Sotting in WWII

FROM SZENTFULOP Too the GAKOVA CAMP
www.hungary.com/corvinus/lib/cseres/cseres07.htm
SZENTFULOP BATSCHKA To the GAKOVA CAMP survivor Letter from a Bavarian-Swabian "girl" pages 82-86

The Expulsion of Germans by Dr. Alfred de Zayas

The main speaker at the premiere of the documentary travelling exhibition "In the Claws of the Red Dragon" in Pittsburgh last year, organized in cooperation with Dr. Marianne Bouvier and B. John Zavrel,was Dr. Alfred de Zayas, a prominent expert in international law; he is an American of Spanish-French descent. After law school at Harvard, de Zayas went to Germany on a Fulbright fellowship, took doctorate in History at the University of Goettingen. He works as a legal consultant in New York and Geneva, Switzerland, and is the author of several books dealing with the subject of the Expulsion of Germans in Europe.

The following is a transcript of the essential part of the excellent lecture on the Expulsion which he gave in Pittsburgh.

Vukovar Croatian Stalingrad by Ante Sucur

After the break-up of Austro - Hungary in 1918, Croatia, together with Slovenia and Bosnia, wanted to become an independent country. However, it was forced to unite with Serbia and Montenegro. This state was called the Kingdom of SCS (Serbs, Croats and Slovenes) and was ruled by the Serbian Karadjordjevic dynasty. Since the Kingdom was created the Serbs, led by Nikola Pasic and Aleksandar Karadjordjevic, were trying to gain overall supremacy. They wished to realise a Serbian nationalistic dream - the "Great Serbia" - a country that would, apart from Serbia, include Montenegro, Macedonia, Bosnia - Herzegovina and Croatia. The idea of "Great Serbia" was created by certain Serbian intellectuals in the early XIX century, and has been a goal of Serbian nationalist politicians ever since. However, the Serbian king Aleksandar was facing strong resistance, mainly by Croats, led by Stjepan Radic. Continued

Annex VIII : Prison camps (part 10/10)

Case-study No. & Title: 175 - Providing psychological assistance to mourning families and establishing the first basis for a dialogue between Croats and Serbs in the village of Sotin (municipality of Vukovar, Croatia), April-November 2000
by Tania Gosselin @ Central European University Political Science Department
3.2 Location:
The village of Sotin, municipality of Vukovar, Eastern Slavonia, Croatia.
4. Good Practice Description
Sotin is a village located in the eastern part of the municipality of Vukovar. Before 1991, a little over 55 per cent of of Sotin's inhabitants were Croats, and the remaining 45 per cent were Serbs.¹ After Vukovar was besieged and fell to the Yugoslav Army in November 1991, Serbian authorities ruled the territory of the self-declared Republika Srpska Krajina (RSK) until 1995, when Eastern Slavonia was reintegrated into Croatia. The Croats of Sotin, who had fled during or after the war, began to come back in 1998. In the course of the last few years, during the RSK period, displaced persons (Serbs) from other parts of Croatia had also settled down in Sotin. These movements altered the ethnic composition of the village's population (according to the survey carried out by the interviewers of the Sotin project, the village now counts 57 Croatian and 58 Serbian families). However, 29 people (Croats) have not come back to Sotin. They are still missing and/or presumed dead, buried in mass graves that have not been exhumed yet. A group of middle-aged Croatian women, relatives of the missing, have set up a tent in the central square of Sotin where they go to pray every day. At the door of the tent-chapel a sign says: ‘We will have the truth’. Ethnic tensions are significant in Sotin where the two communities, Croatian and Serbian, live in near-complete segregation. Furthermore, the beginning of the eviction process of people illegally occupying houses or apartments (typically the premises belong to a member of the other ethnic group), as well as so-called ‘test exhumations’ carried out during the summer, contributed to fuel these tensions.

FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF YUGOSLAVIA FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

I-003
DESIGNATION OF CRIME: Wilful killing of civilians.
TIME AND PLACE: 29 June 1991, village of Sotin, Vukovar.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION: In order to expel the Serbian population from that region, through intimidation, threats against life and property, a villager, Mihajlo Nadj, was also killed in an attack against the village of Sotin.
INDICATION CONCERNING PERPETRATOR(S): Perpetrators are Zdravko Komsic, Stjepan Mackovic, Ivan Mikulic and Tade Istuk, all Croatian National Guards.
EVIDENCE: The Military Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade has instituted investigation proceedings against the above persons. All evidence about the nature of the crime and time of its commission including testimonies of witnesses are in the file I VTK No. 1139/92 of the Belgrade Military Prosecutor's Office.
NOTE: All of the above named were exchanged in Nemetin, on 14 August 1992, under the Agreement on POW Exchange reached by the Governments of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Republic of Croatia.

IX-003
DESIGNATION OF CRIME: Ethnic cleansing. TIME AND PLACE: 4 May l99l, Sotin near Vukovar (UNPA).
BRIEF DESCRIPTION: Stevan Teofanovic, owner of a restaurant in Sotin, previously also mistreated by his Croatian fellow - villagers because of his Serbian origin. On that date, he was at home with his wife, son and daughter and his son's friend Miodrag Nagy. Nine attackers showed up unexpectedly in front of their house, shouting: "Where are you Serbs? When are you going to move out?" They then riddled Teofanovic's house with rifle bullets. His son Sasa counted the attackers from the roof, while Stevan himself identified five of them. Following the shooting, the attackers fled. Teofanovic's son's friend Miodrag Nagy was found dead outside the front door, probably in an attempt to leave the house unnoticed. After the raid and subsequent threats to Teofanovic's closest friends Kovacevic, Torbica, and Trkulja, Stevan and his family moved to Novi Sad, leaving the house and restaurant and all inventory in Sotin.
INDICATION CONCERNING PERPETRATOR(S): According to the testimony of Stevan Teofanovic and his son Sasa, five of the nine attackers have been identified: Luka Ivancic, owner of the cafe "ll", a fisherman called "Cona", a certain "Mrkela", Drago and Pero Ljubas, all from Sotin.
EVIDENCE: Statement of witness Stevan Teofanovic to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Vojvodina in Novi Sad on 24 May l99l.
NOTE:

The Disappearance of Yugoslav Ethnic Germans by Mr. Vladimir Geiger
www.hic.hr/books/seeurope/016e-geiger.htm#top

The Yugoslavian partisans under Tito stripped all ethnic Germans in Yugoslavia (present day Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina etc) of their land and possessions and imprisoned them in concentration, work and
labor camps and sent tens of thousands to Russia as well.  It is estimated that about 200,000 Germans, mostly peasants and farmers, died in these camps.  40,000 children alone became orphans in these camps.  From 1944 to early 1960s many people escaped the camps in Yugoslavia, but the Red Cross was still working to "repatriate" these ethnic Germans to Germany as late as 1965. ( even though their homes had never been in Germany).  There were many more camps than just those of the Nazis which were covered so well by the news media.  Other camps just didn't get the attention, although now there is allot of history about many aspects of this horrid war on the internet today which are easily searched and found.  There were Russian detention and work camps after WWII - hundred's of thousands of people were sent  to work in mines and other industries as war reparations.