The
South Eastern
Banat
"Crimes of Horror"
Werschetz
In the
famous wine producing city of Werschetz
in the Banat until the end of the last
war there were twelve thousand Serbian
inhabitants and large numbers of
Hungarians and Romanians alongside of
sixteen thousand Danube Swabians. By
the end of 1944 after the Partisans took
over power after the Russian military
left individuals and groups of Danube
Swabians were liquidated by shootings,
beatings, deportations and other
measures estimated to number six
thousand victims. In addition to this,
countless Swabians from the surrounding
numerous Danube Swabian settlements in
the vicinity of the city were brought to
Werschetz to be exterminated.
Beginning on October 3, 1944 the new
police authorities carried out mass
arrests of Danube Swabian men in
Werschetz. About four hundred of these
men simply disappeared without trace.
Every night an always increasing number
of people were taken out of the jail and
taken to a cellar or another place by
the police and were beaten, shot or put
to death in some other manner. Among
these victims were also Swabian refugees
from Romania who were in flight of the
advancing Russian army, but had been
unable to leave Werschetz before the
Russian troops arrived and were taken
prisoners by the Yugoslavian Partisans.
The corpses of the victims were buried
in a variety places in the city,
including the yards of some of the
victims.
On
October 10th, 1944 there were
one hundred and thirty-five Swabians,
including a teenage boy and one woman
that were forcibly assembled by the
Partisans on one of the main streets of
the city and shot in public in broad
daylight. They had to kneel down in
rows and received a shot in the back of
their heads. Whoever refused to kneel
was thrashed and brutalized, stabbed,
had their teeth knocked in, shot several
times and only after suffering for some
time were finally killed. The woman,
Viktoria Geringer was the mother of the
teenage boy who was also put to death.
The others were vineyard owners and
workers on their way home from work
after gathering in the harvest, with
grapes piled high in their wagons when
the Partisans simply took them and
killed them. When all of them were dead
the Partisans brought other wagons and
loaded the corpses on them and took them
to the dump. But the body of the woman
had a rope tied around her neck and they
dragged her body behind the wagon
through the city. On top of the bodies
of the dead Swabians sat jubilant
Partisans and Gypsies. They did gross
things to the bodies as the wagon moved
along, made music with an accordion and
sang Partisan songs.
On
October 23rd the leading
Swabian citizens of the city, some
thirty-five of them, were taken from
their homes and put in the city jail.
They were gruesomely tortured there for
the next two days. Some of them were
already killed then. On October 25th
early in the morning they were tossed on
a truck and driven out of the city.
They disappeared forever. The well
known teacher, Nikolaus Arnold and the
lawyer Dr. Julius Kehrer were among
them.
They
also imprisoned two hundred and fifty
German prisoners of war in the city jail
at that time. They were taken away in
groups at night around 10:00pm after
being brutally abused before they were
led away with their hands bound to the
open fields around the dump. Each time
a huge ditch had been prepared. The
intended victims were placed in groups
of twenty after being stripped naked and
were forced to walk to the edge of the
pit and each one was shot in the back of
his neck. But the sounds of the
shooting could be heard in the whole
city.
On
October 25th the former
Swabian mayor Geza Frisch and five other
leading Swabian spokesmen were also shot
at the dump. These men had been
imprisoned for several days in a room in
the mayor’s office and on the evening of
the 15th they were fettered
and driven through the streets of the
city. The Partisans followed behind
them on wagons. The men had to shovel
and dig their own graves and take off
all of their clothes and stand naked
before their executioners. Then each of
them was shot in the nape of his neck.
Almost the next day Partisans could be
seen walking around in the city wearing
their clothes.
Particularly gruesome was the treatment
of countless Swabian women and young
girls of Werschetz. Hundreds of them
were dragged away by Partisans and were
never heard from again.
On
October 27, 1944 all of the remaining
Swabian men in the city were taken from
their homes and brought into the
recently designated concentration camp
for Danube Swabians. They also brought
in the Swabians from the district and
crushed them together in the camp
numbering about five thousand. The camp
consisted of five barracks, which could
not at first accommodate all of the
people. But soon the camp was empty.
In the evenings trucks arrived day after
day. Groups of one hundred men who had
been previously chosen were loaded on
the trucks and driven away into he
night. All of these people
disappeared. The routine of first
undressing and then being shot was
carried out, and all night long the
shooting could be heard in the city. As
a result the numbers in the camp
gradually declined. By December of 1944
there were only three hundred and fifty
men left of the thousands who had been
brought there. These survivors were
sent to forced labor at Guduritz doing
forestry work and later were sent to
heavy labor in Semlin where the majority
of them perished.
But
many of the Swabians also died inside
the camp as a result of abuse,
starvation, torture and individual
executions. This treatment was
especially designated for the well-to-do
and educated Swabians. Hundreds of them
were buried close to the camp. These
actions were carried out on official
orders from the highest authority that
were well aware of the atrocities taking
place.
