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The Northern Banat
"Where the lust for murder raged"
Kikinda
The
northern Yugoslavian Banat is the site
of Kikinda (Gross Kikinda). There were
twenty thousand inhabitants in the city,
of whom about one third were Danube
Swabians. The rest of the population
was Hungarian and Serbian. In the
vicinity of the city there were numerous
communities with Danube Swabian
inhabitants. Very close to the city was
Nakovo an entirely Danube Swabian
village with a population of five
thousand. To the east were the Swabian
villages of Heufeld and Mastort. In the
north east were the so-called “Welsh
Villages”: St. Hubert, Scharlevil (Charlesville)
and Soltur. Their ancestors had been
French. They originated in Alsace and
Lorraine and had emigrated to the Banat
about two hundred years before in the
time of Maria Theresia along with the
German settlers to resettle the former
Turkish and now depopulated Banat. They
lived in harmony with their Swabian
neighbors and over the years they
assimilated with them and became German
speaking. At the beginning of October
1944 after the Russians marched into the
Banat from Romania they handed over the
control of the Banat to the Partisans
and Communists and all of what these
“French Swabians” had was also taken
away from them. They were driven from
their homes and property and in long
columns were dragged to Kikinda and from
there to various concentration camps
where they were exterminated.
Rose Mularczyk from Heufeld reports:
“On
Octbober 20th at
mid-night we were taken from our
beds by Serbian Partisans. There
were eighty-two men and twenty-two
women. We were imprisoned in the
community center overnight. The
next day we were forced to walk to
St. Hubert. The men in the group
were beaten along the way. The
night of that same day we left St.
Hubert for Kikinda. We were
imprisoned there in the courthouse
and all of the women were placed in
one small cell. On the 22nd
of October we were led to the Milk
Hall. All night long we were
threatened and abused by two
Russians. For five days we received
hardly any food. On November 2nd
the Partisans brought in another
group of men and women, about one
hundred in all from our village of
Heufeld.
On
November 3rd I was an
eye-witness of the first slaughter
of a large group of men. In the
past individuals had been killed
individually. This group of
twenty-two men was brutally
murdered and two of them were from
our neighboring village of Mastort.
The men were first stripped naked,
forced to lie down and their hands
were tied behind their backs. Then
all of them were thrashed with
ox-hide whips. After this torture,
they cut pieces of flesh from their
backs, and others had their noses,
tongues, ears and male parts cut
off. Their eyes were poked out and
all through this they were whipped
and thrashed at the same time. They
were also hit with pipes. At this
time I was with another prisoner in
the ground floor cell of the Milk
House and I could witness all of
this. The prisoners screamed and
writhed in pain. This lasted for
about an hour. The screaming died
down until there was only silence.
The next day when we crossed the
courtyard it was bathed in blood and
tongues, ears, eyes and male parts
lay everywhere.
The
following day all of the married and
single young women were force to do
labor. At the train station we
cleaned the bricks and loaded heavy
stones.
Around November 10th the
Partisans and Russians brought in a
transport of two hundred and eighty
prisoners of war. All of them were
Germans, except for six Italians and
two Hungarians. These soldiers
could no longer walk. They were in
rags and many were ill. I heard one
of the Russian guards who had
accompanied the prisoners tell one
of the Partisans that the prisoners
had had no food or water for six
days. If anyone bent to drink water
in a puddle he was immediately shot
on the spot. In Kikinda they did
not receive any food or water, but
were packed into the cellar. The
prisoners were left there for three
days, with no food or water and were
abused and mistreated in all kinds
of ways I do not want to relate.
Then they were taken out of the
cellar and led away. Most of them
were unable to walk and like animal
carcasses they were tossed on wagons
and driven away. The column set out
in the direction of Schindanger and
from there we later heard the
shooting. Later we learned that
they had all been shot at
Schindanger and were buried there in
a mass grave.
I
along with the other women and young
girls were given the task of house
cleaning and we were somewhat freer
than the others and I always tried
to locate any of the Heufeld
prisoners who might be there and did
find some of my relatives and bring
them water. But one could only do
very little to ease their pain,
through the constant mistreatment
they became apathetic and depressed
and most had been beaten beyond
recognition. One man went around on
all fours and bellowed like a dog.
About eight days after the prisoners
of war were shot, it was on a
Friday, they began to murder Swabian
men. The Partisans announced that
all those men who were sick were to
report to the so-called camp
“hospital” and be looked after.
