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South Western Banat
"Wholesale Murder"
Glogau
In the
earliest days of Partisan rule numerous
Danube Swabian men were arrested and
taken away to Sefkerin or Kowatschitza.
Many of them were shot in a field along
the way. An eyewitness reports:
“In
the second half of October (1944) I
was taken to the town hall along
with a friend and we were
imprisoned. As we entered our cell,
we found six other prisoners of whom
some were badly beaten. One of them
had his hand cut off. Among these
men there was Anton Gloeckner from
St. Georgen and a man from
Ernsthausen by the name of Rotten.
I was released with two others but
the others were sent to Sefkerin on
foot. Not far from out of town the
Partisan guard took them to a field
and shot them with his machine
pistol. One of the men went down
before he was hit and feigned
death. When he noticed the guard
was approaching his victims he saw
that he shot each man in the head
and placed his own arm over his head
and when the Partisan shot him and
moved on, the wound was lodged in
his protecting arm and had grazed
his cheek and outer ear.
As
the sentry left, the man stood up
and tried to stop the bleeding and
thought of going to the village and
go into hiding and let his wound
heal. As he came to the end of the
field a woman Partisan who was
without any weapon came along the
path and asked what had happened to
him. He ignored her and rested
under a tree and waited for the
Partisan to leave. When the
Partisan was out of sight he
gathered together the last of his
strength and was able to reach a
house at the outskirts of the
village. He was hidden in the house
and a doctor came secretly. A few
days later he was arrested again and
taken to the prison camp operated by
the Secret Police in Kowatschitza.”
On
October 30th the Partisans
arrested and apprehended forty-six
persons including the local priest,
Knappe. Their hands were bound and they
were taken to a nearby hill close to the
village. There they had to strip
naked. At the intervention of some of
the local Serbs three of the Swabians
were allowed to return home, but the
others and the priest were shot. But
before they were shot they had to dig
their own graves.
Many of
the men from Glogau worked at the
airport in Opovo. One of the
liquidation commando brigades arrived on
October 30th in many of the
Banat villages in the area to carry out
mass extermination actions against the
Danube Swabian population. They also
put in an appearance at the airport.
The men who came from various
communities in the area were asked
individually who they were (what
nationality), and any who responded that
they were Swabians were immediately set
aside and shot. Because of knowing
that, some of the Swabians who spoke
good Serbian or Romanian pretended not
to be Swabians and got away with it. In
total there were one hundred and
eighty-three men from Glogau who were
shot in the fall of 1944.
A man
from Betscherek who had joined the
evacuation and then changed his mind
reports the following:
"From the 4th to the 7th
of October 1944 I hid out in Glogau
which is close to Pantschowa and I
was a civilian at the time. While I
was in hiding I learned that the
local officials indicated they would
provide documentation to anyone who
was going back to their home
community. On October 7th
I went to the town office in Glogau.
There without a word I was arrested
and locked up. In prison I found
three other Swabians who had been
arrested just like me. In the
afternoon we were all brought to
Sefkerin on foot where we met
another twelve men at the school.
At our first sight of the twelve men
their appearance was almost
grotesque from the beatings they had
obviously suffered. They had been
imprisoned here for several days and
every local revenge seeking Serbian
civilian could work out their rage
on the twelve victims.
On
October 8th 1944 the
civilian population was ordered to
deliver up oats and grain. The
Serbian farmers brought wheat and
maize and we had to unload the
wagons. We carried sacks weighing
sixty to seventy kilograms from
early morning until late at night
and for that we received gruesome
beatings rather than any food.
Every civilian and even the night
watchman could beat us as often and
as long as they wanted. Some of us
still had good shoes, but these were
now taken away from us. On October
9th 1944 we had the same
work assignment and received more
beatings than the day before. In
these two days we once received
fifty grams of bread. In the
evening around 7:00pm three armed
Partisans came and ordered five of
us to come with them. We were led
to the forest which is about two
miles distant from the village if
Sekferin. We were not forbidden to
speak, and the Partisans watched us
closely, so that none of us could
escape in the darkness. We were
never told but we knew what their
goal was. We were to be shot.
My
friend Johann Schab from Lazarfeld
and I spoke to one another along the
way and came to the decision that at
the first opportunity we saw we
would escape. In the woods before
us an armed Partisan with a machine
pistol indicated where he wanted us
to stand to be shot. We were forced
to walk up path deep into the
forest. Two other armed Partisans
with rifles supervised preparing
us. Even though we were deathly
afraid we asked for the reason for
our execution but were quickly
silenced by blows to our heads and
were pushed around. Outside of
swearing and scoldings there was no
answer from them. So we stood
pressed close to one another
preparing ourselves to be shot. As
the Partisan with the machine pistol
walked behind us to shoot us in the
back, my friend Schab pushed me
aside with his left hand and both us
made a run for it, and then the
others followed. In the blinking of
an eye there was the crack of the
first salvo of bullets. I saw
another escapee beside me to my left
and then he sank to the ground and
was dead.
The
Partisans shot, screamed and ran
after us, but the darkness and the
density of the forest saved us. I
ran scared to death and under the
power of the last of my strength as
best as I could. After three or
four hundred meters I simply
collapsed, I had no idea of what had
become of my friend Schab, he had
gone off in another direction into
the forest. The Partisans were
still shooting and screaming. While
I tried to move on in order to get
away the shots and curses of the
Partisans faded away. I found
myself standing at the edge of the
forest by the Temes River. In order
to save myself from torture and
death by the Partisans, I swam
across the river without even
thinking about it beforehand, and
then made my way to Konigsdorf. I
spent the night out in the open
because I was afraid to go near the
houses because the Partisans were
everywhere."
(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 |
