The Wetlands of Croatia

Today, we drove through drizzling rain to the wetlands that lie along the rivers Sava and Una. The health of the ecosystems looks to be A1... birds... insects... frogs... all in abundance. There were two surprises for us in the area.

First, we stumbled upon the Jasenovac concentration camp from WWII. Again, displaying our ignorance, we didn't know Croatia had a concentration camp. This evening, we looked up Wikipedia, and its recount of history is set out below.

"Jasenovac concentration camp was an extermination camp established in the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) during World War II. It was the only extermination camp that was not operated by the Germans, and was among the largest camps in Europe. The camp was established by the governing Ustaše regime in August 1941 in marshland at the confluence of the Sava and Una rivers near the village of Jasenovac, and was dismantled in April 1945. It was "notorious for its barbaric practices and the large number of victims". In Jasenovac, the majority of victims were ethnic Serbs, whom the Ustaše wanted to remove from the NDH, along with the Jews and Roma peoples.

Jasenovac was a complex of five subcamps spread over 210 km2 (81 sq mi) on both banks of the Sava and Una rivers. The largest camp was the "Brickworks" camp at Jasenovac, about 100 km (62 mi) southeast of Zagreb. The overall complex included the Stara Gradiška sub-camp, the killing grounds across the Sava river at Donja Gradina, five work farms, and the Uštica Roma camp.

During and since World War II, there has been much debate and controversy regarding the number of victims killed at the Jasenovac concentration camp complex in its more than 3½ years of operation. Gradually, in the 15 years after the war ended, a figure of 700,000 began to reflect conventional wisdom, although estimates ranged between 350,000 and 800,000.[7] The authorities of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia conducted a population survey in 1964 that showed a far lower figure, but kept it a secret; when Vladimir Žerjavić published such lower figures in the 1980s, he was criticized by Antun Miletić among others, but his research has since been considered trustworthy by authorities on World War II. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) in Washington, D.C. presently estimates that the Ustaša regime murdered between 77,000 and 99,000 people in Jasenovac between 1941 and 1945. The Jasenovac Memorial Site quotes a similar figure of between 80,000 and 100,000 victims."

We visited the Jasenovac Memorial Site and read some of the moving stories from survivors... stories of acts of courage and perseverance. The Croatian government is funding improvements to the memorial and a large area has been set aside for the monument.

The second surprise was the Storks. They migrate up from East Africa for their summer breeding. In Croatia, they favour nests built in the wetlands, and search out electric light poles... chimneys in houses... never anything as simple as a tree! The ones we saw were building nests or sitting on eggs. They were right into turning their heads to the sky and making a 'clacking' in noise with their beaks. The houses in this area are special as well. There are lots of 'Renovaters' delights'... 100 year old dwellings that have never seen a scrap of paint... with a giant stork's nest sitting on the roof... the home is certainly not short of atmospherics.

Putting aside the grim history of Jasenovac, this part of the world offers an ecology that is in excellent shape... and has communities that reflect the old way of living.