Thousands of Jews and others persecuted by the fascist government found themselves imprisoned in a house with an ominous name in central Bosnia in the summer of 1941, before being transferred to Jasenovac and other death camps.
The barracks near the town of Vitez, known as the Black House, was the last stop for some of them, and almost a hundred camp inmates were killed in a rebellion in just one night.
Built in the village of Kruščica, the Black House was the first concentration camp established in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) by the forces of the so-called Independent State of Croatia (NDH) during World War II.
Five decades later, that two-story building once again became a prison where civilians and prisoners of war were imprisoned and tortured during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 1990s.
After a gruesome wartime past, it today has the status of a national monument of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but it is completely neglected and is in danger of collapsing.
A camp inmate uprising?
Near the railway line, the Kruščica prison was opened in late 1940 during the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and was used to imprison opponents of the Yugoslav royal regime.
The prison administration was at that time located in another, smaller building, and the living conditions in the house at that time were described in the available literature as "more like a resort than a prison."
With the proclamation of the Independent State of Croatia in April 1941, the location became attractive to the Ustashas for opening a collection center, from which prisoners were sent to other camps, such as Jasenovac.
The Kruščica camp was formed in July 1941, at the initiative of Maksim Luburić, an Ustasha officer responsible for managing camps in the so-called NDH.
The first prisoners of the Black House were Serbian residents of Pale, about 75 of them, who were brought with the task of renovating the camp and building barracks in which future inmates were to be housed, and erecting a fence.
In the following months, arrested Jews, Serbs, and Roma were brought from all parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In mid-September, there were about 1.500 inmates in the camp, most of whom were Jews, but also Serbs and Roma from Sarajevo, Zenica, Travnik, Višegrad Foča, and other cities in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Also, prisoners were brought from disbanded camps on islands and towns in Croatia.
The inmates were imprisoned in wooden barracks, tortured and starved, and the available written material mentions that there were also children and women among them.
Igor Kožemjakin, from the Jewish Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina, tells Radio Free Europe (RFE) that there is not much reliable information about the Black House, but it is known that it was some kind of concentration camp.
At the time it was a camp, it was not described as the Black House in the available literature, but received that epithet later due to its dark past.
"I heard stories from locals that there were people from Kruščica who tried to deliver food and water to those prisoners. They themselves would fall into the hands of the Ustashas, who would then beat them too, because they were trying to help the prisoners," he says.
The largest number of camp inmates in Kruščica died in a prisoner uprising in August 1941.
Planning an escape, the prisoners found themselves in the middle of a rebellion on the night of August 7th, which was suppressed, leaving behind 98 victims.
The guards at the camp threw their bodies into a nearby pit, intended for a lime pit, and about 30 years later a memorial plaque was erected with the names of the victims of fascism.
In two groups, a total of about 1.000 Jews from Sarajevo were brought to Kruščica in September 1941, among them women and children, according to the publication "The Suffering of the Jews of Bosnia and Herzegovina during the Holocaust", by Sabina Sunašić Galijatović.
They were brought in cattle cars and imprisoned in a camp that consisted of three wooden barracks, covered with boards and surrounded by barbed wire.
The women and children were separated from the men, and they remained in Kruščica until September 28, 1941, when the men were taken to the Jasenovac camp, and the women and children were taken to Loborgrad in Croatia two days later, the publication states.
The sudden increase in the number of camp inmates worried the Ustasha authorities in Travnik at the time. Problems arose with their accommodation and food, and to alleviate them, they exhausted the prisoners with hunger and hard physical labor, and then killed them, according to the book "Travnik in the National Liberation War" by Ćamil Kazazović.
Also mentioned is a report that County Prefect Nikola Tusun sent to NDH official Eugen Dido Kvaternik on September 19, 1941, in which he warned that there were a total of 1.539 people in the Kruščica concentration camp, some Serbs, and mostly Jews and children.
The letter states that the camp is overcrowded, after which an order arrives from Zagreb to transfer all Jews from Kruščica to Jasenovac, and the camp is closed at the end of October 1941.
A place of torture even during the war of the 90s
After World War II, a memorial complex dedicated to the victims of fascism was opened in 1972. It consists of one remaining barracks, a memorial plaque to the victims, and a sculpture behind which is a mass grave.
However, with the outbreak of war in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 90s, the Black House once again became a prison.
During the conflict in the area between the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (RBiH) and the Croatian Defense Council (HVO), Croatian civilians and prisoners of war were detained in the house in 1993.
One person was taken from the camp and killed, and the prison was run by units of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In 2019, the Court of BiH sentenced members of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina Minet Akeljić, Šaban Haskić, Senad Bial, and Hazim Patković to a total of 27 years in prison for the crimes in the Black House.
The indictment charged them with holding 1993 Croatian civilians captive in the Black House in the summer of 11. They were taken to the front lines where they were subjected to crossfire, and some were strapped with explosives.
Also, the prisoners were physically abused and forced to beat each other with batons.
National Monument in ruins
The Black House memorial complex for victims of fascist terror was declared a national monument of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2014.
In addition to the Black House, it includes memorial plaques and a bronze sculpture depicting three figures as symbols of suffering and victory. Behind the sculpture is a mass grave with the remains of camp inmates.
In honor of the victims, a wall with a marble slab engraved with verses from the poem "Jama" by Ivan Goran Kovačić was erected near the mass grave.
Despite the fact that they should enjoy the highest level of protection, the complex is neglected, and the house is in danger of collapsing.
The decision and proclamation as a national monument envisaged that the Black House would be converted into a museum presenting the history of the concentration camp, but this has not been done to date.
Bećir Varupa, from the Association of Anti-Fascists and Fighters of the National Liberation War in Vitez, says that members of that association are trying to prevent the deterioration, but that the municipal government is not interested.
"In the former system, there were dances, meetings, rallies. We anti-fascists are now cleaning that up a bit, cleaning up as much as we can. The rest, no one does anything. The municipality is not interested in that and the house is falling apart," Varupa told RFE/RL.
He sees one of the reasons in the fact that Vitez has been burdened by ethnic divisions for decades after the war, so Kruščica, where the former camp is located, is divided by an imaginary line into the Bosniak and Croat parts of the village.
"The municipality is divided into two parts. So some say that it is in the Bosniak area and that they are not interested in it. If it were unified, it would not be like that," he points out.
With collapsed walls and ceilings, a dozen rooms in the Black House have been a gathering place for young people for years, as evidenced by the graffiti left behind on the dilapidated walls.
Due to the potential danger of collapse, the Association placed a sign at the entrance to the Black House stating that access is prohibited. Last year, it initiated a meeting with the municipal authorities, but there has been no concrete progress since then.
Kožemjakin from the Jewish Community of Bosnia and Herzegovina says that in recent years the Black House has been visited by students from the program for dealing with the past and learning about places of suffering, but that it is obvious that it is falling into disrepair because it is not adequately cared for.
"The local community needs to somehow take care of it, to use that space as a place where children would come for education like they used to. To learn about the places of suffering and draw some lessons so that evil is not repeated in the future," he said.
The fact that this national monument has been almost completely forgotten, and is rarely visited, is evidenced by the wilted wreaths and bouquets placed in front of the monument to the victims.
The Municipality of Vitez did not specifically respond to RFE/RL's question about why this national monument is in poor condition. The submitted letter cited parts of the regulations that state that higher levels of government are responsible for providing money for protection, with the conclusion that the Municipality cannot finance these activities.
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