On
November 18, 1944 after most of the men
had been liquidated, the Swabian women
and children of Werschetz were
imprisoned in the almost empty camp.
From here thousands were sent to other
camps where the women had to do heavy
labor in winter and many of them
perished. Large groups were sent to
Mitrowitz, Schuschara and other camps.
There were also large groups of men from
Weisskirchen in these labor units. The
majority of those who lived to the end
of 1945 were brought to the large
concentration camp in Rudolfsgnad. Most
of the people from Werschetz died of
hunger here in the winter of 1945 and
1946. There were only a few individual
survivors.
Karlsdorf
Three
thousand Danube Swabians lived in
Karlsdorf. It was occupied by Russian
troops on October 2, 1944. The
Partisans appeared right afterwards and
set up their Military Government. By
October 5th they were already
arresting large numbers of Swabian men
and women. Every night people were
arrested and taken away. The nights
during this period of time were
especially dangerous for young women and
girls. Russian troops were always on
the prowl in search of women to rape.
One seventy-three year old woman was the
victim of three Russian soldiers. Both
men and women were soon considering
suicide. On October 9th
there were twenty-eight men who were
locked up in a tiny room. On November 6th
their torment began as they were abused,
beaten and tortured. The most horrible
torture included knocking in a man’s
teeth, plucking out an eyeball, cutting
off their penises, breaking ribs and
other bones. As a result many of them
died and were shot later.
On the
4th and 8th of
November thirty-eight Swabians including
six women, one of whom was in the final
stages of her pregnancy were dragged off
to Uljima. On November 9th
four of them who had been brutally
tortured returned home. As for the
others, there was never any word at that
time. Later it was learned that they
had been shot in Weisskirchen on the
night of November 9th and 10th.
On
November 12th all of the men
from the age of sixteen to sixty had to
report and were imprisoned in the
deserted German air force barracks. It
was surrounded by barbed wire and now
served as a slave labor camp. But here
mistreatment and torture continued. One
of the most feared of the Partisans was
Livius Gutschu, a man who had murdered
his own father, but who boasted of it
until he himself was arrested and
disappeared. On November 18th
the Swabian women and children and all
of the others who were unable to work
from Alibunar were brought to
Karlsdorf. They were quartered in the
Swabian houses. Some two hundred men
were taken out of the camp a few days
later. They had to chop wood at
Roschiana some twenty kilometers distant
until the spring. They lived there in
earth dugouts. One of the men from
Uljma fell out of favor with the
commander who had him so badly beaten
and tortured that he collapsed. He was
forced to take off his trousers and they
tied a brick to his genitals and with
thrashings and whippings they encouraged
him to dance. In December these
brutalities intensified and many died as
a result of them.
At
year’s end, two hundred and eighty
persons from Karlsdorf were deported to
Russia. When the wood felling brigade
returned in the spring, two hundred men
were again immediately sent to Semlin.
Most of the group came from Karlsdorf
(one hundred and thirty-two),
Weisskirchen (twenty-seven), Schuschara
(fifteen), Alibunar (ten), Uljma (six)
Ilandscha (four) Jasenova (three)
Seleusch (one) and some from other
communities.
On
February 12th six hundred men
from the camp in Semlin (including
ninety from Karlsdorf) were sent to
Mitrowitz, where they joined four
hundred men from Apatin and its
vicinity. When the group was brought
back to Semlin on May 25th,
there were one hundred and twelve fewer
men who had died building the railroad
or as a result of being shot to death.
Of the ninety men from Karlsdorf,
twenty-one of them had died there. In
May of 1947 of the one hundred and
thirty-two Karlsdorf men in camps, only
sixty-six survived. When the camp in
Semlin was dismantled in September and
the surviving inmates were sent to
Mitrowitz there were still seventeen men
from Karlsdorf who were still alive.
Next March there were only four.
On
April 27, 1945 all of the remaining
Swabians in Karlsdorf were driven into
the camp. They remained there for four
weeks while their homes were being
emptied of their possessions. After a
period of four weeks the Swabians were
quartered in homes in one section of the
village. During the summer all of the
able bodied had to work. All of those
not able to work at Karlsdorf were sent
to Rudolfsgnad at the same time as the
inmates from the Kathreinfeld camp.
Some four hundred and fifty persons
arrived in Rudolfsgnad on October 30th,
including two hundred and sixty-four
persons from Karlsdorf. By April half
of them had starved to death. In March
of 1948 only eighty persons from
Karlsdorf were still alive. In the
summer of 1946 more and more people
attempted to escape to Romania and then
headed for Austria through Hungary.
Many of the people from Karlsdorf were
successful, but many others were
apprehended, captured, robbed and often
tortured and shot by the Partisan heroes
who received medals for liquidating the
“German criminals."
