Crveni Krst concentration camp

Crveni Krst
Concentration camp
The facilities of the Crveni Krst concentration camp, 2008.
Location of Crveni Krst in contemporary Serbia
Coordinates	43°19′09″N 21°53′46″E / 43.31917°N 21.89611°E / 43.31917; 21.89611Coordinates: 43°19′09″N 21°53′46″E / 43.31917°N 21.89611°E / 43.31917; 21.89611
Location	Niš, Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia
Operated by	German Gestapo
Operational	1941–1944
Inmates	Primarily Serbs, Jews and Romanis
Number of inmates	35,000
Killed	10,000
Liberated by	Yugoslav Partisans, 1944

The Crveni Krst concentration camp (lit. Red Cross concentration camp), located in Crveni Krst, Niš, was operated by the German Gestapo and used to hold captured Serbs, Jews and Romanis during the Second World War. Established in mid-1941, it was used to detain as many as 35,000 people during the war and was liberated by the Yugoslav Partisans in 1944. More than 10,000 people are thought to have been killed at the camp. After the war, a memorial to the victims of the camp was erected on Mount Bubanj, where many inmates were shot. A memorial museum was opened on the former campgrounds in 1967 and in 1979 the campgrounds were declared a Cultural Monument of Exceptional Importance and came under the protection of the Socialist Republic of Serbia.

On 6 April 1941, Axis forces invaded the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. The Royal Yugoslav Army was quickly defeated and Belgrade was captured by 12 April. The country was then occupied and dismembered, with the Wehrmacht establishing the Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia under a government of military occupation. The territory included most of Serbia proper, with the addition of the northern part of Kosovo (centred on Kosovska Mitrovica), and the Banat. It was the only area of partitioned Yugoslavia in which the German occupants established a military government. This was done to exploit the key rail and riverine transport routes that passed through it, and due to its valuable resources, particularly non-ferrous metals. The Military Commander in Serbia appointed Serbian puppet governments to "carry on administrative chores under German direction and supervision". On 29 August 1941, the Germans appointed the Government of National Salvation (Serbian: Vlada Nacionalnog Spasa, Влада Националног Спаса) under General Milan Nedić, to replace the short-lived Commissioner Administration. A pre-war politician who was known to have pro-Axis leanings, Nedić was selected because the Germans believed his fierce anti-Communism and military experience could be used to quell an armed uprising in the Serbian region of Šumadija. Unable to bring reinforcements due to the need to send soldiers to the Eastern Front, the Germans responded to the revolt by declaring that one-hundred Serbs would be executed for every German soldier killed and that fifty would be executed for every German soldier wounded. By October 1941, this policy had resulted in the deaths of 25,000 Serbs. The Germans also targeted Jews, who were subjected to forced labour, punitive taxing, and restrictive decrees. Jews were also registered with German authorities and forced to wear identifying armbands while Jewish property was confiscated. They, and to a lesser degree Romanis, were targeted on racial grounds, although most were not killed outright. Following the start of the anti-German uprising, German propaganda began associating Jews with Communism and anti-German ideology. Executions and arrests of Serbian Jews followed.