Lepoglava concentration camp

The Lepoglava camp had similar atrocity rates as other concentration camps in Croatia,^[4] and a similar organizational structure to the Jasenovac extermination camp. Administrative, Labor, Economy, and Security departments each had a separate commandant.^[5] The commandants were Mirko Cvitkovac, Ljubo Miloš, Miro Natijević, and Nikola Gađić.^[6]

The camp's first prisoners included Jews who, after their arrival, were supported by food, clothing, and medicine from the Jewish community of Zagreb.^[7]

In July and August 1943, Yugoslav Partisan units requested approval from the Croatian Partisan headquarters to attack Jasenovac extermination camp and release its inmates.^[8] The headquarters refused the requests^[9] but proposed attacking Lepoglava instead.^[10] This proposition was accepted.^[11]

The Partisan forces captured Lepoglava on 14 July 1943, intentionally on Bastille Day.^[12] They first attacked the camp with artillery and then charged it with infantry.^[13] On the day it was captured, the commandant of the camp was Mirko Cvitkovac.^[14] About 15% of its inmates were Communists who subsequently joined the Partisans.^[15]

This was the Partisans' most important action in northwestern Croatia.^[16]

After the Partisans took over the camp, Croatian forces recaptured it and put it under the control of Bureau 3 of the Ustaše Surveillance Service. Ljubo Miloš was made commandant^[17] at the beginning of 1944.^[18]

In 1945, Ustaše decided to close the camp and move its inmates to Jasenovac because they considered Lepoglava insecure.^[19] Some 1,300 inmates were transported to Jasenovac,^[20] where all of them were killed, except for around 50 who managed to escape during the transport.^[21] On 30 April 1945, Ustaše killed about 80 inmates who remained in the camp, as well as 961 young people, mostly students at a nearby facility that is now known as Memorial Cemetery (Croatian: Spomen groblje).^[22]