During World War II in 1941, as soon as the German forces occupied
Yugoslavia, Patriarch Gavrilo was arrested by the Nazis who were looting the gold from the
Ostrog Monastery.
Ruth Mitchell in her book "The Serbs Choose War", wrote
"They took from the old man everything, even his shoes. They left him naked except for his shirt. and over rough roads, over the mountains and through the deep valleys, they made him walk, at the point of a bayonet, two hundred miles, hatless in the burning Balkan sun." He later was confined in the
Monastery of Ljubostinja. In May 1943, he was transferred to the Monastery of Vojlovica (near
Pančevo) in which he was confined together with Bishop
Nikolaj Velimirović until September 1944. On 15 September 1944 both Serbian Patriarch Gavrilo V (Dožić) and Bishop Nikolaj Velimirović were sent to
Dachau, which was at that time the main concentration camp for priests arrested by the Nazis. Both Dožić and Velimirović were held as special prisoners (Ehrenhäftlinge) imprisoned in the so-called Ehrenbunker (or Prominentenbunker) separated from the work camp area, together with high-ranking Nazi enemy officers and other prominent prisoners. In December 1944 they were transferred from Dachau to Slovenia, together with
Milan Nedić, the Serbian collaborationist PM, and German general
Hermann Neubacher, the first Nazi mayor of
Vienna (1938–1939), as the Nazis attempted to make use of Patriarch Gavrilo's and Nikolaj's authority among the Serbs in order to gain allies in the anti-Communist movements. Contrary to claims of torture and abuse at the camp, evidence that Patriarch Dožić himself was subjected to mistreatment is doubtful. Later, Patriarch Dožić and Bishop Nikolaj were moved to Austria, and were finally liberated by the US 36th Infantry Division in Tyrol in 1945. ==Last years==