The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933-1945

The Wehrmacht established a concentration camp at the end of September 1941 in the Serbian village of Jarak (community of Sremska Mitrovica) (map 7), as the result of an order of the Plenipotentiary Commanding General in Serbia (Bevollmächtigter kommandierender General in Serbien) dated September 23, 1941. The occasion for the creation of the camp was the firing of a machine gun and rifles at German patrols in the town of Šabac on September 23, 1941. In retribution, on September 24, 1941, the Plenipotentiary Commanding General ordered the 342nd Infantry Division to arrest all the male residents of Šabac between the ages of 14 and 70 and put them in the newly created camp north of the River Sava¹ (that is, in the village of Jarak).

Initially, the camp was under the command of the 342nd Infantry Division, and then, in accordance with orders of the Quartermaster (Quartiermeister) of the Plenipotentiary Commanding General dated September 25 and 27, 1941,² it was under the Chief of Military Administration with the Commander Serbia (Chef der Militärverwaltung beim Befehlshaber Serbien), General der Flieger Heinrich Danckelmann. In accordance with this order, the 64th Reserve Police Battalion took over responsibility for guarding the camp.³

The first prisoners in the camp were male inhabitants of the Serbian towns of Šabac and Sremska Mitrovica (6,000–7,000 people), who were put in the camp in retaliation for an attack by partisans. Dozens of those arrested were killed while on the way to the camp.

The conditions of those held in the camp were inhumane: the food was lacking in both quantity and quality, there was no medical services, and the prisoners were constantly subjected to humiliating treatment and beatings by the German guards and camp administrators.⁴ For example, by order of the Quartermaster of the Plenipotentiary Commanding General dated September 27, 1941, the food of the prisoners, which was supposed to be provided by the 342nd Infantry Division, was to consist of only 200 grams (7 ounces) of bread per day and 200 grams of meat per week.⁵ The camp was closed at the beginning of October 1941 by transferring all the prisoners to a newly created camp in the town of Šabac.