"Genocide Carried out by the Tito Partisans"
Österreichische Historiker-Arbeitsgemeinschaft Für Kärnten und Steiermark (Austrian Historian Working Group for Kärnten and Steiermark) Chapter one

The Mass Liquidations

Translated by Henry Fischer

     These mass shootings and massacres were not the result of the decree but occurred along with the arrival of the Red Army and the setting up of the Military Governments by the Partisans who quickly followed on their heels.  The bestial nature of these actions is hard to describe and was subject to the local situation.  The final destiny of thousands of men and women from the Danube Swabian communities is still unknown and has not seen the light day, and eye witnesses are no longer alive in the terms of the perpetrators of the genocide program while the testimony of the survivors could fill volumes. 

     Most of the mass liquidation operations occurred prior to January of 1945, and only small groups and individuals met their deaths in this way after that date.  In these later actions it was a matter of sadism rather than official policy.  A beast had been unleashed in search of victims.  Part of the process was always terror and torture. 

     An observer comments:  “The Tito Partisans thought up various ways and methods, which in their eyes were appropriate for the extermination of their victims to maximize their suffering.  For instance there was the Schichttorten-Effect.  For this purpose old and abandoned wells and mine shafts were used.  They threw in a group of men in the shaft or well and then tossed in hand grenades after them.  Then another group of men were thrown in and the process repeated itself, until the last layer, who were left wounded with no way of getting back up to the top.” 

Next: Deportations to Russia

[Published at www.dvhh.org, Sept. 2006]