ABSTRACT
Unresolved, and arguably the most controversial, issues about the human losses of both Croatia and Yugoslavia in World War II were interpretations of the causes and scale of the victims of the Jasenovac and Bleiburg camps, as well as of the ”Way of the Cross,” the common term in historiography for the return of columns of prisoners of war from Austria to Yugoslavia. The lists of names of human losses of Yugoslavia, and Croatia in World War II and the postwar period, as well as the estimates of historians and the calculations of demographers are often significantly different. Jasenovac and Bleiburg, as well as the causes, methods, the extent of the crimes committed, and the national structure of the victims, are still widely discussed and various often-contradictory allegations and claims are made. Outside of historiography, but also noticeable among some historians, revisionist views and claims about Jasenovac and Bleiburg are frequent. With this chapter, we are trying to present the most important established facts about the human losses of Jasenovac and Bleiburg, without eliminating possible and necessary questioning, but also with illustrative examples of undoubted manipulations.
