Sajmište concentration camp

The Sajmište concentration camp (Serbo-croatian: [sâjmiːʃtɛ]) was a Nazi German concentration and extermination camp during World War II. It was located at the former Belgrade fairground site near the town of Zemun, in the Independent State of Croatia (NDH). The camp was organized and operated by SS Einsatzgruppen units stationed in occupied Serbia. It became operational in September 1941 and was officially opened on 28 October of that year. The Germans dubbed it the Jewish camp in Zemun (German: Judenlager Semlin). At the end of 1941 and the beginning of 1942, thousands of Jewish women, children and old men were brought to the camp, along with 500 Jewish men and 292 Romani women and children, most of whom were from Niš, Smederevo and Šabac. Women and children were placed in makeshift barracks and suffered during numerous influenza epidemics. Kept in squalid conditions, they were provided with inadequate amounts of food and many froze to death during the winter of 1941–42. Between March and May 1942, the Germans used a gas van sent from Berlin to kill thousands of Jewish inmates.

With the gassings complete, it was renamed Zemun concentration camp (German: Anhaltelager Semlin) and served to hold one last group of Jews who were arrested upon the surrender of Italy in September 1943. During this time it also held captured Yugoslav Partisans, Chetniks, sympathizers of the Greek and Albanian resistance movements, and Serb peasants from villages in other parts of the NDH. An estimated 32,000 prisoners, mostly Serbs, passed through the camp during this period, 10,600 of whom were killed or died due to hunger and disease. Conditions in Sajmište were so poor that some began comparing it to Jasenovac and other large concentration camps throughout Europe. In 1943 and 1944, evidence of atrocities committed in the camp was destroyed by the units of SS-Standartenführer Paul Blobel, and thousands of corpses were exhumed from mass graves and incinerated. In May 1944, the Germans transferred control of the camp over to the NDH, and it was closed that July. Estimates of the number of deaths at Sajmište range from 20,000 to 23,000, with the number of Jewish deaths estimated at 7,000 to 10,000. It is thought that half of all Serbian Jews perished at the camp.

Most of the Germans responsible for the operation of the camp were captured and brought to trial. Several were extradited to Yugoslavia and executed. Camp commander Herbert Andorfer and his deputy Edgar Enge were arrested in the 1960s after many years of hiding. Both were given short prison sentences in West Germany and Austria, respectively, though Enge never served any time given his old age and poor health.

The derelict complex was declared a cultural monument on 9 July 1987. The National Assembly of Serbia adopted the law establishing the Memorial Center "Staro Sajmište" on 24 February 2020. Reconstruction of the central tower, as the first step in the adaptation of the remains into the memorial center and museum began on 27 July 2022.

Background

The site that became the Sajmište concentration camp during World War II had originally been an exhibition centre built by the Belgrade municipality in 1937 in an attempt to attract international commerce to the city. The centre's modernist pavilions featured elaborate displays of industrial progress and design from European countries, including Germany. Its architectural centerpiece was a large tower which was used by Philips to transmit the earliest television broadcasts in Europe. Much of the centre stood empty and unused until the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941. The country was dismembered following the invasion, with Serbia being reduced to Serbia proper, the northern part of Kosovo (around Kosovska Mitrovica), and the Banat, which was occupied by the Germans and placed under the administration of a German military government. Milan Nedić, a pre-war politician who was known to have pro-Axis leanings, was then selected by the Germans to lead the collaborationist Government of National Salvation in the Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia. The civilian administration in the country was headed by SS-Gruppenführer Harald Turner, who commanded the Einsatzgruppen Serbien. Originally led by SS-Standartenführer Wilhelm Fuchs, and later by SS-Gruppenführer August Meyszner with SS-Standartenführer Emanuel Schäfer as his deputy, the group was responsible for ensuring internal security, fighting opponents of the occupation, and dealing with Jews.

