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Pardanj
Individual stories and the experiences
of whole families best describes what
took place here in the words of
Appollonia Schütz one of the residents:
“We
were driven out of Pardanj on April
18, 1945. My husband was kept in
Pardanj, while the children and I
along with the elderly and those
unable to work along with other
mothers and their children were
taken to Stefansfeld. We were four
hundred and fifty in number. My
sister and her daughter along with
her two children who were eighteen
months old and two and half years
old were taken to Stefansfeld with
me. My niece got typhus in August.
When we were sent to Molidorf on
September 28th we had to
leave her behind. In Molidorf we
never heard from our family members
again, neither my husband nor my
niece. (She describes the kind of
food ration they received much like
what has been described elsewhere
previously) Of the one hundred and
twenty-six persons brought to
Molidorf who were originally from
Pardanj, on September 28th
in 1945, in August of 1946 only nine
women and one man had survived of
the one hundred women and twenty-six
men.
My
sister did not want to let her
grandchildren die of hunger. She
sneaked out of the camp and traded
her clothes in neighboring villages
for food. One day she went along
with five other women and three
children who were from Stefansfeld
and went to Tova. The camp
commander became aware of this
forbidden activity and surrounded
Molidorf with sentries who awaited
the return of the women at night in
order to take them prisoner and put
them in the camp jail. The women
left on the evening of August 6th
and returned at midnight on August 8th.
The food they had traded was
immediately taken from them and they
led them away to be shot. They had
only walked about a meter along the
street, when a shot rang out, that
hit my sister. She fell to the
ground. Uttering curses the
Partisan who shot her stepped closer
to her and shot her in the stomach
with a dum-dum bullet so that her
intestines burst and became
visible. He left her just lying
there and took the other women to
the commander. My sister just lay
there and lived until 4:00am. Then
she died. While she was still alive
and whimpered with pain, a fourteen
year old Partisan stepped up to her,
scolded her, took a rock and hit her
on the head with it. Everyone was
afraid to approach the dieing
woman. I only found out what
happened at 6:00am that morning. I
immediately went to her. Even now
the young Partisan who had hit her
with the rock still stood there with
his hands on his hips, glaring down
on her and now at me. He struck me
and battered me with his rifle.
Then he led me to the camp
commander. My sister would be left
to lie in the hot sun all day, but
the commander allowed me to cover
her with a blanket.
My
brother-in-law had earlier been
taken to Cernje along with one
hundred others from Stefansfeld,
where he was shot along with
sixty-eight of those from
Stefansfeld. In Cernje, on another
occasion eighty-five persons from
Pardanj were also shot. Among them
was another one of my
brothers-in-law. My daughter who
had become ill at Stefansfeld was
later sent to Rudolfsgnad as well as
my husband. Both would die of
starvation there. My second sister
remained in Stefansfeld. Her
husband was also shot. While
attempting to cross the Romanian
frontier one of my brother’s sons
was shot by border guards. In turn,
his own son and my other brother
were also killed. Of my sister’s
family only the two small
grandchildren survived and I took
them with me when I later escaped
into Hungary and made my way with
them to Austria.”
(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 |
