Kerestinec

About ten kilometres southwest of Zagreb is Kerestinec and there was a castle dating back to the eighteenth century. After the First World War, the Yugoslav kingdom used the castle as a prison for political opponents. When the independent State of Croatia was founded in april 1941 the castle was taken over by Ustasha’s Security Police. Ustasha was the leading party under the dictator Ante Pavelic. The prison was divided into three parts, one serbian, one jewish and one communist. In July 1941, 89 prisoners from the communist section attempted to escape, 14 succeeded, 31 were shot during the escape and 44 were shot after being captured. Shortly after the escape, the prison was liquidated and the remaining prisoners were sent to other camps/prisons. During the short period of the camp’s existence, about 900 prisoners passed through the prison, the majority were Jews from Zagreb.