When people think of the Holocaust, names like Auschwitz and Treblinka come to mind—Nazi-run death factories responsible for the systematic slaughter of millions.
But few know about Jasenovac, a camp so terrifying that even hardened SS officers were shocked by what they saw. Located in the Independent State of Croatia (NDH), run by the Ustaše, Jasenovac was a concentration and extermination camp unlike any other in Europe—a place of extreme brutality, medieval methods of execution, and unrestrained sadism that left even Nazi observers horrified.
A Death Camp Run by Fanatics
Jasenovac was established in 1941 by the Ustaše regime, a Croatian fascist movement aligned with Nazi Germany. Led by Ante Pavelić, the Ustaše aimed to create a purely Catholic Croatian state by exterminating or converting Serbs, Jews, Roma, and political dissidents. Their motto was chillingly clear:
"Kill a third, expel a third, convert a third."
Unlike the Nazis, who industrialized mass murder with gas chambers, the Ustaše at Jasenovac preferred close-contact killing—with knives, hammers, axes, and saws. It was a slaughterhouse where cruelty was celebrated.
Even the Nazis Were Shocked
German and Italian observers stationed in the region reported being disturbed by what they witnessed at Jasenovac. Some Nazi officers expressed disgust at the Ustaše's bloodlust, describing it as "primitive" and "barbaric." One SS report noted that Ustaše guards competed to see who could kill the most prisoners in one night, slitting throats and smashing skulls by hand.
A Nazi liaison reportedly stated, “Even we would not do this.” That’s how horrific Jasenovac was—it made Nazis uncomfortable.
Massacres Without Machines
Jasenovac had no gas chambers. Instead, it relied on brutal manual killings. Guards used mallets to crush skulls, knives to gut victims, and saws to dismember people alive. One of the most infamous tools was the “Serb cutter”, a curved knife strapped to the hand used to slit throats efficiently.
One Ustaše guard, Petar Brzica, claimed to have killed 1,360 people in one night during a throat-slitting contest. Such “games” were common in Jasenovac. Children were often tossed into the air and impaled on bayonets for fun. Pregnant women were disemboweled. The cruelty was unimaginable and unrelenting.
Targeting Entire Families
Serbs made up the largest group of victims—men, women, and children were rounded up from villages and massacred in mass executions. Jewish and Roma families were also targeted, along with political opponents of the Ustaše regime.
One of the most haunting facts: Thousands of children were killed at Jasenovac, some in a special sub-camp called Jastrebarsko, where they were starved, beaten, and left to die without medical care. Unlike Auschwitz, where children were sometimes used for labor or experiments, Jasenovac treated them as nothing more than waste.