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Post World War II
Leidensweg
Extermination In the Yugoslavian Banat
Chapter 3: Genocide in the
Yugoslavian Banat,
translated by
Henry Fischer
South Western Banat
"Wholesale Murder"
Kowatschitza
In
Kowatschitza there was a prison operated
by the OZNA (Secret Police). Untold
numbers of Swabian men were brought to
this prison from the whole area around
Kowatschitza. Every Wednesday and
Saturday mass shootings took place. A
former prisoner in this prison relates
the following:
"Along with another man from Glogau
I was brought to the prison in
Kowatschitza. When we entered the
cell, two men were lying there, who
had been beaten unmercifully and did
not move and who obviously were no
longer alive but who would have died
in one of the two weekly mass
shootings that took place there.
The next day we had to go to work.
Every Wednesday and Saturday in the
evening the cell was opened whereby
several men from each of the cells
were led out into the hallway and
were bound or fettered. We never
heard from them again or ever saw
them, only later we did see their
clothes when we had to clear out the
attic of the prison. Each time the
men were led away, we opened the
windows of our cells and heard the
group leave in the direction of
Debeljascha. After not even half an
hour, each time we heard a salvo of
machine pistols firing and then a
large number of single shots. These
single shots we counted very
carefully. Because many inmates
were taken away to work the next
day, when the opportunity lent
itself, they spoke to one another,
so that in the evening we always
knew who had been taken away the
previous night. The total that was
estimated was usually close to the
number of single shots we had
counted during the night. The
selected group of victims was first
gunned down together by numerous
shooters and then each man was shot
in the head to make sure he was
dead. The last mass shooting took
place three weeks before my
release. On that occasion
twenty-nine men were taken from the
cells and twenty-eight of them were
taken away by truck. In the five
weeks during which the regular
Wednesday and Saturday shootings
took place about two hundred men met
their deaths. The man who had come
with me was already among the dead
eight days after we had arrived."
(Following the First World
War the Banat was divided
between Yugoslavia &
Romania, with two thirds
going to Romania & one
third annexed to Yugoslavia)
Österreichische
Historiker-Arbeitsgemeinschaft Für Kärnten und Steiermark
(Austrian Historian Working
Group for Kärnten and Steiermark)
Translated & contributed by
Henry Fischer
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