Published sources and literature about Jasenovac concentration camps
Jovan Mirković
PDF, 2,7 Mb
The first electronic edition, 2005.
(based on printed edition Banja Luka — Belgrade, 2000.)
Contents
- Instead of а foreword (System of Jasenovac concentration camps)
- Introduction
- Used bibliographies, bibliography reviews and bibliography addenums
- I Published sources (documents)
- II Memoires
- 1. Special editions
- 2. Articles
- a) Articles in corpora
- b) Articles in press
- III Scientific studies, historiographical and other works
- 1. General history overviews
- 2. Encyclopedias and lexicons
- 3. Studies and expert publications
- a) Expert and popular science descriptions of the camps
- b) Studies and addenums to studies of certain questions about Jasenovac camps
- c) Studies and addenums to studies of relevant subjects and other historiography works
- 4. Regional and local historiography
- IV Fiction and film
- 1. Fiction
- 2. Film
- Conclusion (Serbian)
- Conclusion (English)
- Charts of the analysis of published sources and literature
- Bibliography of the published sources and literature about Jasenovac camps
- 1. Published sources (documents)
- 2. Books
- Articles
- List of used bibliographies, bibliography reviews and bibliography addenums
- Index of names
- Geographic index
- Index of other concepts
- List of abbreviations
- Note about author
CONCLUSION
The Ustasha Independent State of Croatia (ISC), created under the auspices of fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, based on nationalist-chauvinist and clerical militant foundations, was a Catholic dictatorship. The religious intolerance integrated in the very foundations of the society was a combination of the Catholic church tradition and Balkan brutality. Since its establishment the ISC commenced its organized terror against the population based on national, religious, racial and ideological intolerance. The terror imposed, not just by the so called "wild Ustashas", actual formations stemming from the "Straight Catholic Movement" organizations that have already been established, even "legalized", the Ustasha ISC, all its structures (the Ustasha organizations and its political and military and police bodies, administrative, military, police, judicial etc. authorities) committed crimes against humanity. These were not just war crimes and crimes against the civilian population, but in an obvious way also crimes of genocide over Serbs, Jews and Gypsies. All this is quite obvious if one compares the practice of ISC and the Ustasha organizations with the definition of genocide (in all its elements).
However, neithe.r the Nuremberg trial, nor the justice of the Second Yugoslavia and its federal unit -Croatia, nor the Republic of Croatia have condemned the ISC, the Ustasha organization and its bodies for the crime of genocide, nor have they proclaimed them criminal organizations. Even the trials of groups and individuals were trails for war crimes and crimes against the civilian population.
Another form of organized terror of the ISC have been camps, no matter what name they were given: assembly, transient, work, concentration; we write ISC without the usual "so called", because it had really existed, regardless of the fact that its existence (established by an aggressor on an occupied territory) was invalid according to the international law. Furthermore, it was emphasized in the ideological preparations for the establishment of the contemporary Republic of Croatia that ISC was the "expression of historical aspirations of the Croatian peoples". In spite of the official description of the Jasenovac camp, or more precisely, the Jasenovac camp system as a "work camp", which, by the way, had an economic foundation, from plundering of the property of the prisoners and slave work in the production plants and farms, to the goal designated by the propaganda -the amelioration of the "Lonjsko polje", the principal function was destroying of people (Extermination camps). This function was carried out systematically: starting with accommodation conditions, labor, food, exposure to infections etc., i.e. the living conditions and ending with a crude, open individual and mass extermination of , people, carried out in the most primitive and brutal way. For quite some time there has been a prevailing feeling, both in our historiography and the public opinion, that due to various, above all everyday political reasons, the subject of Jasenovac is insufficiently present in literature, both the historiographic and the publicist writings.
On one side there was a thesis present in the Serbian historiography and publicist writings of a "conspiracy" to cover the Ustasha crimes, to relativize the role of the Roman Catholic Church, episcopy and Stepinac, as well as a theses on joint, anti-Serbian activity of the Croatian national chauvinists led by the Ustasha and the Communist movement. On the other side in the Croatian historiography and publicist writings there was support of the thesis of "conspiracy" to proclaim the entire Croatian national and religious entity genocidal and responsible for the crimes perpetuated by the Ustashas. The most radical went as far as to completely deny the very existence of such crimes.
Both sides, putting the accent on the victims from among their own nation and emphasizing the actual and alleged crimes perpetuated by the members of the other nation, have insisted that the subject had not been adequately scientifically treated, not even in the memoirs of highest standard and other literature. Quite a lot of issues have remained opened regarding the Ustasha ISC, its establishment, position and responsibility of the Vatican and the Catholic church, responsibility for the genocide and war crimes, not only committed by individuals but by the Ustasha organization and the state, its bodies and builders of political and ideological foundations, as well as the responsibility of the Yugoslav authorities and the scientific institutions for the lack of systematic research or even repression of the issue of war and genocide victims, and numerous other issues. We have pointed out in the introduction that under the published sources on the Jasenovac camps we have specifically included the published archival materials -documents (classified by date as material created during the World War II, material created after the war and contemporary material), and in wider terms we have included under the sources also memoirs and other recollections (separating thereby the memoir notes made during the war or immediately after the war which, due to the freshness of memories and authenticity are often valued as documents). The task undertaken in 1his work was to present the extent to which the subject of the Jasenovac camps has been present in literature. There has been no selective bibliography made up to now on the Jasenovac camp, except the couple of contributions and bibliographic testimonies mentioned in the introductory part, yet they do not provide the complete review of everything that had been published on the subject. Considering that the references on books and articles is a starting point for any professional, and particularly scientific approach to a study of a specific issue, its lack of existence is a true difficulty in such undertaking. This paper does not aspire to list every bibliographic item, particularly not from the daily press, where Jasenovac is mentioned as a geographic term or term from the daily political use, nor numerous articles written for specific occasions nor many having a polemic (particularly nationally and religiously exclusive) character. An attempt was made to cover, if possible, everything completely pertaining to the Jasenovac camps in special issues, articles in proceedings and in the press dealing exclusively with this subject (as memoir notes or accounts from the camp, that is, accounts of certain issues related to the camp ).
