In September 1937, after finishing first phase of construction, the first Belgrade Fair was opened. It was located on the left bank of the Sava River, next to the King Aleksandar I Bridge (today Branko’s Bridge) and it expanded in the following period, until the beginning of the World War II.

Germany and its allies attacked Yugoslavia. In the bombing raid of Belgrade, the King Aleksandar I Bridge was destroyed and Belgrade Fair pavilions did not sustain considerable damage.

German occupation authorities issued a decree ordering all Jews to report to the German police under the threat of death. In 1941, 11.780 Jews lived in Belgrade and 9.435 Jews reported to the police.

A new decree was issued, ordering that all Jews and Roma people were to be excluded from public life; their property was to be confiscated; they were to be sent to the force labor and they were obliged to wear yellow armbands. They were forbidden to go to the theaters, cinemas and other public entertainment venues, sport events and green markets and they were forbidden to use public bathrooms.

In the period from July until December 1941, after uprising and spreading of resistance movement in Serbia, and after Germany attacked Soviet Union, the Nazi terror in occupied Serbia was intensified.
Jewish and Roma men were being shot by firing squads, as a part of repressive measures for the uprising in Serbia.

About 3300 Jews from Banat were arrested. First, they were sent to the temporary camps in Pančevo, Novi Bečej and Veliki Bečkererk (today Zrenjanin), and then they were transported to Belgrade.

In the period from August until 20 October 1941 mass arrests of Jewish men above 14 years of age began. They were all interned in camp Topovske šupe in Autokomanda. This camp served as a reservoir of hostages destined for mass executions. About 4000 people passed through the camp Topovske šupe. Because of limited space conditions, one part of the prisoners was interned in Banjica concentration camp.

28 October 1941 German occupation authorities decided to transform Belgrade Fair Exhibition Grounds into concentration camp. Implementation of this decision was prolonged because of the uprising expanding in the Central and Western parts of Serbia.

In the beginning of December 1941 a final decision to establish Camp for Jewish and Roma women, children and old men on Belgrade Fair Exhibition Grounds was made, under the name Jewish Camp Zemun (Judenlager Semlin). The camp was located on the territory of Independent State of Croatia (NDH, Nazi creation formed after the Kingdom of Yugoslavia had been dismembered). Even though NDH authorities formally gave their permission to establish the camp, Sajmište camp was organized and operated exclusively by the German authorities and Belgrade Municipality was in charge for the food procurement.

8-13 December 1941 First prisoners were interned in Sajmiste, even though the works on the camp were not finished. The camp was encircled with several rings of barbed wire and it was not heated. The remaining Jews from Belgrade and Banat, about 5300 people, mostly women, children and old men, were ordered by the occupation authorities to come to George Washington Street in Belgrade, where they were put into trucks and taken to Sajmiste.

During the month of December 1941, about 600 Roma were sent to Sajmište camp, mostly those without a permanent address. Those who managed to provide a certificate of permanent residence were released from the camp. The last group of survived Romani left the camp in April 1942.

From December 1941 until March 1942 incredibly cold winter decimated the population in the camp. Due to the damaged roofs and broken windows, rain, snow and wind were constantly inside the pavilions. In addition, inadequate nutrition, lack of medical care and inhumane treatment of the prisoners by the German guards caused the death of about 500 prisoners.

In the beginning of January 1942, last group of 200-300 male prisoners from Topovske šupe was transferred to Sajmište, and Topovske šupe camp was closed. These prisoners (according to the decision from October 1941) were initially used to work on adaptation of Sajmište into concentration camp, and then they were put in a separate pavilion.

22 January 1942 General August von Meyszner was appointed to be Higher SS and Police Leader in the German-occupied territory of Serbia.

In the first half of March 1942 it was decided in Berlin that “Jewish question” should be “resolved” on the spot, without sending prisoners to the East. As a solution for the problem, a “Zaurer” gas van, designed in Germany as a tool for mass killing, arrived in Belgrade carrying two officers Wilhelm Goetz and Erwin Meyer. The locals called this vehicle “dušegupka”. The truck, at first glance ordinary vehicle, had an air-tight compartment for victims, into which exhaust fumes were transmitted while the engine was running, suffocating the prisoners in 10 to 15 minutes.

18-25 March 1942 Doctors and patients from the Jewish hospital in Belgrade were the first victims of the gas van. Between 700 and 800 Jews from this hospital were being driven away, two times a day. They all died on the way to the execution spot in the village Jajinci, outside the city. Seven Serbian prisoners were burying the corps from the van in already prepared mass graves.

