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Template:Totallydisputed 1944-1945 Killings in Bačka were a killings of certain number of ethnic Hungarians in Bačka organised by the members of the Yugoslav Partisan Movement beetween 1944 and 1945. The estimated number of the killed persons range between 35,000-45,000.

Preface

During World War II, in 1941, Nazi Germany invaded and occupied Yugoslavia. The Vojvodina region was divided into three occupation zones: Banat was placed under direct German control, Bačka was attached to Horthy's Hungary and Syrmia was attached to the Independent State of Croatia. Since the beginning of the occupation, the occupying powers commited numerous war crimes against the civilian population of the region, especially against Serbs and Jews. Therefore, many citizens of Vojvodina belonging to all ethnic groups joined the partisan resistance movement to fight against occupation. The victims of the Axis troops were mostly civilians (44,651), while some were the fighters of the partisan resistance movement (10,634).

In the end of 1944, the Axis troops were defeated by the Soviet Red Army and the whole Vojvodina came under control of the Yugoslav partisan forces. On October 17, 1944, by the order of Josip Broz Tito, Banat, Bačka and Baranja regions were placed under military administration. About the establishment of this military government, Josip Broz Tito said the following: "The liberation of Bačka, Banat and Baranja requires the quickest possible return to normal life and the establishment of the people's democratic power in these territories. The specific circumstances under which these territories had to live during the occupation, and a mission to fully avert all adversities inflicted to our people by the occupying forces and foreign ethnic elements colonized here, requires that, in the beginning, we concentrate all power in order to mobilize the economy and carry on the war of liberation more successfully".

Events

The partisan troops in Bačka had a very strict order, they had to "show the strongest possible determination against fifth columnists, especially against Germans and Hungarians". This was due to the fact that members of these two ethnic groups showed the largest level of collaboration with the Axis authorities and commited most of the war crimes against the citizens of Vojvodina.

The term "fifth column" is applied to the subversive and resistant forces and organizations left behind by a retreating enemy. The National Committee for People's Liberation and the Red Army had agreed on the necessary cooperation in due time.

Brigadier General Ivan Rukavina was appointed commander of the military administration. He was in constant and direct contact with Tito, the supreme commander. In his first decree, he ordered his troops to "protect the national future and the South Slavic character of the territories". This sentence was meant to encourage the alteration of the existing ethnic makeup of the region, which was a results of the Axis ethnic policy of genocide and colonization during the war.

In the October 28, 1944 issue of "Slobodna Vojvodina", the newspaper of the People's Liberation Front in Vojvodina, one member of the Regional Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia summarized the intentions suggested from above: "Although we destroyed the occupying German and Hungarian hordes and drove them back to the west, we have not yet eradicated the roots of the poisonous weeds planted by them... The hundreds of thousands of foreigners who were settled on the territories where our ancestors had cleared the forests, drained the swamps, and created the conditions necessary for civilized life. These foreigners still kept shooting at our soldiers and the Soviet soldiers from the dark. They do everything they can to prevent the return to normal life, preparing, in the midst of this difficult situation, to stab us in the back again at the appropriate moment... The people feel that determined, energetic steps are needed to ensure the Yugoslav character of Bačka."

The vengeance on the Hungarians, the idea of the vendetta, was in the minds of the partisan commissars who were in constant touch with their commander, General Rukavina. During the war, families of many members of the partisan army were victims of the Axis Hungarian troops, thus, the idea was often seen among them as a personal revenge for the lost members of their families. Rukavina in turn had to inform Marshal Tito about all his decisions and all the military achievements of his subordinates.

The Yugoslav government, as soon as it got in touch with the new temporary democratic Hungarian government, declared its demand for an exchange of population. They offered forty thousand Hungarians living in Bačka for the same number of South Slavs who were to move there in their place. This demand, however, soon became obsolete not only because the Serbs and Croats who remained in Hungary did not wish to move to Tito's Yugoslavia but also because the Yugoslav authorities were well aware of the fact that the forty thousand Hungarians they offered had already been resettled in the next world.

Killings

The most probable number is beetvween 20,000 and 25,000 killed Hungarians in 1944-1945 mostly innocent civilians but including those who were proved guilty for war crimes.

Some Hungarian houses were sacked and one number of Hungarian civilians was executed and tortured. Some women and children were raped. Some men who were able to work were deported to Siberia. At one location, 15-20 Hungarian men were bound by wire. They were lined up around a straw-stack. Last two men in the right and left sides of the line were strongly bound with wire. When the ring was fixed the straw-Stack was lit. The bound men impeded each other in escape. All of them were burnt away.

In some places, the communist partisans deprived the selected Hungarian victims from all their twenty finger nails with pinchers - somewhere they heated previously the pinchers in a near smithery. It also happened that in the some smithies the farriers drove horseshoes into the naked sole of the Hungarians.

