On April 6, 1941, Nazi Germany launched Operation Retribution, bombing Belgrade and beginning the invasion of Yugoslavia. German divisions, supported by Italian, Hungarian, and Bulgarian forces, conquered the country in 11 days.
On April 10, 1941, before the surrender of the Yugoslav Army, the Germans and Italians endorsed the proclamation of the so-called Independent State of Croatia by the Ustaša, a fanatically nationalist, fascist, and terrorist organization.
After seizing power, the Ustaša authorities erected numerous concentration camps across Croatia. There, they isolated and murdered Jews, Serbs, Roma, and other non-Catholic minorities, as well as Croatian political and religious opponents of the regime.
The largest of these camps, Jasenovac, became the third-largest concentration camp in Europe. It was notorious for its barbaric practices and the high number of victims. Its commander was Dinko Šakić.
Šakić was born on September 8, 1921, in the village of Studenci, then part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. In 1934, at age 13, he was expelled from school for spreading Ustaša propaganda.
The Ustaša was a Croatian ultranationalist and fascist organization that aimed to create an independent Croatian state through violence and terrorism. Under its regime, a brutal system of concentration camps was established, with Jasenovac as the largest and most notorious.
Conditions in the Jasenovac camps were horrendous. Prisoners received minimal food and shelter, and sanitary facilities were totally inadequate. Guards routinely tortured, terrorized, and murdered prisoners at will.
Jasenovac contributed to the Nazi Final Solution for the Jewish question, the killing of Roma people, and the elimination of political opponents. But its most significant purpose for the Ustaša was to achieve the destruction of Serbs inside the Independent State of Croatia.
Croatian authorities murdered between 320,000 and 340,000 ethnic Serb residents of Croatia and Bosnia during the period of Ustaša rule. More than 30,000 Croatian Jews were also killed in Croatia or at Auschwitz.
To slaughter Serb inmates at Jasenovac, the Ustaša invented a knife that became known as the *srbosjek*, meaning “Serb cutter.”
Dinko Šakić joined the administration of the Jasenovac camp in 1941. The following year, he was appointed assistant commander. At Jasenovac, Šakić became the protégé of the notorious camp commander Vjekoslav “Max” Luburić.
Not long after, he married Luburić’s half-sister, Nada. The marriage produced three children. Šakić arranged for Ante Pavelić, the dictator of the Independent State of Croatia and one of the founders of the Ustaša, to be their godfather.
Šakić was known for his arrogance and meticulous appearance. He was always seen in polished black leather boots and a tailored Ustaša uniform. While prisoners were emaciated, sick, and dressed in rags, Šakić would stride past them as if he had stepped out of a fashion magazine.
Ambitious and eager to prove himself, Šakić quickly rose through the ranks. By April 1944, at just 22 years old, he became commander of Jasenovac. His rapid promotion was due partly to his fanatic dedication to the Ustaša cause and partly to his marriage to Nada.
As Šakić’s influence grew, so did his brutality. He is reported to have personally participated in the killing and torture of inmates. Eyewitnesses stated that he often shot prisoners, killing some for his own pleasure, particularly those sent to work in the fields surrounding Jasenovac.
While claiming to prevent the spread of diseases like typhoid or malaria, Šakić detained inmates he deemed unhealthy and ordered their execution in a building he referred to as “the hospital.”
In one instance, Šakić locked two or three dozen prisoners in a room, leaving them to die from thirst and starvation. According to one report, Šakić was personally responsible in June 1942 for the murder of Croatian poet Mihovil Pavlek Miškina.
That same summer, he is said to have directed an exhaust pipe into a van filled with women and children, killing everyone inside.
This pattern of brutality extended beyond these incidents. Mojho Schwartz, a survivor of the Jasenovac camp, described a horrifying scene after the war in which Šakić publicly dismembered a child.
In June 1944, after the escape of a prisoner named Ivan Vukler, Šakić ordered brutal reprisals. He handpicked 25 Jewish inmates from the same barracks as Vukler, who were then confined, starved, and tortured. Vukler was eventually captured and killed as well.
Šakić also took part in the torture of Rade Rotz, who, along with Milo Bošković, led a group of inmates in an uprising. Rotz was tortured with a flamethrower. Both men, along with others, were executed by hanging in a public display in September 1944.
Before his execution, Bošković asked to be shot in the head instead of being hanged. Šakić agreed. Prior to shooting him, he reportedly said he valued Bošković as a man and expert, and that Bošković should feel honored to have the camp’s commander personally kill him.
In another act of cruelty, Šakić ordered the execution of Marin Jurev, the camp’s infirmary manager, who had helped an Ustaša defect and smuggled information to the partisans. Jurev, along with his wife and three others, was executed.
