PARC COMMÉMORATIF DE DONJA GRADINA

This World War II memorial park (Spomen-Područje Donja Gradina/Спомен-Подручје Доња Градина) is located in a meander of the Save River, at the northernmost point of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Despite the beautiful surroundings, the visit can prove difficult as macabre details abound about what happened here between 1941 and 1945. Regrettably, the site has been the object of political recuperation since the 1990s.

History. Donja Gradina Memorial Park is part of a cross-border memorial complex created in the 1960s on the site of Europe's third-largest concentration camp complex of the Second World War: the Jasenovac extermination camp, most of which was located on the Croatian side of the Sava River. Between 1941 and 1945, over a million people were deported to this marshy area by the Nazi-allied Croatian nationalist regime. The death toll is estimated by most camp historians at 100,000: 45,000 to 52,000 Serbs, 15,000 to 20,000 Roma, 12,000 to 20,000 Jews and 5,000 to 12,000 Croats and Bosnians. It was here, at Donja Gradina, that the largest massacres of Jasenovac inmates took place. Unfortunately, since the 1990s, the authorities in Belgrade and Banja Luka have been exaggerating these figures, multiplying the Serbian death toll by ten and denying the Croatian victims. This is propaganda to minimize and justify the actions of Serbian forces during the Yugoslav wars (1991-2001).

Visit. The 177-hectare park is laid out with a trail detailing the crimes committed here. In the center are the reception area and an exhibition room. The tour begins to the north-west, near the bridge. Above the symbols of the Serbian, Jewish and Roma communities, panels display the number of people killed in the entire Jasenovac complex: this is the most disputed part, since the figure of 700,000 dead, including 500,000 Serbs, is given here. This is the version given by the current Serbian authorities. Again, serious studies agree on a total death toll of 70,000 to 100,000 (360,000 at most, but this is open to question). Nearby, at the confluence of the Una and Save rivers, the trunk of the "horror poplar" (topola užasa) is preserved, on which prisoners were tortured. This is followed by plaques marking the locations of nine groups of mass graves, the camp entrance (prihvatni logor), the "Vukić house" torture site (kuća Vukića) and the ossuary (kosturnica). The trail ends in a clearing with the "soap factory" (tvornica sapuna), where three cauldrons and a tank are on display, said to have been used to make soap from the bodies of victims.

Nearby. In addition to Donja Gradina Park, twelve other memorial sites of the same concentration camp complex are scattered across Croatia, managed by a different organization that presents the facts in a more scientific manner (jusp-jasenovac.hr). Just across the road in Jasenovac, there's a museum, a research center and the famous Stone Flower Monument (Kameni Cvijet). This concrete work was created in 1966 by Serbian sculptor Bogdan Bogdanović (1922-2010), to whom we owe the Bihać and Mostar partisan memorial parks.