According to the German records, the camp was in that period populated by 5.293 detainees. Last preparations for the” final solution to the Jewish question” were organized in occupied Serbia. The action was commanded by Emanuel Schäffer, Chief of the German police in Serbia, Bruno Sattler, Gestapo Chief and Herbert Andorfer, commander of the camp. The truth about this action was kept a secret from the detainees, since they were told they were being transferred to another camp in Romania or Poland.

From the beginning of April until 10 May 1942 all detainees who remained in the concentration camp Sajmiste were killed. Gas van went from Sajmiste camp to the village of Jajince several times a day. Their bodies were buried there in already prepared graves. Later, throughout 1942 and 1943 the corpses would be exhumed and burnt, so as to hide all evidence of the crimes.

In April 1942 Chief of German Special Police and Security Services on one side, and Eugen Kvaternik, Chief of Internal Security Service of The Independent State of Croatia (NDH) on other, made an agreement that German occupation authorities would take over “politically unwanted elements” from NDH and send them to labor camps in Norway.

First smaller groups of non-Jewish detainees arrived in the camp while the gas van operation was still in progress. After the last group of Jewish detainees was killed in the gas van, concentration camp Sajmiste changed its purpose: it was no longer Judenlager – camp for Jews, but Anhalt Lager – a temporary camp for political detainees, captured partisans and forced labor prisoners. Most of them were later deported to Norway, Germany or smaller force labor camps in central Serbia.

At the end of April 1942 a new camp administration was being formed. SS Captain Forster was a new commander of the camp.

5 May 1942 First detainees from Jasenovac camp and Stara Gradiška camp were sent to Sajmište.

10 May 1942 the remaining Jews in the camp were killed, making place for new detainees. The execution was organized by SS officer Friedrich Schubert from Belgrade Gestapo. The camp was exclusively detention camp from that moment.

29 May 1942 Report of Franz Rademacher, Chief of the Jewish Department in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Berlin, stated that “Jewish question” was no longer current issue in Serbia and that it had come to the matter of “regulating legal issues about Jewish property”.

31.972 detainees had passed through the camp from May 1942 to July 1944 . Out of that number at least 10.636 people were killed and buried in mass graves in Jewish graveyard in Zemun (6.500), in nearby settlement Bežanija (3600), at the execution site in Jajince and several other locations near the camp.

From May until December 1942 more than 16.500 detainees were brought to the camp. Around 4.250 prisoners died of diseases and exhaustion.

14 July 1942 large groups of detainees were arriving to the camp, consisting mostly of men captured in military operations on Kozara (destined for forced labor in Norway).

25 August 1942 detainees “fit for work” were rapidly transferred to various destinations: to other locations in occupied Serbia, or to the newly built The Todt Organisation’s camp at Ušće, across Sajmište camp.

In the beginning of September 1942 all detainees caught in Kozara region that were “unfit for work” were sent to Jasenovac camp. Those who survived the transportat were executed by Ustasha in Donja Gradina.

A wide action of capturing “unreliable Chetniks” accused for cooperating with D. Mihailović’s organization started on 3rd October 1942. Most of them were sent to Sajmište camp. During November and December 1942 most were transported to Mauthausen concentration camp.

SS Captain Forster was replaced as commander of the camp in the beginning of November 1942. He was shortly replaced by H. Andorfer (former commander of the Jewish camp Zemun) but few days later (probably before 5th of November) the command was taken over by SS Captain Meinecke.

By the end of 1942 the camp was put under command of Plenipotentiary General in the Independent State of Croatia Edmund Glaise-Horstenau. This way, Sajmište camp was regulated as the central German detention camp on the territories of Yugoslavia.

Since autumn 1943 special German command Sonderkommando 1005 was working on burning the corps of victims executed at Jajince killing sites. The prisoners – detainees from Sajmište and Banjica camps were used for this work.

At the place where river Sava discharges into the Danube a special transition camp (Dulag 172, Semlin) operated from autumn 1943 until April 1944, where Italian, Soviet, partisan and other war prisoners were detained.

Belgrade was bombed by British and American air forces on 16-17 April 1944, which was Orthodox Easter Day. During the bombing campaign the camp was almost completely destroyed. Between 80 and 120 detainees were killed. Survived detainees were transferred to the newly established detention camp in Milišćeva ciglana (Dulag 172, Belgrad) in Zvezdara in Belgrade.

In May 1944 German command handed over the control over Sajmište to the police forces of Independent State of Croatia.

26 July 1944 the camp was officially abandoned.

17. September 1944 a large group of Jews from Hungary and Banat, used for forced labour in the Bor mines, were kept at the location of Samište before transported further to camps in Germany and Poland.