BHS / ENG
The Memorial Site Jasenovac in Croatia and the Memorial Site of Donja Gradina in Bosnia and Herzegovina were created as a common Memorial site in the 1960s in the SFR Yugoslavia. They are related to the former site of the Ustasha concentration camp (1941–1945), formed during the time of the “Independent State of Croatia” in World War II in order to detain and murder Serbs, Jews, Roma and opponents of the Ustasa-regime. The camp was located on both sides of the river Sava, which constitutes today the state border between Croatia and BiH. Since the wars of 1990s and the independence of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, the memory site has been split in two, with one specific site on each part of the border, in a distance from each other of just a few hundred meters but with no official cooperation between both sites. Because of this unique situation, it was very important for our group to visit both sites, what the big majority of visitors usually does not do. In Jasenovac we visited the areal with the museum and its new permanent exhibition, the educational centar and the Flower-Monument; in Donja Gradina we visited the sites of the mass graves. It was striking to see the differences between the two Memorial sites in the presentation and interpretation of the same historical events, for example in the estimation of the number of victims.
Pictures of the visit:
Jasenovac
Jasenovac
Donja Gradina
Donja Gradina
More info:
About the Memorial site Jasenovac:
http://www.jusp-jasenovac.hr/Default.aspx
About the Memorial site Donja Gradina: