The exhibition called "The Path of no Return – From the Slana Camp to the Jasenovac Camp" opened on Wednesday in the Jasenovac Memorial Area, organised by that public institution and the Documenta NGO ahead of the anniversary of the breakout from the Jasenovac camp, Documenta said in a press release.

The exhibition, which will run through 1 June, was staged with the support of Stiftung EVZ and the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.

The author of the exhibition and the director of the Jasenovac Memorial Area, Ivo Pejakovic, said that “the brutal conditions of the camp, and the equally brutal treatment of inmates by the Ustasha members, did not leave many witnesses behind”.

The Slana concentration camp was located in the central part of the island of Pag, in a deep bay overlooking Mount Velebit. It consisted of two smaller camps: one for Serbs and one for Jews. According to the testimony of a few surviving Jews, the treatment of Serbs was even more brutal, and the consequences were such that there are no cases of Serb inmates who survived the Slana camp and World War II and left a testimony. Because of that, the only information that is known about the events in the Slana camp is preserved in the testimonies of the surviving Jewish inmates, Documenta said.

The location of the camp is not marked by a monument or a memorial plaque. Preserving the memories of the victims of the Holocaust and genocide is a civilisational achievement and that is why the victims deserve better, the Documenta Centre for Dealing with the Past said in the press release, adding: “Let’s Therefore Remember the Victims of the Slana Camp”.

Documenta head, Vesna Terselic, recalled that the plaque in memory of the former camps on Pag in the bay of Slana and at Metajna had been destroyed three times, the last time in 2013.