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The Southern Banat
"A Bloodbath Without Borders"
Mramorak
Mramorak was one of the two largest
Lutheran Danube Swabian communities in
the Banat along with Franzfeld.
After
the Partisans had taken the Swabians
from Ploschitz to Kovin large numbers
were also taken in fetters from Mramorak.
These too had earlier been driven out of
their homes by the Partisans and
imprisoned. After horrendous abuse by
the Partisans, hundreds of Swabians from
Mramorak were driven on foot to the
Serbian village of Bavanischte where
they again were mistreated, beaten and
tortured and on October 20th
they were shot en masse. After that the
surviving arrested Swabian men and women
in Mramorak were taken to Kovin. All
day long they were newly tortured in
horrendous new ways and some among them
were murdered. On October 28th
thirty-seven women and teenage girls
from Mramorak were shot. Prior to their
execution they were beaten and tortured
unmercifully in the jail at Kovin and
stripped of all of their clothes because
the Partisans wanted them for their own
wives and girlfriends. They force
marched the naked women and girls,
beating and thrashing them along the way
to the place of execution, the local
dump and animal cemetery. Others had
been forced to shovel out a mass grave
for them. They, like the men, the day
before them were driven to the mass
grave awaiting them. They too had to
lie down in the grave as the men had and
then they were shot. Any who resisted
were shot on the spot and tossed down
among the other naked women and girls
who had preceded them. Among the young
girls was Susi Harich one of the most
popular girls in Mramorak. At first she
was simply shot and badly wounded to
make her suffer. She called up to her
executioners, “Shoot me in the head,”
and a Partisan stepped forward and
killed her with one shot of his pistol.
(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 |
