Genocide by
Tito's Partisans 1944-1948
From the book:
“Voelkermord
der Tito-Partisanen 1944-1948: Dokumentation”
By
Oesterreichische Historiker-Arbeitsgemeinschaft
fuer Kaernten und Steiermark, Graz 1990
Translated by Henry Fischer
Chapter One
General Introduction
There were approximately one half of a million persons of German
origin living in Yugoslavia before the Second World War according to the
census of March 31, 1931. These
figures however only include those individuals who claimed German as
their mother tongue. Those
of German origin actually numbered more than that, and historians
suggest that they numbered in the neighborhood of 600,000.
Among the German speaking population of Yugoslavia the vast
majority of them can be counted as the descendants of those commonly
known as the Danube Swabians. German
colonists who had been settled by the Hapsburg Monarchy some two
centuries before in the area that lay between the Danube, Tisza, Drava,
Sava and Morash Rivers after the expulsion of the Turks who left an
unpopulated wilderness and wasteland behind them.
In addition to them, there were also the Germans in Lower
Steiermark, the descendants of Bavarian and Franconian colonists who
migrated in the 9th century to resettle the unpopulated area
left after the Avars were driven out.
There were also the Gottscheer Germans, who were the descendants
of Franconian, Swabian, Tyrolian and Carinthian peasant farmers who were
settled in the area and were subsequently scattered from there.
Above all, many of them moved into the towns and were known as
ethnic Germans in Croatia and Slovenia.
The Danube Swabians to a great degree originated in the
hereditary Hapsburg lands, from Alsace and Lorraine and the Palatinate,
and a portion from Austria as well and many others from the
south-western German principalities.
With the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, the Danube
Swabian settlement areas and populations found themselves divided up
into the various successor states of Hungary, Romania, and Yugoslavia.
As a result, some 600,000 now belonged to Yugoslavia. The major settlement areas in Yugoslavia were the Batschka,
where one third of them resided, in addition to a portion of the Banat,
plus Syrmien (Srem), Slavonia and Lower Baranya.
The Lower Steiermark was annexed to the new Yugoslavian state
after the First World War.
During the Second World War Yugoslavia was occupied by the German
Army and their allies. As
the German Army and their allies in Yugoslavia began to retreat, a
portion of the German speaking population was evacuated.
But about one half of the German population, who had lived in
peace and friendship with their various Slavic neighbors for almost two
centuries were not prepared to abandon what for them was their homeland
and remained behind.
At the beginning of October 1944 the first Russian troops entered
Yugoslavia and in a few day’s time they first occupied the Banat, and
then the Batschka, and completed the occupation of Syrmien and Slavonia
by the war’s end. In
those areas occupied by the Russian troops, the Military Governments of
the Serbian Partisans were quickly installed in every region, and were
in power until the third of March of the following year.
Attempts by their political opponents, other nationalists and
royalists to share in government were denied and they were eventually
liquidated.
Immediately with the setting up of Military Government by
Tito’s Partisans a systematic program of liquidation of the remaining
German-speaking population was put into effect.
It was a field day for individual revenge and sadism.
The vast majority of the survivors of Tito’s death camps
managed to escape to West Germany in the 1950s, while a few thousand
remained in Yugoslavia scattered throughout the country and who no
longer constitute a “German minority”.
Estimates of the numbers of Danube Swabians in Yugoslavia who
were victims of mass shootings, starvation, and the diseases which raged
in the camps and other causes, have been set at about 175,000 persons,
which is 32.7% of the population reported in 1939.
Included in that number are men killed or missing in action in
the military, some 40,000 who constitute 7.5% of the population, which
indicates that 135,800 civilians lost their lives (25.3%). The vast majority of the civilian casualties occurred after
the occupation by the Red Army, during the reign of the Partisan’s
“military government”. There
were mass shootings and executions, but also a planned systematic
liquidation program in effect.
(The authors digress about variations in the estimated numbers
and are not included)
The purpose of this documentation is not simply to put blame or
guilt on individuals who were involved, but to raise our voices in
condemnation over what occurred, and how it occurred.
