Yugoslavia and Greece were invaded in April 1941 and surrendered before the end of the month . Germany and Italy divided Greece into occupation zones but did not eliminate it as a country . Yugoslavia , home to around 80,000 Jews , was dismembered ; regions in the north were annexed by Germany and regions along the coast made part of Italy . The rest of the country was divided into the Independent State of Croatia , nominally an ally of Germany , and Serbia , which was governed by a combination of military and police administrators . According to historian Jeremy Black , Serbia was declared free of Jews in August 1942 . Croatia 's ruling party , the Ustashe , killed the country 's Jews , and killed or expelled Orthodox Christian Serbs and Muslims . Jews and Serbs alike were " hacked to death and burned in barns " , according to Black . One difference between the Germans and Croatians was that the Ustashe allowed its Jewish and Serbian victims to convert to Catholicism so they could escape death
killed or expelled
Persecution of Serbs in the Independent State of Croatia
The Holocaust