Opposite Jasenovac, between the Rivers Sava and Una, is the picturesque village of Uštica. Between 1942 and 1945 it was the location of an Ustasha camp for Roma, known as the “Gypsy Camp”.
The Ustashas evicted the Orthodox population of this village on 8 May 1942 and sent them to the camps in Jasenovac and Stara Gradiška, from where some were deported to Sajmište camp in Zemun or to Nazi camps in the Third Reich. Their homes and properties were immediately enclosed in barbed wire and turned into an assembly death camp.
The camp was used to accommodate deported Roma families for whom there was no room in Camp III (Brickworks), due to overcrowding. During the enemy offensive on Kozara, some Serbs were also sent to Uštica.
Some prisoners from this camp were transferred to summer seasonal work in Donja Gradina, and each day many were murdered in the most horrific ways, while others were killed in the camp itself. A black marble memorial plaque on a concrete plinth, 101 x 101 cm, bears the inscription:
“The world is full of powers,
But nothing is stronger than man.
Roma cemetery
1942-1945
Number of graves: 21
Surface area of graves 1218 m²
Cemetery surface area 4292 m²
Jasenovac Memorial Site”