Meanwhile, the extreme Croat nationalist and fascist Ante Pavelić, who had been in exile in Benito Mussolini's Italy, was appointed Poglavnik ("leader") of an Ustaše-led Croatian state – the Independent State of Croatia (often called the NDH, from the Croatian: Nezavisna Država Hrvatska). The NDH combined almost all of modern-day Croatia, all of modern-day Bosnia and Herzegovina and parts of modern-day Serbia into an "Italian-German quasi-protectorate." NDH authorities, led by the Ustaše militia, subsequently implemented genocidal policies against the Serb, Jewish and Romani populations living within the borders of the new state. Zemun, the town where the Sajmište fairgrounds were located, was ceded to the NDH. The occupation of Zemun – during which non-Croats such as Serbs, Jews and Roma were relentlessly persecuted by the Ustaše – would last until late 1944. By this point, more than 25 percent of Zemun's pre-war population of 65,000 had perished.

A large-scale uprising erupted in Serbia following the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. Although they took no part in the rebellion, Jews were targeted for retaliatory execution by the Germans. The Germans soon implemented a number of anti-Jewish laws, and by the end of August 1941, all Serbian Jewish males were interned in concentration camps, primarily at Topovske Šupe in Belgrade.

History

Establishment

In the fall of 1941, Turner ordered that all Jewish women and children in Serbia be concentrated in a camp. At first the Germans considered creating a ghetto for the Jews in the Gypsy quarter of Belgrade, but this idea was quickly dismissed due to the area being considered "too filthy and unhygenic." When several other plans to intern the Jewish and Romani populations of Belgrade failed, a concentration camp was established on a peninsula surrounded on three sides by the Sava river, and located in full view of Belgrade's central Terazije Square. The camp was positioned in a manner which made escape almost impossible. It was located near administrative and police centres, as well as the Belgrade central railway station, which allowed for the efficient transport of Jews to the camp from the many towns in the region. Its purpose was to detain Jewish women and children that the Germans claimed "endangered" public safety and the Wehrmacht.

The Germans dubbed Sajmište the "Jewish camp in Zemun" (German: Judenlager Semlin). The camp was intended to hold as many as 500,000 people captured from rebels areas across occupied Yugoslavia. The name "Semlin" was derived from the German word for the former Austro-Hungarian frontier town of Zemun, where the camp was located. Despite being located on the territory of the NDH, it was controlled by the German military police apparatus in occupied Serbia. NDH authorities did not object to its establishment and told the Germans that it could be located on NDH territory as long as its guards were German rather than Serb. Soon after the camp was established, SS-Scharführer Edgar Enge of the Belgrade Gestapo became its commander. Initially, the campgrounds held about 500 male Jewish inmates who were given the task of running the camp's so-called "self-administration" and were made responsible for distributing food, dividing up labour, and organizing a Jewish guard force which patrolled along the camp. The exterior of the camp, however, was guarded on a rotation basis by twenty-five members of Reserve Police Battalion 64. By October, all male Jewish inmates and most male Romani inmates were killed. Most were executed in four major waves, with frequent killings occurring in mid-September and between 9 and 11 October. On each occasion, inmates were told that they were being transported to a camp in Austria with better labour conditions but were instead taken to Jabuka in the Banat or to a firing range on the outskirts of Belgrade, where they were killed. Sajmište officially opened on a wider scale on 28 October 1941. The last of the initial male Jewish inmates were killed on 11 November.

Judenlager Semlin

At the end of 1941 and the beginning of 1942, approximately 7,000 Jewish women, children and old men were brought to the camp, along with a further 500 Jewish men and 292 Romani women and children. Most of these people were from the outlying Serbian towns, primarily Niš, Smederevo and Šabac. Women and children were placed in makeshift barracks that were barely heated, and whose windows were shattered due to German bombing raids carried out during the invasion of Yugoslavia. Originally constructed as fair pavilions, the largest of these barracks held up to 5,000 prisoners. Inmates suffered during numerous influenza epidemics, slept on wet straw or bare floorboards, and were provided with inadequate amounts of food. Starvation was widespread, and Jewish inmates appealed unsuccessfully to Serbian authorities for more food to be provided to the camp. Consequently, a high number of detainees, especially children, died in late 1941 and early 1942, with many inmates freezing to death in one of the coldest winters on record. The Romani inmates were kept in far more miserable conditions than their Jewish counterparts. They also slept on straw in an unheated hall, but were kept separate from non-Romani prisoners. The majority of Romani inmates were released after six weeks of detention. Most Jewish inmates remained detained, with the exception of ten Jewish women who were married to Christian men.

In January…