Sajmište concentration camp
Encyclopedia
Sajmište concentration camp was a German run Nazi concentration camp located on the outskirts of Belgrade
Belgrade
Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...

 whilst part of NDH (Independent State of Croatia
Independent State of Croatia
The Independent State of Croatia was a World War II puppet state of Nazi Germany, established on a part of Axis-occupied Yugoslavia. The NDH was founded on 10 April 1941, after the invasion of Yugoslavia by the Axis powers. All of Bosnia and Herzegovina was annexed to NDH, together with some parts...

). It was established in December 1941 and shut down in September 1944. The majority of Serbian Jews were killed in the Sajmište camp.

Establishment

In 1941, Axis powers
Axis Powers
The Axis powers , also known as the Axis alliance, Axis nations, Axis countries, or just the Axis, was an alignment of great powers during the mid-20th century that fought World War II against the Allies. It began in 1936 with treaties of friendship between Germany and Italy and between Germany and...

 conquered
Invasion of Yugoslavia
The Invasion of Yugoslavia , also known as the April War , was the Axis Powers' attack on the Kingdom of Yugoslavia which began on 6 April 1941 during World War II...

 Kingdom of Yugoslavia
Kingdom of Yugoslavia
The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a state stretching from the Western Balkans to Central Europe which existed during the often-tumultuous interwar era of 1918–1941...

 and dismantled its territory into several entities and puppet states. Belgrade became the capital of Serbia south of Sava and Danube, which was under formal rule of the government of Milan Nedić
Milan Nedic
Milan Nedić was a Serbian general and politician, he was the chief of the general staff of the Yugoslav Army, minister of war in the Royal Yugoslav Government and the prime minister of a Nazi-backed Serbian puppet government during World War II.After the war, Yugoslav communist authorities...

, but in fact administered by Nazi forces. The area of Srem
Srem
Śrem is a town on the Warta river in central Poland. It has been situated in the Greater Poland Voivodeship since 1999; from 1975 to 1998 it was part of the Poznań Voivodeship...

 (Syrmia), on the left bank of Sava river, came under control of Independent State of Croatia
Independent State of Croatia
The Independent State of Croatia was a World War II puppet state of Nazi Germany, established on a part of Axis-occupied Yugoslavia. The NDH was founded on 10 April 1941, after the invasion of Yugoslavia by the Axis powers. All of Bosnia and Herzegovina was annexed to NDH, together with some parts...

, while adjacent Banat was under direct German control. The occupiers sought to "solve" the Jewish question
Final Solution
The Final Solution was Nazi Germany's plan and execution of the systematic genocide of European Jews during World War II, resulting in the most deadly phase of the Holocaust...

 in Serbia. The initial plan was to expel male Jews into camps in Danube Delta
Danube Delta
The Danube Delta is the second largest river delta in Europe, after the Volga Delta, and is the best preserved on the continent. The greater part of the Danube Delta lies in Romania , while its northern part, on the left bank of the Chilia arm, is situated in Ukraine . The approximate surface is...

 or concentration camps in Germany. However, as the planned islands were flooded, the Germans asked the Croatian Ustaše
Ustaše
The Ustaša - Croatian Revolutionary Movement was a Croatian fascist anti-Yugoslav separatist movement. The ideology of the movement was a blend of fascism, Nazism, and Croatian nationalism. The Ustaše supported the creation of a Greater Croatia that would span to the River Drina and to the border...

 (and got their agreement) for having Sajmište as a transit camp for the Serbian Jews.

On May 30, 1941 the German military administration defined what a Jew was, demanded the removal of Jews from the professional and public service, started registration of Jewish property, introduced forced labor, forbade the Serbian population form hiding Jews (Beherbergungsverbot), and ordered all members of the Jewish community to wear the yellow badge
Yellow badge
The yellow badge , also referred to as a Jewish badge, was a cloth patch that Jews were ordered to sew on their outer garments in order to mark them as Jews in public. It is intended to be a badge of shame associated with antisemitism...

. Communists in German-occupied Serbia orchestrated an uprising there, to which the Germans responded by requiring Jews in Serbia to supply forty hostages weekly.

The camp was formed on the left bank of the Sava river, near the railway bridge at the entrance into Belgrade
Belgrade
Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...

 where the pre-war trade fairground (sajmište) was located. This territory which was, at that time, deserted, uninhabited and marshy, was several kilometers from Zemun
Zemun
Zemun is a historical town and one of the 17 municipalities which constitute the City of Belgrade, the capital of Serbia...

 and formed a part of NDH (Independent State of Croatia
Independent State of Croatia
The Independent State of Croatia was a World War II puppet state of Nazi Germany, established on a part of Axis-occupied Yugoslavia. The NDH was founded on 10 April 1941, after the invasion of Yugoslavia by the Axis powers. All of Bosnia and Herzegovina was annexed to NDH, together with some parts...

) territory.