These are the crimes of Tito and his henchmen, which are centred
on the following charges and issues:
-
The November 21, 1944 “National Decree” that all
persons of German origin were outside of the law with no legal
recourse or standing and were to be dispossessed of all property and
possessions.
-
The systematic mass shootings of men in all areas
and districts.
-
The carrying off of all able bodied men and younger
women for slave labor in Russia.
-
The internment of all other civilians regardless of
age or sex into concentration camps where massive numbers died from
beatings, malnutrition, epidemics, cold and brutality.
-
Those
released from the camps had to provide three years of slave labor.
-
The
“kidnapping” of children without parents from the internment
camps and their placement in state children’s homes to be made to
forget their identities and be raised as Communists and speak only
Serbo-Croatian.
We raise these complaints not only against individual Partisans
but also many who were not Partisans who committed crimes against
innocent people, killed, tortured, murdered, beat and sexually abused
them. We know only too
well, that these kinds of acts were not looked upon as crimes because
they were done to Danube Swabians who were outside of the law and there
could be no consequences for the perpetrator.
Nor could the Danube Swabians call upon any of the state
institutions to plead their case. These
acts were not crimes, for there was no law against them nor was it
forbidden to do, and no court would have convicted them.
(The authors engage in questions of complex legal considerations
and niceties. In its place
I offer this summary that capsulate the situation in which the Danube
Swabian civilian population would find itself)
1.
All persons of German origin living in Yugoslavia automatically
lose their Yugoslavian citizenship and rights, privileges and protection
of such citizenship.
2.
The entire property of all persons of German origin can be
confiscated by the state and claim ownership of it.
3.
All persons of German origin cannot appeal to their rights of
citizenship in the courts or state institutions, nor could they seek
legal defense.
With this law in effect the 250,000 Danube Swabians were robbed
of their property and possessions and declared to be outlaws. Confiscation meant more than loss of property or money.
It meant the very clothes on your back.
Everything now belonged to the State, even their lives and their
bodies. Danube Swabian
labor was only for the benefit of the State. No one had a right to live with their family nor any rights
to their children who were taken away from them.
No right to come and go anywhere on one’s own. The Danube Swabian had no rights but that of a beast of
burden. They were in effect
reduced to slavery.
There is no question now that the liquidation program that
followed was systematic and planned from the top.
Tito and his Partisan leadership were at the helm and in control
throughout. There were
three basic methods and phases of the liquidation:
1.
Mass liquidations through execution and mass shootings
2.
Deportations of the able bodied to Russia
3.
Mass liquidation through starvation and slave labor in the
concentration camps and the labor camps
All three of these methods were already set in motion prior to
November 21st, but not entirely everywhere at the time.
But from this point onward the three methods would affect all
persons of German origin and would eventually lead to their
extermination.
The Mass Liquidations
These mass shootings and massacres were not the result of the
decree but occurred along with the arrival of the Red Army and the
setting up of the Military Governments by the Partisans who quickly
followed on their heels. The bestial nature of these actions is hard to describe and
was subject to the local situation.
The final destiny of thousands of men and women from the Danube
Swabian communities is still unknown and has not seen the light day, and
eye witnesses are no longer alive in the terms of the perpetrators of
the genocide program while the testimony of the survivors could fill
volumes.
Most of the mass liquidation operations occurred prior to January
of 1945, and only small groups and individuals met their deaths in this
way after that date. In
these later actions it was a matter of sadism rather than official
policy. A beast had been unleashed in search of victims.
Part of the process was always terror and torture.
An observer comments: “The
Tito Partisans thought up various ways and methods, which in their eyes
were appropriate for the extermination of their victims to maximize
their suffering. For
instance there was the Schichttorten-Effect.
For this purpose old and abandoned wells and mine shafts were
used. They threw in a group of men in the shaft or well and then
tossed in hand grenades after them.
Then another group of men were thrown in and the process repeated
itself, until the last layer, who were left wounded with no way of
getting back up to the top.”
Deportations to Russia
The first mass deportations were carried out on Christmas
Eve in 1944. The choice of
date was hardly accidental, which would make thousands upon thousands of
children virtual orphans.
