Kruščica was a concentration camp established and operated by the fascist, Croatian nationalist Ustaše movement near the town of Vitez, in the Independent State of Croatia (NDH), between August and October 1941, during World War II.

The prisoners were forced to live in semi-finished barracks, half with no floors, in poor sanitary conditions which resulted in the spread of lice among most of the camp's population.

[1] Tensions flared in 1928, following the shooting of five Croatian parliamentary deputies by the Montenegrin Serb politician Puniša Račić.

The Ustaše were outlawed in Yugoslavia, but received covert assistance from Benito Mussolini's Italy, which had territorial pretensions in Istria and Dalmatia.

The Ustaše carried out a number of actions aimed at undermining Yugoslavia, most notably the Velebit uprising in 1932 and the assassination of King Alexander in Marseilles in 1934.

Following Alexander's assassination, the Ustaše movement's seniormost leaders, including Pavelić, were tried in absentia in both France and Yugoslavia and sentenced to death, but were granted protection by Mussolini and thus evaded capture.

[4] Between September and November 1940, Hungary and Romania joined the Tripartite Pact, aligning themselves with the Axis, and Italy invaded Greece.

[5] Intending to secure his southern flank for the impending attack on the Soviet Union, German dictator Adolf Hitler began placing heavy pressure on Yugoslavia to join the Axis.

Two days later, a group of pro-Western, Serbian nationalist Royal Yugoslav Air Force officers deposed the country's regent, Prince Paul, in a bloodless coup d'état.

They placed his teenage nephew Peter on the throne and brought to power an ostensible government of national unity led by the head of the Royal Yugoslav Air Force, General Dušan Simović.

[10][a] The establishment of the NDH was announced over the radio by Slavko Kvaternik, a former Austro-Hungarian Army officer who had been in contact with Croatian nationalists abroad, on 10 April.

[15] Nevertheless, Serbs—along with others whom the Ustaše deemed "undesirable", such as Jews and Roma—were denied citizenship on the basis that they were not Aryans, and immediate measures were taken to expunge the presence of the Cyrillic alphabet from the public sphere.

[16] On 17 April, the Ustaše instituted the Legal Provision for the Defence of the People and State, a law legitimizing the establishment of concentration camps and the mass shooting of hostages in the NDH.

[17] In July 1941, Vjekoslav Luburić, the head of Bureau III of the Ustaše Surveillance Service (Croatian: Ustaška nadzorna služba; UNS), ordered the Ustaše commissioner for Bosnia-Herzegovina, Jure Francetić, to establish a camp for Jews and Serbs at the dilapidated Gutman family estate in the village of Kruščica, near Vitez, about 56 kilometres (35 mi) northwest of Sarajevo.

[20] Notable members of the Ustaše movement who were imprisoned at Kruščica included future NDH government minister Mladen Lorković and the writer Marko Došen.

Upon their arrival, the prisoners were greeted by an angry crowd demanding their release and shouting, "long live the Ustaše movement!"

[21] Luburić appointed Francetić’s deputy, First Lieutenant (Croatian: Nadporučnik) Josip Gesler, as the camp's first commander.

The first twenty-three inmates – peasants and labourers from Željecare, as well as communists from Zenica – arrived at Kruščica in early August 1941.

[18] At 3:00 a.m. on 3 September, the Ustaše raided the apartments of 500 Sarajevan Jews, and gave them thirty minutes to gather their belongings and assemble on the street.

They reported that the camp held around 3,000 detainees, including 300 Serbs, but failed to mention whether they were rounded up separately or together with the Jews.

[23] The prisoners were forced to live in semi-finished barracks, half with no floors, in poor sanitary conditions which resulted in the spread of lice among a majority of the inmates.

A memorial area, occupying around 2,000 square metres (22,000 sq ft) has been established, consisting of the museum, a monument created by Fadil Bilić, incorporating several lines from Ivan Goran Kovačić's poem Jama (transl.