In the beginning, Sajmište was almost exclusively meant for Serbian
Serbs
The Serbs are a South Slavic ethnic group of the Balkans and southern Central Europe. Serbs are located mainly in Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and form a sizable minority in Croatia, the Republic of Macedonia and Slovenia. Likewise, Serbs are an officially recognized minority in...

 resistance fighters, Serbia
Serbs
The Serbs are a South Slavic ethnic group of the Balkans and southern Central Europe. Serbs are located mainly in Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and form a sizable minority in Croatia, the Republic of Macedonia and Slovenia. Likewise, Serbs are an officially recognized minority in...

n Jews
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...

, and subsequently for Serbian Roma and political prisoners. Even as the murder of male Jews was underway in the winter of 1941, the military administration chief, SS-Gruppenfuehrer Harold Turner
Harold Turner (German SS commander)
Harald Turner was an SS commander and Staatsrat in the German-imposed and led military regime in Serbia called the Military Administration of Serbia. In 1942 in Serbia, in a letter to Karl Wolff, chief of the personal staff of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler...

, enacted the first measures for interning Jewish women and children in the Sajmište concentration camp near Belgrade, reporting to his Nazi bosses:

Prisoners

Most of the inmates were Serbian opponents of the occupation, as well as Serbian Romani people.The Wehrmacht
Wehrmacht
The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...

 claimed that military reasons justified the interning of women and children. Counterintelligence (IC/AO) in Saloniki reported:
The number of inmates is estimated at 40,000. At least 32,000 Serbian and 7–8 000 Jewish victims perished in Sajmište concentration camp.

The concentration camp administration had approximately 500 Jewish men who were exempted from shooting. They administered the camp in so-called "self-administration" and were responsible for distributing food, dividing up labor, and organizing a Jewish guard force which patrolled along the barbed wire fence inside the camp. The camp commandant since January 1942 was SS Untersturmführer
Untersturmführer
Untersturmführer was a paramilitary rank of the German Schutzstaffel first created in July 1934. The rank can trace its origins to the older SA rank of Sturmführer which had existed since the founding of the SA in 1921...

 Herbert Androfer. The camp's exterior was guarded by 25 men of German Reserve Police Battalion 64.

Supplies were provided by the "Department of Social Care and Social Institutions of Belgrade’s Municipal Authorities". At the beginning of December 1941, German authorities ordered Jews in Belgrade to report to the Sicherheitspolizei
Sicherheitspolizei
The Sicherheitspolizei , often abbreviated as SiPo, was a term used in Nazi Germany to describe the state political and criminal investigation security agencies. It was made up by the combined forces of the Gestapo and the Kripo between 1936 and 1939...

 and to hand over their house keys. From December 8th until 12th, Germans took them to Sajmište. Conditions in the camp were extremely difficult - the damp and the cold, hunger and epidemics.
As camp inmates starved and froze to death, Jewish men (the number is unknown) were led away to be shot by German firing squads in Belgrade. They were killed in the same manner, in the same place and by the same people as were the Banjica camp
Banjica concentration camp
Banjica concentration camp was a quisling and Nazi German concentration camp in occupied Serbia from June 1941 to September 1944 in World War II, located in the eponymous suburb of Belgrade. It started as a center for holding hostages, but later included Jews, Serbs, Roma, captured partisans, and...

 prisoners. After all men were shot, 6,280 women and children were killed in a special gas truck on their way to Belgrade and buried in Jajinci
Jajinci
Jajinci is an urban neighborhood located in the municipality of Voždovac, in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. It was the site of the worst carnage in Serbia during World War II when German occupational forces executed nearly 80,000 people, many of them prisoners of the nearby Banjica concentration...

.

The Encyclopedia of the Holocaust states:
On October 20, 1941, Turner attended meeting with other Nazi officials including Security Police Sicherheitspolizei
Sicherheitspolizei
The Sicherheitspolizei , often abbreviated as SiPo, was a term used in Nazi Germany to describe the state political and criminal investigation security agencies. It was made up by the combined forces of the Gestapo and the Kripo between 1936 and 1939...

chief Wilhelm Fuchs
Wilhelm Fuchs
Oberführer und Oberst der Polizei Wilhelm Fuchs was a Nazi Einsatzkommando leader. From April 1941 to January 1942 he commanded Einsatzgruppe Serbien. From 15 September 1943 through 27 May 1944 he commanded Einsatzkommando 3....

, Franz Rademacher
Franz Rademacher
Franz Rademacher was an official in the Nazi government of the Third Reich during World War II, known for initiating action on the Madagascar Plan.-Nazi Beginnings:...

 (in charge of Jewish affairs at the German Foreign Ministry) and two men from Adolf Eichmann's
Adolf Eichmann
Adolf Otto Eichmann was a German Nazi and SS-Obersturmbannführer and one of the major organizers of the Holocaust...

 office, Franz Stuschke and SS-Obersturmbannführer Friedrich Suhr. These men decided to arrest all the Jews in Serbia and imprison them at Sajmište concentration camp, and thereafter to transport them to the east (presumably to be murdered) once transport became available, which would not be before the summer of 1942. Pursuant to this plan, between December 1941 and February 1942, all Jewish women and children in Serbia (7500 to 8000 people) were taken to the Sajmište camp. Bad food and completely inadequate shelter and sanitary conditions (for example, there was a single shower for all the prisoners) killed large numbers of people. Informations from some sources lead to conclusion that 250—450 Jews executed on February 1942 on location Trostruki surduk
Trostruki surduk
Trostruki surduk is the name of a place in Belgrade, Serbia, between Bežanija and Surčin, where the mass murder of 240—450 Jews during World War II was organized...

 were brought from Sajmište concentration camp.