In mid
April of 1946 and later over a period of
time larger groups of inmates were sent
to Guduritz and Werschetz. In Guduritz
escape and flight into Romania was
unofficially tolerated so that those who
were there were able to save their
lives. Later, that is, in the spring
and summer of 1947 there were large
groups organized at Gakowa that crossed
the border into Hungary. There the
planned escapes were also unofficially
tolerated because of the money payments
involved.
Today
Karlsdorf is known as Rankovicevo named
after the commander of OZNA (Secret
Police) and became the last station
on the road of suffering of the
Yugoslavian Danube Swabians who
ended up at the camp there which
became known as the “old folks home”
describing the condition of the
survivors of the holocaust who had
nowhere else to turn or go when it
was finally over.
Alibunar
The
center for the extermination of the
Swabians in the vicinity of Alibunar was
the town itself. In November 1944 the
mass shootings of men had taken place.
The victims always had to take their
clothes off first. Later the Swabian
women in the camp in Alibunar had to
wash the clothes that had been
distributed among the Partisans. This
is one of the ways that the Swabians
knew who, when and how many of the men
had been killed.
On
November 18, 1944 all of the women and
children, and all others unable to work
were taken from Alibunar to the
Karlsdorf camp. The able bodied were
sent to various slave labor camps in the
area. Whoever could not keep up with
the pace of the marching column was shot
and the bodies were thrown into the
roadside ditches.
Klara
Knoll of Alibunar writes:
“Alibunar was a regional center with
a mixed population, mostly Romanian
and Serbian. Of the five thousand
inhabitants there were two hundred
and twenty Danube Swabians. Most of
the Swabians were merchants,
tradesmen, artisans and craftsmen.
On
October 3rd, 1944 the
Russian troops arrived in our town.
Only two days later the Serbian
Partisans put in their appearance
and took over the local government.
The first Swabian men and women were
arrested around the 15th
of October. Prior to being shot
they were tortured, thrashed, beaten
and abused. Their toenails were
torn off, the Partisans had poured
gasoline between their fingers and
set the gasoline on fire. Following
the shooting some Swabian women
found their toenails wrapped up in
the wash that the Partisans brought
them to do. News of the victims and
their deaths was first brought to
the Swabians by some Hungarian women
who had been responsible for
bringing them their food. Wives were
not allowed to bring anything to
their husbands or come near the
building where they were
imprisoned. One of the Partisans
known to me through a friend told me
that after the torture my husband
was no longer recognizable.
On
November 17, 1944 all of us who were
still alive were taken to
Karlsdorf. Swabians from other
villages in the area who were a
small minority were also taken with
us. Before we were marched out of
town the Partisans held a speech in
which they said that not all of us
would be shot, but we would be their
slaves for the rest of our lives.
The Partisans who accompanied us
were told to shoot anyone who was
unable to keep up with the marching
column. Three of the people from
Alibunar were shot, including my own
eighty-six year old father, Edmund
Bauer on the outskirts of Alibunar
along with two women.
We
arrived in Karlsdorf that evening.
All of us had to stand up against a
wall. We thought that we would be
shot. The children began to cry.
We were divided up into groups of
ten and quartered in various
houses. The owners of the houses,
women whose husbands were interned
or doing slave labor, still lived in
their own homes and were threatened
with shooting if any of us was
missing the next day. For that
reason I did not leave the house
where I was assigned and I only
became aware of my father’s death
some three days later.
In
Karlsdorf we had to work in the
fields and do other heavy labor, but
we had warm houses to sleep in and
we could dry our wet clothes or
borrow clothes from the Swabians of
Karlsdorf.
After a week of being in Karlsdorf,
on Saturday November 25, 1944
sixteen men and women from Alibunar
were shot in our town, including my
forty-three year old husband Franz
Knoll. In addition to the men and
women from Alibunar there were
eighty other persons from other
villages in the area who were also
shot and most of them came from
communities where the Danube
Swabians were a small minority.
They were shot and buried at the
so-called cemetery dump. They had
to dig their own graves and were
bound together in groups of ten and
had to stand on a plank across the
grave and then were shot and fell
directly into it. The first to fall
in dragged in all of the others and
then they were shot again for good
measure as they lay in the grave.
All of the men and women were forced
to undress completely and were shot
naked. Because the women hesitated
to undress gasoline was poured on
them and their clothes were set on
fire and then they were shot. On
their way to execution the women had
been told: “We are taking you to
your Hitler.” On their way to the
shooting place the women’s hair was
shorn.
For
several days no one was allowed to
go near the mass grave. The dead
bodies were covered with only a thin
layer of earth and soon dogs
unearthed some hands and feet. As a
result aged men from Alibunar who
were unable to work in the forest
had to walk back home to Alibunar
that was five kilometers away and
cover the grave with sufficient
earth."
