Slana Bay

 memorial, cemetery, place with historical importance

In May 1941, in a desert-like bay behind village Metajna on Pag island, the Concentration camp "Uvala Slana" has been organized, as part of the Jadovno-Metajna-Slana Concentration Camp. At the time, the island of Pag was under the NDH jurisdiction (Nezavisna Drzava Hrvatska = Independent State of Croatia, marionette fascistic government in Croatia 1941-1945), and the camp was organized by Ustashe (Croatian military during the NDH).

According to M. Suic ("Pag", Zadar 1953; history of Pag, published for the 510'th anniversary of the new city of Pag), in the Camp in Slana were brutally killed "some thousands of Jews, Serbs and Croats", numbers reaching ten thousand or more in some local accounts in communist times. Interestingly enough, even in the Yugoslavian times, with the regime which was readily using such events from NDH to deal with the "internal enemy", there was no any sign about such massacre at the site of the former camp. No usual plate with the names of comrades and unavoidable red star, to remind us who were the bad and who the good guys. No concrete flower, like in the site of Jasenovac concentration camp. And, when it comes to that, no any information about it anywhere in Pag island. Locals either are not very eager to speak about it, and mostly as they do not really do not know more then "there was a concentration camp".

In Dec 2004, when pictures I show here were taken, few remnants of stone buildings (later I learned that they were unfinished buildings of the camp administration, built by prisoners), short transport road to the northern coast (Baska Slana) and what I suppose is the "nest" for the guard house above the Camp, do not give any hint of anything other than an interesting tourist site.

It was usual, in communist times, to exaggerate the numbers of victims in such camps-even when bestiality of local fascists went to unimaginable brutality. For example, in Serbia general Nedic boistered to their German masters that they are more successful in solving the "Jewish problem" then Germans themselves, as Serbians managed to "exterminate all their jews". Croatian warlords were not so "successful" and places as Jasenovac and Jadovna-Metajna-Slana were part of the plot in the NDH to exterminate Serbs, Jews, Roma and unwanted (non-collaborating) Croats. Local people in Pag speak about maximum 1000 people killed there, but there is still (2004!) big diversity: high numbers are also repeated, known mainly from publications from the communist times. It seems to me it is appropriate, at this time, to put the number of victims in Uvala Slana itself to 1000-15000 victims. Local opinion is that there were 90% Jews, and the rest were Serbs. It is hard to imagine more than 10000 victims, as they were transported from Karlobag on small boats, which could load max. 20 people, and the camp itself existed only for three months, until it was closed. In the site of the camp bodies were thrown into big holes which were made on site.

Also interesting is the story about finish of the Camp. In Sep 1941, Italians occupied the island. It occurred despite the agreement with the NDH government in Zagreb that Pag, Brac and Hvar will be part of the NDH, not Italy. After this occupation, it seems that Italians were disgusted with what was happening in the Camp, as it was immediately closed, bodies taken out from the holes and burnt-elderly people from the island still remembered the smoke going up above Slana, when I was asking about events from WWII there.

This event was documented in Italian army documents, which mention 1000 bodies exhumated and burnt during the closure of the camp. This information gives the number for the lowest estimate I mentioned above.

As I already mentioned, what puzzles is that there is no information on this in the site itself, or clear note anywhere. Which one expects should be, if there was even "only" a single victim.