ANTE VRBAN

ANTE VRBAN (Pejakuša, near Gospić, 1908 – Zagreb, 1948), Ustasha major

Until the outbreak of the war, Vrban worked as a sales assistant. In the summer of 1941, as a corporal in the 13th Company under Ivan Devčić Pivac, he participated in the mass murder of Serbs in Lika, and in the liquidation of Jews in Jadovno. According to some sources, he was commandant of the Slana camp on the island of Pag until the arrival of Ivan Devčić.

He arrived in Stara Gradiška Camp on 13 November 1941, bringing with him a group of Freemasons who had been arrested. For a while he was the deputy to Mile Orešković, the Stara Gradiška Camp commandant.

He was known for his brutality and took part in mass murders and individual killings of prisoners.

He was particularly active in the murders of children and at his trial in 1948 admitted to poisoning 63 children using deadly Zyklon B gas.

In the summer of 1947 he was arrested on Papuk with a group of Ustasha Crusaders, led by Ljubo Miloš. At his trial before the Supreme Court of the National Republic of Croatia held in Zagreb in the summer of 1948, he was sentenced to death by hanging.