Mass killings by gas van

Turner and the other Nazis responsible for the camp did not care of course how many people died, because the plan was to murder all the people in the east anyway, and the more that did not need to be transported the easier it would be to kill the survivors. However, as it turned out, it wasn't possible to transport the people as early as Turner and the others had hoped, and so a decision was made to kill the people at the camp in Serbia. The means by which this would be done would be carbon monoxide
Carbon monoxide
Carbon monoxide , also called carbonous oxide, is a colorless, odorless, and tasteless gas that is slightly lighter than air. It is highly toxic to humans and animals in higher quantities, although it is also produced in normal animal metabolism in low quantities, and is thought to have some normal...

 poisoning, with the exhaust from internal combustion engine
Internal combustion engine
The internal combustion engine is an engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer in a combustion chamber. In an internal combustion engine, the expansion of the high-temperature and high -pressure gases produced by combustion apply direct force to some component of the engine...

s. Accordingly, the camp authorities arranged with their masters in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

 to have a gas van
Gas van
The gas van or gas wagon was an extermination method devised by Nazi Germany to kill victims of the regime. It was also rumored that analog of such device was used by the Soviet Union on an experimental basis during the Great Purge-Nazi Germany:...

 sent out to Belgrade. (Gas vans had already been used in Poland and other places to murder people.) From March to May 1942, the Nazis used the gas van to kill all the Jews imprisoned in Sajmište. This accounted for almost all the Jews in Serbia. (Of the Serbian Jewish population of 16,000, the Nazis murdered approximately 14,500.) Most of the survivors were either being hidden by Serbian friends or had joined the Partisans.

Destruction of the evidence

In November 1943 SS-Standartenführer
Standartenführer
Standartenführer was a Nazi Party paramilitary rank that was used in the so-called Nazi combat-organisations: SA, SS, NSKK and the NSFK...

 Paul Blobel
Paul Blobel
Paul Blobel was a German Nazi war criminal, an SS-Standartenführer and a member of the SD. Born in the city of Potsdam, he participated in the First World War, where by all accounts he served well and was decorated with the Iron Cross first class...

, the officer in charge of Aktion 1005 (later executed for his numerous crimes against humanity) came to Belgrade to organize the destruction of the evidence of the Nazi crimes at Sajmište concentration camp. This plan, devised by Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was Reichsführer of the SS, a military commander, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. As Chief of the German Police and the Minister of the Interior from 1943, Himmler oversaw all internal and external police and security forces, including the Gestapo...

 when the war turned against Germany, was to disinter and burn the bodies of the murder victims. Blobel organized a unit of fifty Sicherheitspolizei
Sicherheitspolizei
The Sicherheitspolizei , often abbreviated as SiPo, was a term used in Nazi Germany to describe the state political and criminal investigation security agencies. It was made up by the combined forces of the Gestapo and the Kripo between 1936 and 1939...

 and German military police, and 100 Jewish and Serbian prisoners to carry out this gruesome task. Similar actions were undertaken at about the same time at other locations where the Nazis had murdered and buried large numbers of people, for example, at Rumbula
Rumbula massacre
The Rumbula massacre was the two-day killing of about 25,000 Jews in and on the way to Rumbula forest near Riga, Latvia, during the Holocaust. Save only the Babi Yar massacre in Ukraine, this was the biggest two-day Holocaust atrocity until the operation of the death camps...

 in Latvia and Belzec extermination camp
Belzec extermination camp
Belzec, Polish spelling Bełżec , was the first of the Nazi German extermination camps created for implementing Operation Reinhard during the Holocaust...

 in Poland.

Aftermath

In 1944, Sajmište was hit by U.S. bombers in raids, which killed 80 people at the camp and injured 170. The bombers' intended target was the nearby railway station.

Sajmište is still not a memorial center. The location is proclaimed a "Cultural Heritage of city of Belgrade" in 1987, and a monument was erected on April 21, 1995. A campaign to create a memorial center was initiated in April 2006.

See also

  • List of Nazi-German concentration camps
  • Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics
    Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics
    The Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics was founded in 1927. The Rockefeller Foundation supported both the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Psychiatry and the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics...

  • Research Materials: Max Planck Society Archive
    Research Materials: Max Planck Society Archive
    At the end of World War II, the Kaiser Wilhelm Society was renamed the Max Planck Society, and the institutes associated with the Kaiser Wilhelm Society were renamed "Max Planck" institutes. The records that were archived under the former Kaiser Wilhelm Society and its institutes were placed in the...

  • Shark Island, German South West Africa

External links

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