The Northern Banat
"Where the lust for murder raged" 

Molidorf 

  In Molidorf a community in which a thousand Danube Swabians once lived, the Partisans established a large concentration camp in 1945.  It was one of the largest in the Banat.  Approximately nine thousand Danube Swabians, mostly women and children from various other communities in the Banat were brought here.  In the year 1946 there were four thousand deaths.  They were simply left to starve.  Many of them were abused and shot.  In 1947 Swabians inmates were still being put to death.  In January of 1947 two children aged twelve and fourteen were shot.  In May of 1947 the camp authorities killed two women from Soltur, one of whom had three children and the other four.  At the end of May in 1947 this camp was closed down.  The surviving inmates were divided up among other camps.  But even now in the resettlement of the survivors from Molidorf, the women were beaten by the Partisans along the way to the new camps.  The old and sick people who were unable to travel were simply left behind to die because there was no one to care for them. 

(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