In all areas and communities of the Batschka and the Banat, all
Danube Swabians men from 18 to 40 years of age, and all women from 18 to
30 had to report to an assembly area where they were examined physically
to determine if they were able bodied for labor by a Russian commission.
They were then packed into cattle cars and transported to a
destination that was unknown to the victims.
Only pregnant women and nursing mothers were exempt, but for many
of them their fate would be even worse.
The officials were not satisfied with the numbers they had
apprehended and a second so called “recruitment” was undertaken, in
which the age for women was raised to 35 years, and some mothers of
infants were also taken. At
the time of this second deportation the Partisans also occupied parts of
southwestern Hungary and carried out the deportations there as well.
In Slavonia and Syrmien, only isolated actions associated with
the deportation were carried out. There
were some 40,000 persons involved in these deportations, including 2,400
persons from Apatin alone. It
was only in the summer of 1945 that their destination and destiny became
known. Few families were
left intact.
Only the aged and the children were left behind, and only a few
of the children had one of their parents with them to face what the
future would hold for them. Most
of the children were with grandparents, or under the care of a teen-age
brother or sister or relative. In
many cases small children were left alone in their houses and had to
fend for themselves. One
old man in Filipovo gathered twenty-eight of his grandchildren in his
house because all of their parents had been deported to Russia.
(The authors now detour into an examination of what they perceive
to be the reasons behind the liquidation of the Danube Swabian
population, and I offer a precise.)
The reasons for the liquidation of the Danube Swabian population
had several sources. But at
no time were they accused of going over to or supporting National
Socialism. At least no
Yugoslavian government has ever accused them of such!
It was a well-known fact among their Slavic neighbors that the
vast majority of the Swabians did not support the Nazis.
During the occupation by the German Wehrmacht (Army) there were
numerous instances where the local Danube Swabian populations offered
protection to the Serbians among whom they lived and many of the Danube
Swabian men had served in the Yugoslavian Army during the German and
Hungarian invasion in 1941. This
was also well known in government circles.
Nor was membership in the Swabian Folk Group Union before the war
seen as anti-Yugoslavian, but primarily pro-German in terms of language
and culture. The government
never took action against the organization or saw it in any way
subversive. None of these
issues were reasons for the persecution that was unleashed against them.
The issue behind the liquidation of the Danube Swabians at its
simplest was racist. The
Partisans, like the Nazis saw assimilated families (inter-marriage with
Hungarians, Serbs, Croats, Slovaks) to be the source for
“contamination” of the “race”, and they were as brutal, bestial
and sadistic as any of those involved in the Final Solution of the
Jewish population during the reign of the Third Reich.
The attitude of the local Slavic populations also played a role
and through the support and help of many of the different nationalities,
some 20,000 to 25,000 Danube Swabians escaped from the camps, and some
15,000 to 20,000 of them were able to flee to Austria and Germany.
That some 42,000 survived in the extermination camps after three
and one half years of inhuman treatment was due to the assistance of
thousands of Serbs, Croats, Hungarians, Slovaks and Ukrainians.
These people put their lives and the lives of their families on
the line in assisting the Danube Swabians in any way they could.
This puts a lie to the claim that the Danube Swabians had lorded
it over their neighbors during the Nazi occupation.
The other issue, as always, was economic. The Danube Swabians property, homes, assets and savings were
confiscated. Nor were the
bestial reprisals against them a result of any of their actions taken
during the Nazi occupation. The
Roman Catholic priesthood, and the Lutheran and Reformed Danube Swabian
pastors always sided with their Slavic neighbors against any Nazi
attacks or actions taken against them.
In effect, the clergy in sense were the only anti-Nazi force that
was active during the occupation. It
is ironic that such a large number of the anti-Nazi clergy were included
in the mass shootings and executions.
They had three strikes against them.
They belonged to the German racial group.
Religion and Communism were enemies.
They were often the leading intellectuals in the Danube Swabian
communities.
For example, in the Batschka there were forty-eight priests who
were persecuted by the Partisans in some of the most bizarre cruel
manner representing both German and mixed parishes.
