The Topovske Šupe concentration camp (; , ) was a concentration camp located on the outskirts of Belgrade which was operated by Nazi Germany with the help of Milan Nedić's quisling government during World War II. Located in the neighborhood of Autokomanda, on the site of an old military base, the camp held between 5,000 and 6,500 inmates from its establishment in August 1941 until its closure that December. About 4,300 inmates were killed during its operation, of whom 3,000 were killed as hostages and 1,300 as suspected anti-fascists.
Background
On 6 April 1941, Axis forces invaded the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Poorly equipped and poorly trained, the Royal Yugoslav Army was quickly defeated. The country was then occupied and dismembered, with the Wehrmacht establishing the Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia under a government of military occupation. The territory included most of Serbia proper, with the addition of the northern part of Kosovo (centred on Kosovska Mitrovica), and the Banat. It was the only area of partitioned Yugoslavia in which the German occupants established a military government, to exploit the key rail and riverine transport routes that passed through it, and its valuable resources, particularly non-ferrous metals. The Military Commander in Serbia appointed Serbian puppet governments to "carry on administrative chores under German direction and supervision". On 29 August 1941, the Germans appointed the Government of National Salvation under General Milan Nedić, to replace the short-lived Commissioner Administration.
A pre-war politician who was known to have pro-Axis leanings, Nedić was selected because the Germans believed his fierce anti-Communism and military experience could be used to quell an armed uprising in the Serbian region of Šumadija. Unable to bring reinforcements due to the need to send soldiers to the Eastern Front, the Germans responded to the revolt by declaring that one-hundred Serbs would be executed for every German soldier killed and that fifty would be executed for every German soldier wounded. By October 1941, this policy had resulted in the deaths of 25,000 Serbs. The Germans also targeted Jews, who were subjected to forced labour, punitive taxing, and restrictive decrees. Jews were also registered with German authorities and forced to wear identifying armbands while Jewish property was confiscated. They, and to a lesser degree Romanis, were targeted on racial grounds, although most were not killed outright. Following the start of the anti-German uprising, German propaganda began associating Jews with Communism and anti-German ideology. Executions and arrests of Serbian Jews followed.
Operation
The camp at Topovske Šupe (lit. cannon sheds) was established on 20 August 1941 on the site of a former Royal Yugoslav Army military base. The former military base was called Logor kraljevića Andreja, the "Prince Andrej Camp", after Prince Andrew of Yugoslavia, brother of the king. Located on the outskirts of Belgrade, it was the first extermination camp for Jewish men established by German forces in Serbia and was partly run by the Gestapo.
Originally, Jews from the Banat were detained in the camp due to Nazi allegations that Jewish groups were behind the anti-German revolt. They were expelled by the Volksdeutsche from Banat to Belgrade where they originally settled into the Jewish centers, private houses and synagogues. Later, an order was issued that they all should be interned into the Topovske Šupe. At first, the inmates were sent to the forced labor. As the rebellion spread over Serbia in 1941, the Nazis organized penal expeditions and mass internment began, so the camp became a "hostage reservoir". Afterwards, the camp only detained Jewish males of fourteen years and older. Prisoners were held in poor conditions and were guarded by the gendarmes of the Nedić government, whose cruelty towards inmates often exceeded that of the Germans. Prisoners who attempted to escape the camp were publicly hanged by the gendarmes as a warning to other inmates. The camp became a hostage centre from where the Germans could select victims for reprisal shootings. Daily, the Germans shot between 150 and 450 predominantly Jewish inmates. Though officially called "Jewish Transitional Camp", the complex was used for gathering other nationalities, too. Romany population was mostly brought from the neighborhood of Marinkova Bara to the east, but also from other parts of Belgrade. One part of Topovske Šupe was declared a Refugee Camp where Serbs, refugees from the Independent State of Croatia, were situated.