After the sick men reported in they
had to stand behind the Milk Hall in
the courtyard, forced to strip from
their clothes and were slaughtered
on the spot. We could hear the
screams of the victims from inside
of the Milk Hall where we were
working. The women received some
food but the men got nothing.
Later, additional women were
brought to the Milk Hall from
Kikinda and neighboring
villages. Civilians were
not allowed to enter the Milk
Hall and any who dared to
approach the barbed wire fence
wer
e shot
down.
On
Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays there
were always large numbers of men and
women who were slaughtered. When
one passed through the courtyard
there was nothing but blood, eyes,
ears, tongues, noses, etc. It was
horrible. Monday, Tuesday,
Wednesday and Thursday were used to
refill the camp with prisoners,
people who were driven to Kikinda
from the surrounding countryside.
On Fridays the slaughter began
again. Later, I could not see the
"actions" but I could hear them.
The screams of the victims and the
mirth and frivolity of the Partisans
who thought it was all in good fun.
Often men were forced to kneel
together in threes, and were shot in
the nape of the neck and fell in a
pile. A Swabian woman who was from
Mokrin was married to a Russian but
still imprisoned with us. One time
she was able to swipe a potato and a
Partisan saw her and thrashed her
and all of the rest of us had to
watch. The woman was then placed in
the cellar with the men. She was
bound together with several men and
they were forced to lie on the
floor. The Partisans stomped all
over them. Then each person had
their hands tied to their feet and
they had to rise and sit down in
exercise fashion. Most of them
just lay there. They simply could
not go on. Later, all of them were
taken away including the woman in
the direction of Schindanger and
then again we heard the shooting.
Until the end of November I worked
in the Partisan’s kitchen, and then
along with nineteen other women we
were sent to work in the city. Six
of us, including myself were taken
to work in a store. We had to sort
clothes. The other women had to go
washing clothes, and most of them
had belonged to the murdered Swabian
men. Four days later we had to go
to the store again and were no
longer allowed back into the camp at
night, and so we slept in work
place. On one night, an automobile
came and brought clothing. The
clothes were bloodied and there were
bullet holes in all of them. The
cassock of a priest (Father Adam of
St. Hubert) was among them. In the
evening we had to pile up clothes in
one of the rooms, and then we could
see that the rest of the rooms were
piled ceiling high in clothes. The
next day we had to take the clothing
again to the cellar for sorting. We
also found clothing of acquaintances
from our villages who had
disappeared and of whom there was no
trace. I found the clothing of our
schoolmaster. His clothes were
pierced like a sieve and bloody, a
sign that he had been whipped and
tortured. The next day we had to
wash and iron the clothes and some
of the women found items belonging
to their husbands and relatives.
In
the camp at Kikinda there was a
young girl from Charleville. She
was assigned to work in the office
and had to record the names of all
the men brought to the camp who were
murdered or had died otherwise.
Eventually she was sent into the
camp because did not want to marry
one of the Serbian Partisans. He
denounced her and she was to be
shot. She had to write her own
death sentence. She was imprisoned
in the cellar and the door was
nailed shut. That was always the
case for those who had been
sentenced to death. Because of all
she had seen and heard she lost her
nerve and she became hysterical.
The political commissar of Kikinda
of whom the girl was quite fond
spoke against the action taken by
the other Partisan and the girl was
released from solitary confinement.
She was then deported to slave labor
in Russia with many others.
On
December 26th we
convinced the Partisans to let us go
home to get some more clothes for
the winter. On the 27th
of December at 3:00 am we were
loaded on cattle cars and sent to
Russia to forced labor. For many of
us it was a release from an
intolerable situation…”
The
largest extermination camp in the region
was in the city of Kikinda located in
the east end of the community, centered
in the buildings associated with the
Milk Hall. Countless numbers of
Swabians, both men and women perished or
were killed here. The first to be
driven into the camp by the Partisans
were the Swabian men, women and children
of Kikinda who were thrown out of their
homes. They took everything from them
while others took up residence in their
homes and shared their possessions with
one another. The Swabians were killed
one after the other at the camp.
Whenever they were in the mood the
Partisans would select one hundred
Swabians and take them out of the camp
and kill them. Very often the Partisans
tortured and abused their selected
victims, then beat them to death, or
used knives and butchered them like
pigs, or shot large groups of them. The
first mass shooting took place here on
October 8th, 1944 when
twenty-eight were killed that day.
Shootings followed day after day. The
first to be liquidated were the
“leading” Swabians in the region. The
parish priest Michael Rotten of Kikinda
was among them. He had been shot in the
early days of Partisan rule.
(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 |
