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

Banjica concentration camp The Banjica concentration camp (german: KZ Banjica, sr-Cyrl-Latn, Бањички логор, Banjički logor) was a Nazi Germany, Nazi German Nazi concentration camps, concentration camp in the Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia, the ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

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

communists Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a so ...

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

Axis invasion of Yugoslavia An axis (plural ''axes'') is an imaginary line around which an object rotates or is symmetrical. Axis may also refer to: Mathematics * Axis of rotation: see rotation around a fixed axis * Axis (mathematics), a designator for a Cartesian-coordinat ...

. 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 The Belgrade Special Police ( sh, Specijalna policija Uprave grada Beograda, SP UGB) was a Serbian collaborationist police organisation directed and controlled by the German Gestapo (german: Geheime Staatspolizei) in the German-occupied territory o ...

and the

Serbian State Guard The Serbian State Guard ( sr, Srpska državna straža, italics=yes, SDS; sr-Cyrl, Српска државна стража; german: Serbische Staatsgarde/Serbische Staatswache) was a collaborationist paramilitary force used to impose law and o ...

. 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 Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...

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 Roma or ROMA may refer to: Places Australia * Roma, Queensland, a town ** Roma Airport ** Roma Courthouse ** Electoral district of Roma, defunct ** Town of Roma, defunct town, now part of the Maranoa Regional Council *Roma Street, Brisbane, a ...

prisoners. He died in 1949.

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* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Vujkovic, Svetozar 1899 births 1949 deaths People from Smederevska Palanka People from the Kingdom of Serbia Serbian collaborators with Nazi Germany Serbian fascists Serbian anti-communists