Eighteen of them were killed.
Four were taken in the deportation to Russia. Seventeen were interned in the camps and nine were
imprisoned.
There were large elements of the population in the Batschka who
were able to evacuate prior to the coming of the Russian Army and the
Partisan Military Governments that followed. While in Slavonia and
Syrmien there had been well organized mass evacuations of almost the
entire Danube Swabian population, but in the Banat most of the attempts
at flight were thwarted by Folk Group officials and the local
populations were trapped in stalled treks and had to return home and to
death and destruction, along with thousands of other Danube Swabians
fleeing from the Romanian Banat who had sought to cross the Danube
passing through Yugoslavia and make it to safety in Hungary but shared
in the fate of the Danube Swabians of Yugoslavia instead.
Internment
The imprisonment of the Danube Swabians in internment camps began
in December of 1944 and was completed by April 1945.
There were three kinds of camps:
1.
Zentralarbeitslager “Central Labor Camp”
2.
Ortslager “Regional or District Camp”
3.
Konzentrationslager fuer Arbeitsunfaehige
“Concentration
Camp For Those Unable to Work”
In the Central Labor Camps most of the inmates were men who were
put into work groups and put to hard labor.
In the District or Regional Camps, the local Danube Swabian
population was interned, often in their own villages as a stopgap
method. The Concentration
Camps were for women, children and older men unable to work.
But in some cases, mothers were separated from their children and
teen-agers were later taken to the Labor Camps with them as well.
-
The Forced Labor Camps
As soon as the Russians occupied an area and the Partisans “set
up shop”, various forms of the slave labor were demanded of the Danube
Swabian population. They
were always given the hardest and most difficult tasks, but their food
and accommodation were at the bare minimum.
They worked from 4:00 am to dark and received a piece of bread
and watery soup at each meal. In
many instances work parties would be replaced and they themselves were
then released to go home. This
was the general rule for work parties under the command of the Russian
military at the airport in Sombor.
This never happened to those who were under the jurisdiction of
the Partisans. There was no
release, except death or flight. Those released by the Russians were invariably picked up by
the Partisans and put back into labor battalions.
The Danube Swabian slave labor battalions were made available to
the railways, sanitation departments and such.
To be more available for work, local labor camps were set up in
old factories, schools, and former homes of Danube Swabians that were
converted into guarded compounds. Prisoners
were shifted from camp to camp and were marched on foot over long
distances during the night to be available for work the next day at the
new site. The Partisans
command was in charge and in control of this action and placement.
The slave laborers included both men and women and their life in
the camps was miserable. Torture
and beatings were “normal”.
Many
died because of this constant abuse and mistreatment. They could not keep up with the marching column going to work
and would be beaten and driven to the work place.
Many such laborers did not last for more than a week at the labor
camp.
Families of those who were in the labor camps had no contact or
any information about their family members.
Often mothers had to leave their children in the care of the
oldest child or turned them over to a relative or friend or simply left
them to fend for themselves without knowing if they would ever meet
again. Often those who took
in other children would be interned in a camp and had to provide for
them. It was against the law for “Germans” to send our receive
mail and mothers had no way of letting their children know where they
were. Nor did the mothers
know of the situation or whereabouts of their children.
As early as the fall of 1944, each district where the Danube
Swabians lived had a large central Forced Labor Camp.
When the Military Government was abolished on March 3, 1945 these
camps came under the command and direction of various state
“enterprises”. The
worste feature of these forced labor camps was the practice of gathering
groups of them for mass shootings or individual executions.
Many of those who were sick and too weak to work were the victims
of these shootings. But one
could work hard and dutifully all day, only to be return to camp and
face a gruesome death to entertain the guards.
It was during the time when the Partisans were in control that
the mass shootings took place, later everyone lived in fear of
individual execution.
The situation was better for those slave laborers who worked and
were lodged at their work place away from the District Camp.
These facilities were not well guarded.
There were no barbed wire compounds and it was easier to leave at
night and scrounge for food. Often the officials of such camps had too much heart to let
the inmates starve and increased their rations.
