Not far from Jasenovac are located the villages of Mlaka and Jablanac, which before the Second World War were inhabited by a predominantly Orthodox population. The villages were located in a strategically important area between the Jasenovac and Stara Gradiška camps. For this reason, in the summer of 1942, the Ustashas deported the population of Mlaka and Jablanca to camps and forced labor in Germany.
After taking the population of Mlaka and Jablanca to the camps, the Ustashas fenced off several peasant houses with barbed wire and formed camp economies there, where detainees performed agricultural work and grew food needed for the camp. Upon completion of the works, the detainees were executed by the Ustashas, and new victims were brought in their places. The horrors of the villages of Mlaka and Jablanac are witnessed by mass and individual graves in the surrounding forests, as well as the testimonies of the surviving detainees.
"The Ustashas drove us to the camp in Jasenovac. All the women and children of Mlaka were locked up in barracks for three or four days from where we could go nowhere. I know that the Ustashas ran around the window with daggers. People were afraid they would slaughter us all. Those days that we spent in the barracks of the Jasenovac camp, the Ustashas did not give us anything to eat. One evening they sent us to Stara Gradiška. We went to Okučani by train. From Okučani we walked barefoot to Stara Gradiška. Then we didn’t know where we were going because no one even told us. The Ustashas drove us away. We came to the tower of Stara Gradiška. "
Narration of Ljubica Zvečevac and Dušan Zvečevac from Mlaka dated 10 September 1982, A-SPJ-5067