates is estimated at around 40,000 people, of whom over 10,000 were killed. The camp existed from October 1941 to July 1944.

Establishment

Serbia under German military administration 1941–1944

On October 28, 1941, the German occupiers decided to set up a concentration camp for the Jewish residents of Belgrade and Banat on the former exhibition grounds (Sajmište), in a hall of pavilion no.3, belonging to the municipality of Zemun. Since the left bank of the Sava with Zemun had been added to the Croatian NDH state, the Croatian authorities were asked to hand over the exhibition grounds ( Sajmište, Serbian for exhibition grounds ) for the construction of a concentration camp. The Ustaša stipulated that guards in the camp were exclusively provided by Germans and that the maintenance of the camp would be provided by the Serbian occupation territory. The city administration of Belgrade was responsible for the care of the prisoners. The first camp commandant was Edgar Enge , who was replaced by Herbert Andorfer in January 1942 . The camp guards, members of the Waffen SS, and the administration were subject to the Gestapo . The prisoners were extradited by the Serbian government to national rescue and the German occupation forces.

Deportation of the Jewish population

The mass internment of the Jewish population began on December 8, 1941. The Jews of Belgrade were called upon to report to the Serbian Special Police and hand over their house and apartment keys. Up to December 15, 1941, there were 5291 Jews, mostly Belgrade, in the camp. The number of camp inmates increased by bringing in the Jewish population from Šabac , Niš , Kragujevac and other places. At the end of February 1942 the last Jews from Kosovska Mitrovica and Novi Pazar joined them. A total of 7,500 Jews from the region were deported to the camp .

Storage conditions of the deportees

captured partisans in the camp, 1942

The Sajmište camp was badly damaged during the 1941 bombing raids. Most of the deported Jews, around 5000 people, were in pavilion 3. The pavilion was far too small for this number of people and many of the inmates died in the harsh winter of 1941/42. Of the 5,000 imprisoned, only six women remained by mid-May 1942. The meal consisted of minimal food rations. According to one inmate, an average of 5 to 6 people died every day. The number of deaths before the use of gas was estimated to be 10%, those who died from starvation, cold or illness.

gasification

After the mass shootings during the campaign against the Soviet Union in the summer and autumn of 1941 and the mass shootings in Serbia in Kragujevac and Kraljevo led to mental defects for those who carried out the work, the inmates of the camp were also murdered by gas vans in the Sajmište concentration camp . A Saurer brand truck with a box body of 5.8 m length and 1.7 m height that could hold 80 to 100 prisoners was used for this. From the beginning of March to the beginning of May 1942 the gas truck drove almost daily to a firing range near Avala, which was about 15 km southeast of Belgrade. The bodies were buried there. From November 1943 the bodies were dug up and disposed of as part of Aktion 1005 under Paul Blobel's direction.

Result of the destruction

Most of Serbia's Jews were murdered in the Sajmište camp. It is estimated that around 8,000 people died in the camp.

Before the Second World War, 10,400 Jews lived in Belgrade and around 16,000 in all of Serbia. About 90 percent were murdered during the Holocaust . A large number of people died of hunger, cold and epidemics. An unknown number of men were shot dead. The shootings were committed in the same places where inmates of the Banjica concentration camp were killed. At the end of January 1942 there were 6,500 Jews in the camp, in February there were 5503, April 2974 and in May there were only 491 Jewish inmates. In the following ten-day reports from the commanding general and commander in Serbia, no more Jewish prisoners were mentioned in Sajmište.

In 1944, US Air Force bombers hit the camp in an air raid, killing 80 inmates and injuring 170. The real goal was the nearby train station.

Commemoration

On April 21, 1995, a ten-meter-high statue in memory of the victims was inaugurated on the site of the former Sajmište concentration camp, but without any special mention of the murdered Jews.

In order to preserve the memory, a one-hour documentary film about the camp was made on behalf of the TV station TV B92 . This was first broadcast in February 2009 and can be viewed on the station's website.

In July 2010, a group of German and Serbian students met in Belgrade in order to create a website in connection with the history workshop Europe of the foundation “Remembrance, Responsibility and Future” . Since March 2011, the history of the camp, the respective buildings and the visions of 15 people interviewed during the history workshop can be viewed here.

As part of the EU- funded project Double Load - Learning about National Socialism and the Holocaust in Europe , pupils from Belgrade's Third Gymnasium worked with teachers, artists and documentation archives to develop the documentary play Nevidljivi Spomenici - priručnik za čitanje grada (Invisible memorials - instructions for a city read). The themes of the critical piece are the Second World War, the anti-fascist resistance and the Holocaust in Belgrade and its suppression, with the Sajmište concentration camp also playing an important role. In particular, it is criticized that there is still no memorial site for the victims of the Sajmište concentration camp. The first performance of the play took place on March 27, 2015 in the Bitef Theater in Belgrade.

literature

  • Christopher Browning : The semlin gas van and the final solution in Serbia. In: Fateful months. Essays on the emergence of the final solution. New York / London 1985, pp. 68-85.
  • Walter Manoschek : "Serbia is free of Jews". Military occupation policy and the extermination of Jews in Serbia 1941/42 . Munich 1993, ISBN 3-486-55974-5 , pp. 169-184

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Pages on the documentary Sajmište - Istorija jednog logora ( Sajmište - History of a Camp ) on the B92 website
  2. ↑ a b c d Holm Sundhaussen: Serbia . In: Wolfgang Benz, Barbara Distel (eds.): The place of terror. History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps . tape 9 . CH Beck, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-406-52960-3 , p. 345 ff .
  3. ^ Saul S. Friedman : A history of the Holocaust . 2004, ISBN 0-85303-435-4 , pp. 238 .
  4. ↑ Barry M. Lituchy: Jasenovac and the Holocaust in Yugoslavia . Jasenovac Research Institute, 2006, ISBN 0-9753432-1-1 , p. xxxiii .
  5. ↑ Jasa Almuli, Vecernje Novosti, Jan. 12, 2010 STRADANJA SRPSKIH JEVREJA
  6. ↑ ibid. Jasa Almuli, Vecernje Novosti, Jan. 12, 2010.
  7. ↑ ibid. Jasa Almuli, Vecernje Novosti, Jan. 12, 2010.
  8. ^ Walter Manoschek: "Serbia is free of Jews". Military occupation policy and the extermination of Jews in Serbia 1941/42. Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-486-55974-5 , pp. 177-181.
  9. ^ Walter Manoschek: "Serbia is free of Jews". Military occupation policy and the extermination of Jews in Serbia 1941/42. Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-486-55974-5 , p. 183.
  10. ↑ Walter Manoschek: "Serbia is judenfrei" ... Munich 1993, ISBN 3-486-55974-5 , p. 181 with note 52, gives information between 7,000 and 8,000
  11. ↑ Visit to Staro Sajmište
  12. ↑ Invisible memorials. Instructions to read a city (original title: Nevidljivi Spomenici - priručnik za čitanje grada). Staro Sajmište, accessed on April 9, 2016 (Serbian with German subtitles).
  13. ↑ Double burden - learning about National Socialism and the Holocaust in Europe. Goethe-Institut Croatia, accessed on April 9, 2016 .

Coordinates: 44 ° 48 ′ 29 ″  N , 20 ° 26 ′ 33 ″  E