ZAGREB, August 20, 1948 – Justice, delayed but relentless, was finally served today as Dinko Šakić, the former commandant of the Jasenovac concentration camp, was executed by hanging. The notorious Ustaše officer, directly responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands, met his end at the hands of the state after a trial that laid bare horrors which shocked even hardened Nazi observers.

Šakić’s death closes a grim chapter on one of the most barbaric regimes of the Second World War. For years, he evaded capture, hiding within a network of fascist sympathizers across Europe. His arrest and subsequent conviction by a Yugoslav court mark a significant moment of reckoning for the crimes committed in the so-called Independent State of Croatia, a Nazi puppet state.

The path to the gallows began with the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941. The rapid collapse of the kingdom allowed the virulently nationalist Ustaše movement, led by Ante Pavelić, to seize power in Croatia. Their campaign of terror, aimed primarily at Serbs, Jews, and Roma, quickly gained a reputation for savagery that surpassed even that of their German allies.

It was within this cauldron of ethnic hatred that Dinko Šakić, a former civil servant, transformed into a monster. Arriving in Zagreb in June 1941, he leveraged a family connection to ascend the ranks of the Ustaše militia. His ruthlessness soon earned him the command of Jasenovac, a sprawling complex of sub-camps that became the epicenter of the regime’s genocide.

Jasenovac was a uniquely Croatian hell. Unlike camps administered by the SS, it was operated entirely by the Ustaše, who pioneered their own methods of industrial-scale murder without the use of gas chambers. An estimated 100,000 men, women, and children perished within its barbed wire from starvation, disease, and systematic slaughter.

As commandant, Šakić was the architect of this suffering. He actively cultivated an atmosphere of absolute terror, where public executions were commonplace and guards killed on whim. Survivors testified that he personally participated in the butchery, stabbing and shooting prisoners at point-blank range, often while dressed in a deceptive white physician’s coat.

One of the most chilling accounts from his trial detailed how Šakić, upon receiving a new group of prisoners, immediately ordered the massacre of forty men. He then interrogated individuals from a second group, executing a man for the “crime” of being born a Serb and another because he “liked lawyers very much,” before arbitrarily sparing the rest.

His cruelty knew no bounds. Witnesses described him using a specially adapted knife to slit the throats of victims and setting his wolfhound on inmates to maul them to death. He was known to compete with other commanders in a macabre contest of kill counts, viewing human life as a currency for personal advancement within the Ustaše hierarchy.

Even within his own twisted moral framework, Šakić seemed aware of his damnation. A prisoner once reported seeing the commandant make the sign of the cross before bed. When asked if he feared God’s wrath, Šakić reportedly replied, “Say nothing to me. I know I will burn in hell for what I’ve done, but I will burn for Croatia.”

With the collapse of the Third Reich in 1945, Šakić fled. Sheltered by factions within the Catholic Church, he moved through Austria and Allied-controlled Italy, evading justice for over two years. His capture in July 1947, while attempting to illegally cross a border, finally brought him before the court.

His trial was a national spectacle, forcing a confrontation with the scale of the atrocities committed at Jasenovac. While Šakić offered the hollow defense of following orders, the testimony was overwhelming. The court found him guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity, imposing the ultimate penalty.

This afternoon, with little ceremony, Dinko Šakić was led to the execution chamber. A noose was placed around his neck. In a final act of poetic justice, the sentence was carried out not by a quick drop, but by slow strangulation, a prolonged end for a man who presided over years of prolonged agony.

His death provides a measure of closure but no solace for the survivors of Jasenovac. The camp remains a haunting symbol of a genocide fueled by nationalist fervor, where ordinary men became instruments of extraordinary evil. While the commandant is gone, the memory of his victims, and the warning of what humanity is capable of, endures.