St. Peter and Paul was built in 1765; it is now a branch of a parish in Gospić. The re-construction of the Catholic parish church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel was started in 1860, and finished 1864. In 1830 a minor school was founded. During World War II, the town was occupied by Axis troops and was included into the Pavelić's Independent State of Croatia (NDH). The fascist Ustashe regime committed the Genocide of the Serbs and the Holocaust. The house in which the inventor Nikola Tesla was born, as well as the Serbian Orthodox church in which his father had served as a priest, were destroyed by the Ustashe movement in 1941. During the same period, the Ustaše also established a concentration camp in Smiljan through which 5,000 inmates passed. The camp was part of a wider network of Ustaše concentration camps centred around the town of Gospić. Demography The village of Smiljan (with Brušane and Oštarije) was incorporated to the Croatian Military Frontier only in 1713 (after being separated from the city of Karlobag), and subsequently registered in the 1712/14 census done in Lika and Krbava. In 1712/14 there were 1,405–1,536 people, with 1,153–1,283 people land owners, 117 landless (with Brušane), with average 1.33 acre per individual, 120–139 families who were land owners, with average 9.6 members in family.Most of them were Roman Catholic Vlachs ie Bunjevci (1,312), then Serbian Orthodox Vlachs (208), and Carniolians (16). There were 103 Roman Catholic, and 17 Serbian Orthodox families. Some of the most numerous families (actually kind of tribe-collective) in Lika and Krbava were in Smiljan; of count and captain Nikola Rukavina Bevandić (56 members), Dujam Kovačević (50), Ivan Devčić (46), Mijat Lemajić (40), Juriša Pavičić (40), Milanko Pejnović (40), Petar Serdar (40), Ilija Brkljačić (30), and Anton Tomljenović (30). In 1746 there lived 2,149 people, with 2,144 people land owners, and 290 families of land owners. 206 houses existed in 1830, with 1,880 people, of whom 1,401 Roman Catholic, and 479 Orthodox faith. After some settlements got separated, in 1857 numbered only 110 houses with 1,132 people, of whom 535 Roman Catholic and 597 Orthodox faith, with further separation, in 1910 the hamlet numbered only 50 people, however whole municipality had 2,286 people, of whom 1,698 Roman Catholic, and 588 Orthodox faith. Note: In 1869 and 1880 contains data for villages Rastoka (Gospić) and Smiljansko Polje, while in 1857