If a person were unable to be assigned to such a camp, he/she
would weaken to such a degree that they would be sent to a concentration
camp. The situation of the
forced laborers simply got worse as they were moved from one work place
to another. Everything they
had was taken away from them. Their
garments became rags.
The Labor Camps were guarded by the military and a sentry
accompanied all work groups on the way to their work place. The guard’s task at the camp was to keep the inmates inside
and prevent all outside contact.
With the introduction of a civilian government on March 3, 1945
the forced laborers could be purchased for work at the rate of 50 to 110
Dinar per day and the purchaser would have to provide accommodations and
food. The slave labor
“market” proved to be the salvation of many as former neighbors,
friends, acquaintances of the other nationalities purchased them and
assisted them back to health and well being and made contacts and traced
the whereabouts and fates of their family members.
2. Concentration
Camps
The Concentration Camps were introduced in the Banat, when all
the remaining Danube Swabian population was driven from their home
communities to a central camp. This
was carried out in Werschetz on November 18, 1944 and then preceded to
be carried out everywhere. In
the Batschka it began on November 29, 1944 in the southern districts in
Palanka and several of the villages around Neusatz.
In a planned approach all of the rest of the Batschka followed
suit, with Stanischitsch the last to be effected in August 1945.
This community had a large Serbian population that spoke out
against the expulsions of the Danube Swabian population.
At the same time the actions were also begun in Syrmien and
Slavonia, so that by September 1945 no person of “German origin” was
at liberty anywhere in Yugoslavia.
In every district there was at least one Forced Labor
Camp. But those unable to
work were driven into the concentration and internment Camps that in
effect were designed to be extermination camps and often served several
districts. These
extermination camps were located at:
Banat
Guidritz
(Guduvica)
Kathreinfeld (Katarina)
Stefansfeld (Supljaja)
Molidorf (Molin)
Karlsdorf (Banatski Karlovac)
Brestowatz
(Banatski Brestovac)
Rudolfsgnad (Knicanin)
Batschka
Jarek (Backi Jarak)
Sekitsch (Sekic)
Filiopovo
Gakowa
(Gakovo)
Kruschevlje (Krusevlje)
Slavonia
Pisanitza (Pisanica)
Valpovo
Jenje
The number one rule and order in these camps was that no inmate
could leave except in the company of a guard.
All outside contacts were forbidden and to go out begging for
food was punishable by death. The
Partisans themselves called the camps, “extermination centers” and
they were mills grinding out death.
In systematic fashion in both the forced labor and concentration
camps all of the possessions of the inmates were taken away from them
except what would be necessary to clothe their naked bodies at burial.
Food was practically non-existent and as a result thousands would
die of malnutrition, disease, cold and starvation.
They would receive soup two times a day, usually with a
sprinkling of beans, peas, oats, barely or wheat cooked along with the
clear water. There was a
daily bread ration, but not always, a small piece the size of two
matchboxes. Both the bread and soup contained no salt and the soup was
without lard. The rate of
death was horrific. Every
day a hole the size of a room in a house was dug and the bodies of the
dead were sewn into rags in their clothes or naked and were thrown into
it the next day. Some
mothers accompanied all of their children to one of these mass graves,
while more often a child would be forced to toss the body of their
mother and other siblings into one of these graves, only to end up in
another one themselves. For
the Danube Swabians victims there was no cemetery or funeral of any
kind.
3. The Closing of the Camps
In the summer of 1948 all of the camps in Yugoslavia were shut
down. Those able to work
had to take on jobs. Those
unable to work could rejoin their families and find work there in order
to support themselves. Others
who were unable to find somewhere to live were sent to what was called,
“The Old Folks’ Home” in Karlsdorf-Rankovice.
This was hardly any different than the camps they had survived.
Since 1948 Karlsdorf bears the name of Rankoviecvo in honor of
the head of the OZNA who was personally responsible for the carrying out
of the liquidation of the Danube Swabians from the fall of 1944.
Karlsdorf is the last station of the cross of the Danube Swabian
minority in Yugoslavia of what was planned to be the total extermination
of all persons of German origin in the country …genocide
