| Garavice | |
|---|---|
| Ustaše extermination site | |
 The Garavice Memorial Park to the Victims of Fascist Terror by Bogdan Bogdanović commemorates the Serbs, Jews and Roma massacred at Garavice | |
  Location of Garavice in theIndependent State of Croatia | |
 Interactive map of Garavice | |
| Coordinates | 44°49′27″N15°50′27″E / 44.82417°N 15.84083°E /44.82417; 15.84083 |
| Location | nearBihać,Independent State of Croatia |
| Operated by | Independent State of Croatia andUstashas |
| Operational | July 1941 – September 1941 |
| Inmates | primarilySerbs,Jews andRoma |
| Killed | 7,000-12,000 |
| Liberated by | Yugoslav Partisans |
Garavice (Serbian Cyrillic:Гаравице) was anextermination location established by theIndependent State of Croatia (NDH) duringWorld War II in Yugoslavia nearBihać, in theIndependent State of Croatia. Between 7,000 and 12,000 people, mostlySerbs andJews were murdered at Garavice by theUstasha in 1941.[1]
The killings in Garavice were part of a widespreadgenocide of Serbs, that included expulsions, forced religious conversions, and massacres of ethnic Serbs by the Ustasha regime in the Independent State of Croatia. These atrocities were carried out byCroatquisling forces andAxisoccupying forces duringWorld War II.[2][3][4][5]
TheIndependent State of Croatia (NDH) was founded on 10 April 1941 by theAxis powers (after theinvasion of Yugoslavia), who installed thefascistUstasha organization as the puppet government. The Independent State of Croatia consisted of most of modern-dayCroatia and all of modern-dayBosnia and Herzegovina, together with some parts of modern-daySerbia andSlovenia.[6] NDH was the only nation besideGermany to operateextermination camps duringWorld War II.[7][better source needed]
Some of the first decrees issued by thePoglavnik of the Independent State of Croatia,Ante Pavelić, reflected the NDH's adoption of theracist ideology of Nazi Germany towardsJews andSerbs.[8]
Arrests of Serb and Jewish civilians in and aroundBihać were ordered by Ljubomir Kvaternik, a county prefect, in June 1941. Arrestees were transported and executed at Garavice, near Bihać. In July 1941, the Ustashas murdered between 7,000-12,000 Serbs, Jews, andRoma in Garavice.[9] The largest number of victims were Serbs. Corpses were thrown in mass graves at Garavice or tossed into the nearby Klokot andUna rivers.[10][11] A large amount of blood contaminated the local water supply.[12]
In 1981, theYugoslav government established a memorial park in Garavice, designed by renowned architectBogdan Bogdanović and opened 39 years after the massacre. In 2011, the memorial park was declared a national monument of Bosnia and Herzegovina.[13] Since then, however, the park has reportedly been neglected by theBosnian government, and is overgrown with weeds and bushes, and desecrated withNazi and Ustasha graffiti.