Jurev’s wife was dragged to the scaffold by her hair after repeatedly falling off. Meanwhile, Šakić and Croatian Interior Minister Andrija Artuković casually drank beer and ate schnitzel as they watched the hangings.
Šakić’s audacity to commit such brutal acts was not limited to civilians and political dissidents. In the fall of 1944, he demonstrated his complete disregard for international law by ordering the execution of Allied soldiers who were protected under the Geneva Conventions.
After an American bomber crashed near the camp, three airmen who had parachuted out were captured and paraded through Jasenovac. They were tortured for three days. The men were ultimately bayoneted to death on Šakić’s orders, and their bodies were discarded in a mass grave.
As World War II drew to a close, Dinko Šakić fled Croatia alongside Pavelić and other Ustaša leaders, seeking refuge in Argentina.
In the meantime, Yugoslavia underwent significant political changes under the leadership of Josip Broz Tito. Tito, the leader of the communist partisans, established a socialist federation known as the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
Many Ustaša members who remained in Yugoslavia faced severe consequences. They were either captured and tried for war crimes or forced into hiding. Tito’s regime sought to eradicate any remnants of fascist influence.
While in Argentina, Šakić and his wife settled in the coastal town of Santa Teresita, about 340 km southeast of Buenos Aires. Šakić ran a textile business and became an active member of the local Croatian community.
However, in 1956, political changes forced the family to flee Argentina after President Juan Perón’s government fell. They briefly returned to Spain. During this period, Šakić developed ties with Paraguay and dictator Alfredo Stroessner, operating a rest camp for Croatian fascists in Paraguay.
In 1959, Šakić returned to Argentina. For several decades, he led a relatively quiet life, involved in Ustaša émigré politics and maintaining a public profile without attempting to conceal his past.
In 1990, an interview with a Croatian newspaper revealed Šakić’s open views, as he praised the Ustaša and criticized Serbs. Later that year, he attended what the Chicago Tribune described as a reunion of former Nazis in Austria.
In 1994, he gave an interview to a Croatian publication where he expressed regret that more Serbs were not killed at Jasenovac. He claimed he would do it all again and that he slept like a baby, indicating no remorse or guilt for his actions.
In March 1998, a televised interview on Argentine national television showed Šakić admitting to his leadership role at Jasenovac but denying that any killings occurred during his command, attributing deaths to natural causes.
This denial led to public outrage. Argentine President Carlos Menem called for Šakić’s arrest. Shortly after, Šakić disappeared, but several months later he was eventually arrested and extradited to Croatia to face justice.
By the time of his trial, Šakić was one of the last significant figures from World War II still alive and the final known commander of a concentration camp from that era.
In his defense, he argued that Jasenovac was a Serb communist myth created to destroy Croats. The ensuing trial saw more than 40 witnesses testify against Šakić.
During the proceedings, he showed no remorse, maintaining that Jasenovac was not an extermination camp and that prisoners were treated with kindness. According to Šakić, no killings occurred during his time in command.
He claimed his conscience was clear before God and insisted he would do the same again if the biological existence of Croats were ever threatened. While admitting that Jews and Roma people were detained due to their ethnicity, Šakić argued that Serbs and others were held as enemies of the state who were intent on destroying Croatia.
He pointed to the creation of Yugoslavia and the Yugoslav wars as proof of Serbs carrying out a genocide against Croats. Throughout the trial, he dismissed the charges as politically motivated and described himself as a Croatian patriot who had only been defending his country.
His wife also supported Šakić, claiming that he was “as innocent as a newborn baby.”
However, he was not. In October 1998, Dinko Šakić was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity and sentenced to the maximum of 20 years in prison. As the guilty verdict was read, he clapped inanely.
Šakić served his sentence in prison, where his cell was equipped with a television set and a computer for writing his memoirs. He was also allowed to visit his wife, who was in a home for the elderly, several times a month.
Dinko Šakić was 86 years old when he died of heart problems in a Zagreb hospital on July 20, 2008.
His funeral, attended by about 300 people, was conducted according to his wishes, with him being buried in full Ustaša uniform. Catholic priest Vjekoslav Lasić, who had a close personal relationship with Šakić, gave a sermon at his funeral.
Lasić described Šakić as a member of the Ustaša who reestablished the Croatian state in 1941 and claimed that every decent Croat should be proud of Šakić’s name.
During its existence, up to 100,000 people, including thousands of Croats, perished in the Jasenovac concentration camp. One can only wonder whether those Croats would have been proud of Šakić’s name as well.
There were no tears shed for Dinko Šakić.