Some partisan women took part in these events too. Some Hungarian Roman catholic priests and friars who got into their hands received particular attention. In most cases they were undressed. First a cross-shaped strap was cut out from the-skin of their back. For the sake of more hardened partisan women the sexual organs of the priests were taken care. Mostly their testicles were torn by pinchers. There was such a woman in these partisan units who stamped on these naked catholic reverends, mashed their loins.

Controversies

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Literature

In Hungarian

• Illés Sándor: Sirató, Budapest 1977: Szépirodalmi Könyvkiadó
• Cseres Tibor: Vérbosszú Bácskában, Magvető Könyvkiadó – 1991, ISBN 9631418150
• Matuska Márton: A megtorlás napjai. Forum, Novi Sad 1991
• Ötvenezer magyar vértanú, tudósítás a jugoszláviai magyar Holocaustról, 1944-1992, kiadó: Nyárády István, 1992
• Mojzes Antal: Halottak napja Bajmokon 1994
• Forró Lajos: Jelöletlen tömegsírok Magyarkanizsán, Martonoson Adorjánon, Szeged 1995
• Szloboda János: Zentán történt '44-ben, Jugoszláviai Magyar Művelődési Társaság, Újvidék 1997
• Cirkl Zsuzsa–Fuderer László: Bácskai golgota – a vallásüldözés áldozatai. Logos GrafikaiMűhely, Tóthfalu 1998
• Teleki Júlia: Keresem az apám sírját, Logos GrafikaiMűhely, Tóthfalu 1999
• Papp Imre: Ez a mi kálváriánk, Újvidék 1999
• Mészáros Sándor: Holttá nyilvánítva - Délvidéki magyar fátum 1944-45. I-II , Hatodik Síp Alapítvány, Budapest, 1995-2000
• Courtois, Stéphane: A kommunizmus fekete könyve. Budapest 2001: Nagyvilág.
• Ádám István-Csorba Béla-Matuska Márton-Ternovácz István: A temerini razzia 2001
• dr. Balla Ferenc és dr. Balla István: Bezdán története. 3. köt. 2001
• A. Sajti Enikő: Impériumváltások, revízió és kisebbség: magyarok a Délvidéken 1918-1947, Napvilág Kiadó, 2004, ISBN 9639350370
• Matuska Márton: Hová tűntek Zsablyáról a magyarok? VMDP Történelmi Bizottsága, Temerin 2004

In English

• Fifty thousand Hungarian martyrs report about the Hungarian Holocaust in Jugoslavia, 1944-1992 - ed. István Nyárádi, 1992

In Serbian

• Serbia komentari 1900/1991. Beograd 1991: Zadužbina Miloša Crnjanskog.
• Karapandžić, Borivoje: Jugoslovensko krvavo proleće 1945. Titovi Katini i Gulagi. Beograd 1990: Mladost.
• Kasaš, Aleksandar: Mađari u Vojvodini 1941–1946. Novi Sad 1996: Filozofski fakultet u Novom Sadu, Odsek za istoriju.

Notes

1. Dimitrije Boarov, Politička istorija Vojvodine, Novi Sad, 2001.
2. Dragomir Jankov, Vojvodina - propadanje jednog regiona, Novi Sad, 2004.
3. Memorial site of the victims
4. Zvonimir Golubović, Racija u Južnoj Bačkoj, 1942. godine, Novi Sad, 1991.
5. Milorad Grujić, Vodič kroz Novi Sad i okolinu, Novi Sad, 2004.
6. Slobodan Ćurčić, Broj stanovnika Vojvodine, Novi Sad, 1996.
7. Jelena Popov, Vojvodina i Srbija, Veternik, 2001.
8. Dragomir Jankov (see above)
9. Article in the Hungarian wikipedia.
10. Article in the Hungarian wikipedia.
11. Article in the Hungarian wikipedia.
12. http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Aegean/3600/hungary.htm Fifthy thousand Hungarian martyrs - report about the Hungarian holocaust in Yugoslavia 1944-1992
13. http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Aegean/3600/hungary.htm Fifthy thousand Hungarian martyrs - report about the Hungarian holocaust in Yugoslavia 1944-1992
14. http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Aegean/3600/hungary.htm Fifthy thousand Hungarian martyrs - report about the Hungarian holocaust in Yugoslavia 1944-1992
15. http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Aegean/3600/hungary.htm Fifthy thousand Hungarian martyrs - report about the Hungarian holocaust in Yugoslavia 1944-1992

Films

• Temetetlen halottaink, Hungarian documentary film, 1991, directed by Siflis Zoltán

See also

• The crimes of the occupants in Vojvodina, 1941-1944

External links

• Memorial site of the victims
• Cseres Tibor's book on the web
• Fifthy thousand Hungarian martyrs - report about the Hungarian holocaust in Yugoslavia 1944-1992

• History of Serbia
• History of Vojvodina
• History of the Hungarians
• World War II crimes
• Yugoslavia during World War II