Alex Pollak- From my own experience with a nearly “total recall” of events at 82 years of age and reading about the survivors and rescuers description of events and their own stories, ones believes that: For those that were not murdered at their home’s doorsteps or their places of worship, the ordeal of a survivor and determination of a rescuer would begin to commence with the Ustase uprooting any Serb, Jew or Gypsy from their home and separating them from their families.

The Ustase begin transporting men, women and children from their homes to camps in various parts of Croatia, one of the biggest camps being Jasenovac. Once there, men, women and children would be forced to hard labor with no food or medical care. Starvation, sickness and finally a cruel death would be the ultimate fate to almost 700,000 innocent people. The camps would finally be liberated by the Allies in 1945. At camp Jasenovac in Croatia, it is reported that only 150 men and women were saved and virtually no children.The death toll would begin to rise as soon as the trains packed full of people arrived at the gates of Jasenovac. 20% of the victims at Jasenovac were dead upon entering Jasenovac due to sickness or old age.

What mindset would you need to have in order to survive a horrible event like the Serbian Holocaust? You would need to be capable of separating totally your mind from your surroundings– which would include mass starvation, malnutrition and murder. You would need to erase all emotions one was subjected to since it would be a serious distraction and a lost of hope in an already seemingly hopeless situation. A strong determination would be required in holding out through all these acts of torture and genocide; thinking of death or considering it as a solution was never an option.

Jasenovac Research Institute victim List- https://vh1.nethosting.com/~lituchy/victimlist.php