The historigraphic works, of course, take up the first place. An attempt was made, also, to gain insight and provide maximum number of historiographic and publicistic works where the Jasenovac camps are not the main subject but are mentioned, and a greater or minor scope of data provided. It is certain that there are more such works and that they have not all been included. The sense in including these works is in the fact that this subject can only be studied on an interdisciplinary level. In other words, they can serve to provide argumentation for certain issues, e.g. in studying the question of the number of victims (with all the consequences of the respective issues, such as the victim structure according to the territorial, national, confessional, age, sex, social, ideological, professional, etc. criteria), even if only a single name or event related to the Jasenovac camp had been mentioned in such a publication.
Sixty-six bibliographies, bibliographic statements and contributions on bibliographies served as a source for bibliography as well as scientific equipment and list of sources and references from the historiographic works.
Since the inclusion of bibliographic items in this work was made de visu for over 90% of the items, save for some titles of general historiographic character, it could serve as a primary bibliography for the subject of the Jasenovac camps. In the work under the group of "published sources - documents" are listed 108 items and under the group "books" I 106 titles pertaining to special issues on the Jasenovac camps, proceedings containing articles on the respective subject and books (special issues and proceedings) where we find (more or less) relevant data.
There are 1482 bibliographic items in the list of articles: scientific contributions on other subjects providing certain facts related to our subject matter, memoirist writings of former camp inmates and other memories related to the camps and suffering, some of the current polemics, publicistic-journalist writings, etc. published in the proceedings, periodicals and the press. The analysis of the published material according to the years of issue, with having analyzed 1188 books titles and 1544 article titles (which does not correspond to the number given in the listing, since the titles for this analysis were taken according to the year of issue -hence some have appeared two or more times, whereas part of the titles does not have the year of issue and was not taken into consideration in the analysis) shows that the majority of the special issues (books) and articles had been published in the decade 1981-1990.
If we group the book and the article titles according to the usability for the study of our subject matter, it can be observed that barely 28% belong, tentatively, to the first group (call it "primary literature") of which 21% under books and 35% under articles. We have included in the primary literature, under books, the published sources, memoirs of former camp inmates, studies and contributions for the study of individual issues on the Jasenovac camps, as well as professional and popular science accounts of the camps. Under the articles in the press in the primary group we have included all the memoirist writings, and under articles in the proceedings and the periodicals: contributions for the study of the subject matter and the memoirist writings of the former inmates.
In the second group (secondary literature) under books are included studies and contributions for the study of other subjects relevant to our subject matter, other memories that provide certain data for our subject matter and general and local historiography. We have included with articles in proceedings in this group other memories and relevant contributions of other subject. Contributions to periodicals on other subjects significant for our subject matter have also been taken as well as articles from the newspapers which we have classified as feuilletons and reports. This (secondary) group makes 51% of the titles (52.5% in books and 49% in articles). We have classified under the third group everything else that provides certain data useful for the study of our subject matter: publicist writings, fiction, polemics, etc. This group makes 2 1% of all titles (both in books and articles).
When the classification into the listed group was made the classification in the first group was carried out quite tolerantly, particularly with contributions treating our subject matter, since part of these titles contains elements not only of scientific contributions but also polemic tones and could therefore be classified in the group of polemic works. Nevertheless, the reasons of contribution to the study of certain issues prevailed. Furthermore, part of the references with popular science accounts of the camps could either be classified in the general historiography (second group) or publicistic writing (third group), however, they are few in number and serve to systematize the earlier knowledge. In view of this the actual number of scientific contributions (in the full sense of this word) is even smaller than expressed in the stated division. The enclosed graphic presentations provide a more detailed picture of the number of titles according to the type, time of publication and usability for the study of the subject of the Jasenovac camps.
It is not the aim of this work to draw conclusions from the given data and possible derivatives of data based on political, ideological or other foundations.
This work has undertaken, as stated, to show the presence of the subject matter of the Jasenovac camps in literature and the usability of the published material, i.e. whether it is possible to carry out certain studies based on this and derive certain understanding. It can therefore be concluded that the often stressed fact that there is insufficient written material on the Jasenovac camps, that there is no support in literature, that it was a "taboo subject" etc. is obviously incorrect. On the contrary, the number of bibliographic items that completely or partially speak about the Jasenovac camps place this subject matter at the very top of the topics from the World War II on our territory present in literature. However, the structure of writings in question is not satisfactory. There is no systematic, scientific monographic elaboration of the Jasenovac camp, nor a high standard monographic elaboration of a segment of this subject matter. There is a relatively small number of scientific papers devoted to the study of this subject or some of its issues, as well as well, critically prepared proceedings of documents.
It is our opinion that it is not a question of a "taboo subject", but more a "taboo consciousness" of the people, above all, in historical science, but also other compatible disciplines, treating these issues professionally and scientifically. It could be said that this subject matter is dealt with more by people who are not in the profession, often falling in the traps of petty politicizing, most often of national and religious exclusivism. Unfortunately, even some people in the profession are known sometimes to succumb. The subject of the Jasenovac camps requires a creative research, multidisciplinary approach in order to shed a multidimensional light on such a complex structure of a historical fact.