NAME CHANGES IN SOME OF CROATIAN SETTLEMENTS
May 1941 to December 1941
Rosina T. Schmidt

Mr. Hamata of Zagreb recently pointed to an article in the Croatian official Gazetteer written by Marko Samaradzija, that during the early time of INDEPENDENT STATE OF CROATIA (10. Apr. 1941 – 8 May 1945) some of village names were changed as of April 1941, including some Danube Swabian towns. Alas it was discontinued by the end of that year and reverted to the previous names as per the order of the Croatian Ministry of Interior.

The area of the Independent State of Croatia, which was carved out of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia that year, included all of Syrmien and all the area of today’s Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

So the Danube Swabian town of

HRASTOVAC was officially changes to EICHENDORF,
ADOLFSTAL in the district of Banja Luka changed to BOSANSKI ALEKSANDROVAC,
KULA-JOSEPHSFELD in the district of Pozega was now known as KULA.

In the district of Bosanska Gradiska, the changes were as follows:
NOVA TOPOLA became WINDHORST,
KOCICEVO changed to JANUZOVCI,

SRIJEMSKA MITROVICA was now called HRVATSKA MITROVICA.
SRIEMSKI KARLOVAC became HRVATSKI KARLOVAC.
SLAVONSKA POZEGA changed into POZEGA.

Many other place names were changed as well, be they Croatian or Serb villages, but they are not included here.

It is interesting, that many street names in various places did receive new monikers as well, and once again after Yugoslavia was established on 29th of Nov. 1945 after the King Peter II abdication, some street names had again new names.

Yugoslav break-up wars lasted from 1992 to 2003 and by 2008 the former Yugoslavia was carved into the following independent states:

Slovenia (as of 1991)
Croatia (as of 1991)
Macedonia (as of 1991)
Republic Srpska (as of 1992)
Bosnia and Herzegovina (as of 1994)
Serbia (as of 2006)
Montenegro (as of 2006)
Kosovo (as of 2008)

We can confidently assume that quite a few localities in those new States as well as some streets once again have different names.