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The Southern Banat
"A Bloodbath Without Borders"
Bavanischte
From
the village of Bavanischte there were
also Danube Swabians who had been
fearfully tortured by the Partisans and
taken to Kovin in fetters in October of
1944. They suffered the same fate as
all of the other Swabians in the
district of Kovin and were treated
brutally and shot. Especially gruesome
was the fate of Swabian women and young
teenage girls. On October 29, 1944 the
Partisans put to death twelve young
girls and women from Bavanischte at the
dump outside of Kovin. They had been
imprisoned in the courthouse at Kovin
from the time of their arrival from
Bavanischte and had been there for some
time. They had been molested and abused
fearfully. On the night of October 29th
the Partisans took them out of their
place of imprisonment and stripped them
of their clothes. Most of the teenage
girls were from among the prettiest in
the area and the married women were
among the healthiest. The Partisans
wanted to rape the prettiest among them,
Julianna Dines who was eighteen years
old. But she resisted with all of her
might and strength against the attempts
the Partisans and Gypsies made to rape
her and she screamed frightfully. In
their fury because they were unable to
achieve their goal, the Partisans took a
pair of pliers, held her down and tore
out a piece of flesh just above her
vagina and she began to bleed
profusely. During that same night all
of the women and young girls were
fettered, stripped naked and driven on
foot to the place of execution and
shot. But Julianna was first shot in
the foot to make her suffer and left to
lie there beside the grave. The young
Swabian was brave to the end and called
out to the Partisans who were mostly
Gypsies to shoot her in the head. Which
one of them finally did.
(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 |
