The Sajmište concentration camp () 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 (). 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 () 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 original site of the Sajmište concentration camp during World War II had 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 contributions from Germany. The architectural centrepiece of the exhibition 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, namely a reconfiguration of the borders of 1912; an area of 51,000 km² with an approximate population of 3.8 million inhabitants.Ristović, Milan. 1997. Enzyklopädie des Nationalsozialismus: Herausgegeben von Wolfgang Benz, Hermann Graml und Hermann Weiß. München 1997, p.728 Most of Yugoslavia's neighbours participated in the dismemberment. Hungary seized the provincial area known as the Batschka while Italian-occupied Albania was awarded the southern part of Kosovo. The eastern part fell to Bulgaria which also occupied a part of Macedonia. Bosnia-Herzegovina was annexed by a Croatian puppet-state (Hrvatska) orchestrated by the Germans in collaboration with the extreme Croatian radicals under the fascist leader Ante Pavelić. This newly created Croatian state, which also annexed the province of Syrmien, covered a territorial expanse of 102,000 km² with a population of 6.3 inhabitants of whom 3.3 million were Croatians. Approximately 2 million were Serbs, around 700,000 were Moslems and 40,000 were Jews.Ristović, Milan. 1997. Enzyklopädie des Nationalsozialismus: Herausgegeben von Wolfgang Benz, Hermann Graml und Hermann Weiß. München 1997, p.559
This reflected the multi-ethnic and religious diversity of the former Yugoslav state which was broken up and run according to the 'divide-and-rule' principle conjured up by the Germans. Officially, the northern part of Kosovo (around Kosovska Mitrovica) came under German administration as did the provincial region of the Banat. Although the German military played its part, the Banat came under the control of the Volksdeutsche, namely the indigenous German minority. The Volksdeutsche were widely scattered: 130,000 in the Banat and around 150,000 in Croatia.
The remains of Serbia, villified by the Germans as Rumpfserbien, a mere rump of its former self, came under direct German military administration. However, there was a short interim period of collaboration with a conservative and reactionary Serb government from May until August 1941. This was then replaced by a more radical civil administration under Milan Nedić, foremerly a pre-war politician known to have pro-Axis leanings. He was chosen by the Germans to lead the collaborationist Government of National Salvation. His powers, however, were duely clipped since the centre of authority lay with the Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia, although this itself fell under the shadow of the SS-SD apparatus.
The civilian administration of Rumpfserbien was actually headed by SS-Gruppenführer Harald Turner, whose demands and decrees were unquestionably supported by the Nedić collaborationist government. Real power, however, lay with SS-Standartenführer Wilhelm Fuchs who had commanded the Einsatzgruppen Serbien. He became the Befehlshaber der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD (BdS) and commanded all the security police as well as the intelligence apparatus until he was replaced in January 1942. SS-Gruppenführer August Meyszner was appointed as the Higher SS and Police Chief for all of Serbia, while SS-Standartenführer Emanuel Schäfer, one of Reinhard Heydrich's most trusted officers, replaced Fuchs as BdS. The SS-SD was responsible for ensuring internal security, fighting opponents of the occupation, and dealing with Jews.
Meanwhile, the extreme Croatian nationalist and fascist Ante Pavelić, who had been in exile in Benito Mussolini's Italy, enjoyed his status as the Poglavnik ("leader") of the Ustaše-led Croatian state – the Independent State of Croatia (often called the NDH as derived from the original ). As we have seen the NDH covered almost all of modern-day Croatia, all of modern-day Bosnia and Herzegovina and parts of modern-day Serbia so as to constitute an "Italian-German quasi-protectorate." It assumed, however, more than its original autonomous function and began with time to orchestrate its own genocidal policy, led by the Ustaše militia, namely against the Serb, Jewish and Romani populations that came within the borders of the new NDH-state.
Zemun, the town where the Sajmište fairgrounds were located, was ceded to the NDH. The occupation of Zemun was witness to a reign of terror, during which the Serb, Jewish and the Sinti-Roma communities were relentlessly persecuted. Abominations were carried out by the Ustaše (the fascist militia) whose rule of tyranny would last until late 1944 when the former-Yugoslavia was liberated by the Red Army and by the home-grown Communist partisan movement managed by Josip Tito (1892-1980).
During the time of German occupation and excess in collaboration with the NDH and the Ustaše (1941-1944) more than 25 percent of Zemun's pre-war population of 65,000 perished. Severe repression began when a large-scale uprising erupted in Serbia throughout August, 1941, following the consequences of the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union that had occurred in June. Although they took no part in the rebellion, Jews were targeted for retaliatory execution by the Germans. This became the norm of their occupation policy so as to spread fear and terror among the Jewish community. It also provided a model of repression as a warning to the Serb population as well as to other ethnic groups. To legitimise their brutality the Germans implemented a number of anti-Jewish laws. By the end of August 1941, all Jewish males were interned in concentration camps, primarily at Topovske Šupe in Belgrade and in Sajmište, Niš and Šabac.
History Establishment
In the autumn of 1941, Harald Turner ordered all Jewish men, women, and children within Serbia to be interned in the concentration camp system. At first, the Germans considered creating a ghetto for the Jews in the Gypsy quarter of Belgrade. However, this idea was quickly dropped due to the area being considered "too filthy and unhygenic".
When several other alternative plans to intern the Jewish and Romani populations of Belgrade failed, the SS-SD apparatus decided to establish Sajmište concentration camp. It was situated on a peninsula surrounded on three sides by the river Sava. Located in full view of Belgrade's central Terazije Square, one could not overlook the presence of the camp. Yet its position surrounded on three sides by the Sava made escape almost impossible.
Sajmište concentration camp was located near administrative and police centres, as well as close to Belgrade central railway station. This allowed for the efficient transport of Jews to the camp from the many towns in the surrounding region. The camp's initial purpose was to detain Jewish men, women, and children. The Germans claimed the Jews "endangered" public safety and that they presented an unhygenic threat to the young soldiers of the Wehrmacht. Such hateful propaganda reinforced the racial stereotyping of Jews.
The Germans dubbed Sajmište the "Jewish camp in Zemun" (). The camp was intended to hold as many as 500,000 people. The vast majority were expected to be captured from rebel-areas across occupied Yugoslavia. It is curious how the Germans focused on Jews to provide victims for their anti-partisan activities. Since the partisans were often identified as Communist it suited the Germans to see Jews as the carrier of Communist contagion. This was part of their propagandistic attempt to ideologically undermine the Jews and to separate them from the wider community.
The name Semlin with which the Germans christened their newly established camp on the Sava derived from the German word . This had been the name for Sajmište when it was a frontier town of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Despite being located on the territory of the NDH, the was controlled by the German military police and SS-SD apparatus responsible for occupied Serbia. The NDH authorities did not object to this arrangement and told the Germans that the camp could be located on NDH territory as long as its guards were German rather than Serb.