Pavelić and his followers intended to create an " ethnically pure " Croatia through the mass murder and deportation of Serbs , Jews and other non-Croats . At the time , Croats only made up about 50 percent of the NDH 's population of 6.5 million . Nearly two million Serbs , about one-third of the NDH 's total population , now found themselves within the borders of the newly formed state . Serb-majority areas also covered between 60 and 70 percent of the NDH 's total landmass . " The Croatian state can not exist if 1.8 million Serbs are living in it and if we have a powerful Serbian state at our backs , " Croatia 's future Foreign Minister Mladen Lorković explained . " Therefore , we are trying to make the Serbs disappear from our regions . " On 28 April , the Ustaše massacred nearly 200 Serb civilians in the village of Gudovac , their first act of mass murder upon coming to power
massacred
Gudovac massacre
Blagaj massacre