The German Reich together with Italy, Hungary and Bulgaria attacked the Kingdom of Yugoslavia on 6 April 1941. German troops entered Zagreb on April 10, and after the leadership of the Croatian Peasant Party (HSS) rejected the Axis Powers' offer to establish a satellite Croatian state, representatives of the Ustasha movement declared the Independent State of Croatia (NDH). The NDH was divided into German and Italian areas of interest by the demarcation line.
By October 1942, the NDH passed at least 30 racial legal provisions at the state level and many more at the local level, which established the status of Jews, regulated the confiscation and redistribution of Jewish property, and abolished Jewish municipalities as well as other Jewish organizations. From the very beginning of the NDH, Jewish municipalities and synagogues were burned, and monuments in Jewish cemeteries were desecrated. Jews were killed as hostages and the persecution of Jews in their territory began.
On 30 April 1941, three key racial laws, were published: the Legal Provision on Citizenship, the Legal Provision on Racial Affiliation and the Legal Provision on the Protection of Aryan Blood and the Honor of the Croatian People. Citizens of the NDH could only be “Aryans” and those who did not work “against the liberation aspirations of the Croatian people [...]”. In the other two provisions, Jews were defined as a “race”, which determined them as Jews, regardless of their Jewish status, as well as their actual religious and national identity. This status could not be changed. The Roma were also affected by the racial laws.
Then the Racial Political Commission was established, whose main goal was to determine racial affiliation. The Order on changing Jewish surnames and labeling Jews and Jewish companies was also passed and Jews, older than 14, had to wear a badge on the left side of their chest outside their apartment that was a round tin plate with the large letter “Ž” was marked in black in the middle.