Jasenovac Spomenik / Monument in Croatia:
The primary element of the memorial complex is a 24m tall six petal flower-blossom shaped concrete sculpture. Below the monument, within its interior, there is a crypt which is lined at its base with railroad ties from the railroad which once brought prisoners to the death camp here. Around the landscape of the spomenik, there are large earthen mounds which mark the previous locations of death camp buildings (as all camp buildings were demolished after the war). The 'Flower' monument at #Jasenovac is a memorial to the hundreds of thousands of victims who were executed during World War II at the Jasenovac forced labor and extermination camp which was set up and run at this location, on the banks of the Sava River, by the Independent State of #Croatia (NDH) and administered by the fascist Ustaše forces. […] After the Axis forces invaded the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in April of 1941, the Axis puppet-state of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) was quickly established, leaving most of present day Croatia and #Bosnia under oppressive Axis control. Camps were set up across the region to act as hubs of the transport, imprisonment and assembly of a host of dissident and undesirable elements of the NDH, such as Partisans, communists, anti-fascists, POWs and certain ethnic groups (Serbs, Jews, Roma, etc). The Jasenovac Camp, established around July or August of 1941 by the nationalist Ustaše militia of the NDH, was originally set up as a forced labor camp for the production of bricks, leather and timber products. However, after November of 1941, Jasenovac ceased its operations of forced labor and began to operate exclusively as a death camp. […] Much confusion and contention has existed over the decades since WWII regarding the total number of victims at the Jasenovac camps. Even today, there is much controversy over the exact number of victim who perished here. Estimates of those liquidated at Jasenovac range from as few as 20,000 to upwards of 500,000 and even greater. (Source: @spomenikdatabase)
