At the Danica Memorial Site, near Koprivnica, tribute was paid to the victims of the first Ustasha camp by laying wreaths and lighting candles. The delegation of the Town of Koprivnica was led by Mayor and member of the Croatian Parliament, MIŠEL JAKŠIĆ and his deputy, KSENIJA OSTRIŽ. The delegations of the Serbian National Council (SNC) and the Serbian National Minority Council of the Koprivnica-Križevci County, as well as the Association of Anti-fascist Fighters and Anti-Fascists also laid wreaths
“Koprivnica is one of the rear towns in Croatia that, when it comes to the Second World War commemorates its past in a way that is at the same time both institutional and local. Such commemorations say a great deal about this area, and we are perpetually thankful for that as in our country, unfortunately, we do not commemorate remembrance, but oblivion, when it comes to the causes and circumstances of the Second World War,” said, among other things, ANETA VLADIMIROV, head of SNC’s Department of Culture.
“Thank you to everyone who every year keeps the memory of this one ugly episode from the history of this area alive. Persecuting people based on their religion, race, political or any other affiliation is just an indication of complete human weakness and loss; something that carries a lot of blackness in itself; something that we need to remember so that such a thing would never happen again,” said MAYOR JAKŠIĆ. He also concluded that, by respecting lessons from our history, we needed to preserve the present so that we would not lose the future again today or tomorrow in another such delirium.
“Danica” was the first concentration camp in the Independent State of Croatia (NDH). It was founded on April 15, 1941, and it existed until September 1942. The first prisoners were brought to the camp from the vicinity of Koprivnica already on April 18. That is how the first camp in NDH came to be. The first group of 530 Serbs arrived at the camp on April 29 from Grubišno Polje. Upon arrival, all detainees were robbed of their possessions by the Ustasha guards. By July 15, a total of 2,656 Serbs had been brought in. The camp prisoners mostly died of starvation or from being beaten or shot. The Ustasha guards had a torturing barracks in the centre of the camp, which the survivors referred to as “the death barracks” or “the house of horrors”. The dead were buried in toilet pits or nearby woods. The descriptions of the inmates’ stay in Danica are reminiscent of those in other camps: they slept on the floor, the luckier ones would grab some straw, the rest would sleep on concrete. They were given food once a day, it was either bean or potato soup. Few prisoners managed to receive shipments of food from home, but the Ustasha guards would usually take the packages away from them. It was difficult to escape the camp since it was secured by 70 — 85 guards deployed in 11 guard posts during the day and 15 during the night.
Most camp prisoners were sent to Gospić (Jadovno) and Jasenovac, once those Ustasha camps were established. This was precisely the destiny of Milan Bakić, the brother of sculptor Vojin Bakić, and engineer Ivo Goldstein, the owner of a bookstore in Karlovac (the father of Slavko Goldstein).
The Danica Memorial Site has been preserved at camp site. It was given the status of a protected cultural property. At the beginning of 1990s, the Katica locomotive, which had been used to transport detainees, was taken from the site, and brought to the centre of Zagreb. At the same time, the monument to fallen soldiers from the centre of Koprivnica was also removed from the ossuary and it was symbolically “deported” to the Danica camp.
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Tribute to Victims of the Danica Camp by Laying Wreaths and Lighting Candles, April 15, 2020.