Croatia Before and After the Holocaust and World War II

Many people do not recall a country other than Germany being involved in the Holocaust and World War II. However, many countries were affected by those horrific acts of violence, genocide, and war. Most clearly, a country that has been forgotten is present day Croatia.

‘‘[T]his area witnessed some of the most extreme violence'' (Jansen 79). Croatia suffered though many changes due to the Holocaust and World War II, geographically, politically, socially, and economically. The effects of genocide and conflict have impacted the lives of millions of people, to say the least.

The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was created in 1918, after World War I by King Alexander the first. King Alexander I had executive power over the new Yugoslavia. The King decided to get rid of Yugoslavia's set regions, and so new boundaries were drawn. During the Kings time in power the flags of the old Yugoslav nations were banned and in addition communist ideas were banned also.

Because Croatia stated its independence from Yugoslavia in 1991, Yugoslavia will be acknowledged as modern day Croatia. Yugoslavia had a diversity of people among its population. In terms of religion, there were Islamic, Roman Catholics, Jews, Protestants, and Eastern Orthodox faiths. Yugoslavia was an underdeveloped country; the annihilation of feudalism after WWI left most of the population living in poverty and dependent on small unproductive farms. Per capita income was well below the world average.

In April 1941, German, Italian and Hungarian troops attacked Yugoslavia. The German Air Force bombed Belgrade and other major Yugoslav cities. Later in April, representatives of Yugoslavia's various regions signed an armistice with Germany, ending 11 days of resistance against the invading German Army.

The German invasion of Yugoslavia destroyed all appearance of normal economic life. The Germans built factories in Croatia to make military equipment. The prices of essential items increased and were out of control, so bartering became the prime means of the economy.

Croatia was established as a Nazi outpost state and ruled by the Ustase organization which was formed in 1929. Hitler gave the Ustase, a terrorist organization, power over Croatia, whose population was almost half Serbian. The Ustase were violent Roman Catholics, anti-Serb, and anti-Semitic; their avowed policy was to obliterate the Serbs from their territory by conversion, deportation, or execution.

At the beginning of the war there were thousands of Jews in Yugoslavia. "The impact of the war accelerated secularization in different ways. The catastrophe of the Holocaust nearly annihilated the population, including many of the devoutly religious Jews and, among them, the ritual specialists who kept the ritual infrastructure intact and operating" (Gordiejew 63).

With the extermination camps, Jewish people had little to no chance of survival.