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The South Eastern Banat
"Crimes of Horror"
Karlsdorf
Three
thousand Danube Swabians lived in
Karlsdorf. It was occupied by Russian
troops on October 2, 1944. The
Partisans appeared right afterwards and
set up their Military Government. By
October 5th they were already
arresting large numbers of Swabian men
and women. Every night people were
arrested and taken away. The nights
during this period of time were
especially dangerous for young women and
girls. Russian troops were always on
the prowl in search of women to rape.
One seventy-three year old woman was the
victim of three Russian soldiers. Both
men and women were soon considering
suicide. On October 9th
there were twenty-eight men who were
locked up in a tiny room. On November 6th
their torment began as they were abused,
beaten and tortured. The most horrible
torture included knocking in a man’s
teeth, plucking out an eyeball, cutting
off their penises, breaking ribs and
other bones. As a result many of them
died and were shot later.
On the
4th and 8th of
November thirty-eight Swabians including
six women, one of whom was in the final
stages of her pregnancy were dragged off
to Uljima. On November 9th
four of them who had been brutally
tortured returned home. As for the
others, there was never any word at that
time. Later it was learned that they
had been shot in Weisskirchen on the
night of November 9th and 10th.
On
November 12th all of the men
from the age of sixteen to sixty had to
report and were imprisoned in the
deserted German air force barracks. It
was surrounded by barbed wire and now
served as a slave labor camp. But here
mistreatment and torture continued. One
of the most feared of the Partisans was
Livius Gutschu, a man who had murdered
his own father, but who boasted of it
until he himself was arrested and
disappeared. On November 18th
the Swabian women and children and all
of the others who were unable to work
from Alibunar were brought to
Karlsdorf. They were quartered in the
Swabian houses. Some two hundred men
were taken out of the camp a few days
later. They had to chop wood at
Roschiana some twenty kilometers distant
until the spring. They lived there in
earth dugouts. One of the men from
Uljma fell out of favor with the
commander who had him so badly beaten
and tortured that he collapsed. He was
forced to take off his trousers and they
tied a brick to his genitals and with
thrashings and whippings they encouraged
him to dance. In December these
brutalities intensified and many died as
a result of them.
At
year’s end, two hundred and eighty
persons from Karlsdorf were deported to
Russia. When the wood felling brigade
returned in the spring, two hundred men
were again immediately sent to Semlin.
Most of the group came from Karlsdorf
(one hundred and thirty-two),
Weisskirchen (twenty-seven), Schuschara
(fifteen), Alibunar (ten), Uljma (six)
Ilandscha (four) Jasenova (three)
Seleusch (one) and some from other
communities.
On
February 12th six hundred men
from the camp in Semlin (including
ninety from Karlsdorf) were sent to
Mitrowitz, where they joined four
hundred men from Apatin and its
vicinity. When the group was brought
back to Semlin on May 25th,
there were one hundred and twelve fewer
men who had died building the railroad
or as a result of being shot to death.
Of the ninety men from Karlsdorf,
twenty-one of them had died there. In
May of 1947 of the one hundred and
thirty-two Karlsdorf men in camps, only
sixty-six survived. When the camp in
Semlin was dismantled in September and
the surviving inmates were sent to
Mitrowitz there were still seventeen men
from Karlsdorf who were still alive.
Next March there were only four.
On
April 27, 1945 all of the remaining
Swabians in Karlsdorf were driven into
the camp. They remained there for four
weeks while their homes were being
emptied of their possessions. After a
period of four weeks the Swabians were
quartered in homes in one section of the
village. During the summer all of the
able bodied had to work. All of those
not able to work at Karlsdorf were sent
to Rudolfsgnad at the same time as the
inmates from the Kathreinfeld camp.
Some four hundred and fifty persons
arrived in Rudolfsgnad on October 30th,
including two hundred and sixty-four
persons from Karlsdorf. By April half
of them had starved to death. In March
of 1948 only eighty persons from
Karlsdorf were still alive. In the
summer of 1946 more and more people
attempted to escape to Romania and then
headed for Austria through Hungary.
Many of the people from Karlsdorf were
successful, but many others were
apprehended, captured, robbed and often
tortured and shot by the Partisan heroes
who received medals for liquidating the
“German criminals."
In mid
April of 1946 and later over a period of
time larger groups of inmates were sent
to Guduritz and Werschetz. In Guduritz
escape and flight into Romania was
unofficially tolerated so that those who
were there were able to save their
lives. Later, that is, in the spring
and summer of 1947 there were large
groups organized at Gakowa that crossed
the border into Hungary. There the
planned escapes were also unofficially
tolerated because of the money payments
involved.
Today
Karlsdorf is known as Rankovicevo named
after the commander of OZNA (Secret
Police) and became the last station
on the road of suffering of the
Yugoslavian Danube Swabians who
ended up at the camp there which
became known as the “old folks home”
describing the condition of the
survivors of the holocaust who had
nowhere else to turn or go when it
was finally over.
(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 |
