Slana concentration camp

Slana concentration camp was a concentration and extermination camp on the Croatian island Pag.

The camp was established in June 1941. The camp was established by Mijo Babić. It was controlled by the Ustaše, who had been installed as rulers of the puppet state of Croatia by Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. Slana was a men's camp. Most prisoners were Jews, Serbs and Croatian communists. The commander of the camp was Ivan Devčević, who was also a commander of the 13th Ustaša battalion which was garrisoned in the camp.

The camp was closed in August 1941 by the Italian military, who feared that the brutality of the Ustaše would provoke unrest in the region. Historians have estimated the death toll in Slana and the women's camp Metajna to be between 4,000 and 12,000. During the first weeks the inmates mainly died of physical abuse, exhaustion, hunger and thirst. When the transports became more frequent and the camp lacked space, the Ustaše began to execute many prisoners. The Author Ante Zemljar wrote a book about what happened in Slana in 1941: Charon and Destinies.