The North Eastern Banat
"The Hunt for Danube Swabians" 

Stefansfeld 

  Jakob Bohn provides this declaration with regard to the fate and destiny of the inhabitants of his home village Stefansfeld.

   “Close to the evening of September 30, 1944 the Red Army crossed over from Modasch in Romania and marched into my home village of Stefansfeld.  Serbian Partisans took over all authority and ruled according to their will.  Along with the confiscation of the land owned by the Danube Swabian population there was wholesale robbery and many cruelties were inflicted upon the people.  According to my own accounting of the two thousand eight hundred and eight inhabitants of my home village from September 30, 1944 until the closing of the camp in 1948, seven hundred and fifty-two persons were liquidated.  Six hundred and forty-six died in various camps, large numbers of who  starved to death.  Six persons chose suicide, sixty-nine were shot and twenty-three persons were and are still missing.  In addition eight persons from among the one hundred and thirty-five persons deported to Russia to forced labor in the coal mines did not survive.  That is the balance sheet for my home village.  I was among those deported to Russia. 

(He digresses with regard to the leadership of the Swabian German Cultural Association and its leadership and the fate of some of them.)  

(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