Svetozar Vujković ( sr-Cyrl, Светозар Вујковић; 1899–1949) was a Serbian police officer who commanded the Banjica concentration camp during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. He was a high-ranking official in the pre-war Belgrade police and was involved in the persecution of

communists Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, d ...

in Yugoslavia during the interwar period. Vujković collaborated enthusiastically with the

Gestapo The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, abbreviated Gestapo (), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of F ...

following the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia. He was made Special Police commander at Banjica on 5 August 1941 and was later the victim of a failed assassination attempt by Serbian anti-fascists. As the commander at Banjica, he ordered murders and devised torture techniques. Execution lists were drawn up by him beginning in 1942. Vujković often selected victims, including children, at random, and had murders carried out by members of the Belgrade Special Police and the Serbian State Guard. He is said to have personally participated in interrogations and devised numerous humiliating methods of torture. Executions occurred frequently at his whim and he rarely asked for approval from German or Serbian authorities to carry out murders and ordered prisoners killed even in cases where the Ministry of Interior decided against execution. Vujković is reported to have begged the Germans to "personally shoot twenty young girls who were ordered for shooting" on one occasion. Despite this, neither he nor any other Serbs holding positions of power in the camp were reprimanded or removed from their posts by the Serbian collaborationist government. When prisoners in Banjica complained of lack of food, Vujković and his associates often replied by saying: " oudidn't come here for spa therapy and food, but to be executed. To eat more or less will not save your lives." Vujković was captured by the Anglo-American forces and extradited to

Yugoslavia , common_name = Yugoslavia , life_span = 1918–19921941–1945: World War II in Yugoslavia#Axis invasion and dismemberment of Yugoslavia, Axis occupation , p1 = Kingdom of SerbiaSerbia , flag_p ...

at the end of the war. In July 1949, he testified before the Yugoslav State Commission and explained that Serbian collaborationist forces saved countless Serb civilians from being executed as German hostages by swapping them with Roma prisoners. He was executed in 1949.

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* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Vujkovic, Svetozar 1899 births 1949 deaths Holocaust perpetrators in Yugoslavia Romani genocide perpetrators People from Smederevska Palanka People from the Kingdom of Serbia Serbian mass murderers Serbian people convicted of war crimes Executed Serbian collaborators with Nazi Germany Serbian fascists Serbian anti-communists Executed mass murderers