The South Eastern Banat
"Crimes of Horror"
Werschetz
In the
famous wine producing city of Werschetz
in the Banat until the end of the last
war there were twelve thousand Serbian
inhabitants and large numbers of
Hungarians and Romanians alongside of
sixteen thousand Danube Swabians. By
the end of 1944 after the Partisans took
over power after the Russian military
left individuals and groups of Danube
Swabians were liquidated by shootings,
beatings, deportations and other
measures estimated to number six
thousand victims. In addition to this,
countless Swabians from the surrounding
numerous Danube Swabian settlements in
the vicinity of the city were brought to
Werschetz to be exterminated.
Beginning on October 3, 1944 the new
police authorities carried out mass
arrests of Danube Swabian men in
Werschetz. About four hundred of these
men simply disappeared without trace.
Every night an always increasing number
of people were taken out of the jail and
taken to a cellar or another place by
the police and were beaten, shot or put
to death in some other manner. Among
these victims were also Swabian refugees
from Romania who were in flight of the
advancing Russian army, but had been
unable to leave Werschetz before the
Russian troops arrived and were taken
prisoners by the Yugoslavian Partisans.
The corpses of the victims were buried
in a variety places in the city,
including the yards of some of the
victims.
On
October 10th, 1944 there were
one hundred and thirty-five Swabians,
including a teenage boy and one woman
that were forcibly assembled by the
Partisans on one of the main streets of
the city and shot in public in broad
daylight. They had to kneel down in
rows and received a shot in the back of
their heads. Whoever refused to kneel
was thrashed and brutalized, stabbed,
had their teeth knocked in, shot several
times and only after suffering for some
time were finally killed. The woman,
Viktoria Geringer was the mother of the
teenage boy who was also put to death.
The others were vineyard owners and
workers on their way home from work
after gathering in the harvest, with
grapes piled high in their wagons when
the Partisans simply took them and
killed them. When all of them were dead
the Partisans brought other wagons and
loaded the corpses on them and took them
to the dump. But the body of the woman
had a rope tied around her neck and they
dragged her body behind the wagon
through the city. On top of the bodies
of the dead Swabians sat jubilant
Partisans and Gypsies. They did gross
things to the bodies as the wagon moved
along, made music with an accordion and
sang Partisan songs.
On
October 23rd the leading
Swabian citizens of the city, some
thirty-five of them, were taken from
their homes and put in the city jail.
They were gruesomely tortured there for
the next two days. Some of them were
already killed then. On October 25th
early in the morning they were tossed on
a truck and driven out of the city.
They disappeared forever. The well
known teacher, Nikolaus Arnold and the
lawyer Dr. Julius Kehrer were among
them.
They
also imprisoned two hundred and fifty
German prisoners of war in the city jail
at that time. They were taken away in
groups at night around 10:00pm after
being brutally abused before they were
led away with their hands bound to the
open fields around the dump. Each time
a huge ditch had been prepared. The
intended victims were placed in groups
of twenty after being stripped naked and
were forced to walk to the edge of the
pit and each one was shot in the back of
his neck. But the sounds of the
shooting could be heard in the whole
city.
On
October 25th the former
Swabian mayor Geza Frisch and five other
leading Swabian spokesmen were also shot
at the dump. These men had been
imprisoned for several days in a room in
the mayor’s office and on the evening of
the 15th they were fettered
and driven through the streets of the
city. The Partisans followed behind
them on wagons. The men had to shovel
and dig their own graves and take off
all of their clothes and stand naked
before their executioners. Then each of
them was shot in the nape of his neck.
Almost the next day Partisans could be
seen walking around in the city wearing
their clothes.
Particularly gruesome was the treatment
of countless Swabian women and young
girls of Werschetz. Hundreds of them
were dragged away by Partisans and were
never heard from again.
On
October 27, 1944 all of the remaining
Swabian men in the city were taken from
their homes and brought into the
recently designated concentration camp
for Danube Swabians. They also brought
in the Swabians from the district and
crushed them together in the camp
numbering about five thousand. The camp
consisted of five barracks, which could
not at first accommodate all of the
people. But soon the camp was empty.
In the evenings trucks arrived day after
day. Groups of one hundred men who had
been previously chosen were loaded on
the trucks and driven away into he
night. All of these people
disappeared. The routine of first
undressing and then being shot was
carried out, and all night long the
shooting could be heard in the city. As
a result the numbers in the camp
gradually declined. By December of 1944
there were only three hundred and fifty
men left of the thousands who had been
brought there. These survivors were
sent to forced labor at Guduritz doing
forestry work and later were sent to
heavy labor in Semlin where the majority
of them perished.
But
many of the Swabians also died inside
the camp as a result of abuse,
starvation, torture and individual
executions. This treatment was
especially designated for the well-to-do
and educated Swabians. Hundreds of them
were buried close to the camp. These
actions were carried out on official
orders from the highest authority that
were well aware of the atrocities taking
place.
On
November 18, 1944 after most of the men
had been liquidated, the Swabian women
and children of Werschetz were
imprisoned in the almost empty camp.
From here thousands were sent to other
camps where the women had to do heavy
labor in winter and many of them
perished. Large groups were sent to
Mitrowitz, Schuschara and other camps.
There were also large groups of men from
Weisskirchen in these labor units. The
majority of those who lived to the end
of 1945 were brought to the large
concentration camp in Rudolfsgnad. Most
of the people from Werschetz died of
hunger here in the winter of 1945 and
1946. There were only a few individual
survivors.
(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 |
