In
Vojvodina (which then included
Bačka,
Banat,
Baranja and
Syrmia regions), most of the executions were performed during Military Administration in Banat, Bačka and Baranja, between October 1944 and January 1945.
Background At the end of 1944, Axis troops were defeated by the
Red Army and the whole of Vojvodina came under the control of the Yugoslav partisan forces. On 17 October 1944, by the order of Josip Broz Tito, the Banat, Bačka and Baranja regions were placed under military administration. About the establishment of this
military government,
Josip Broz Tito said the following: "The liberation of
Bačka,
Banat and
Baranja requires the quickest possible return to normal life and the establishment of the people's democratic power in these territories. The specific circumstances under which these territories had to live during the occupation, and a mission to fully avert all adversities inflicted to our people by the occupying forces and foreign ethnic elements colonized here, requires that, in the beginning, we concentrate all power in order to mobilize the economy and carry on the war of liberation more successfully". The partisan troops in Bačka had a very strict order, they had to "show the strongest possible determination against
fifth columnists. The term "fifth column" is applied to the subversive and resistant forces and organizations left behind by a retreating enemy. The National Committee for People's Liberation and the Red Army had agreed on the necessary cooperation in due time. Brigadier General
Ivan Rukavina was appointed commander of the military administration. He was in constant and direct contact with Tito, the supreme commander. In his first decree, he ordered his troops to "protect the national future and the
South Slavic character of the territories" . In the 28 October 1944 issue of
Slobodna Vojvodina, the newspaper of the People's Liberation Front in Vojvodina, one member of the Regional Committee of the
Communist Party of Yugoslavia summarized the intentions suggested from above, with the obvious aim to raise spirit for revenge by exaggerations and distortions: Although we destroyed the occupying German and Hungarian hordes and drove them back to the west, we have not yet eradicated the roots of the poisonous weeds planted by them... The hundreds of thousands of foreigners who were settled on the territories where our
ancestors had cleared the forests,
drained the swamps, and created the conditions necessary for civilized life. These foreigners still kept shooting at our soldiers and the
Soviet soldiers from the dark. They do everything they can to prevent the return to normal life, preparing, in the midst of this difficult situation, to stab us in the back again at the appropriate moment... The people feel that determined, energetic steps are needed to ensure the Yugoslav character of Bačka.
Ethnic composition of victims Germans (Danube Swabians) The estimated number range of Germans victims in Vojvodina is between 17,000 and 59,335. According to Friedrich Binder, the total number of the German victims in Yugoslavia was 56,736, of which 240 died while escaping in October 1944, 8,049 were executed by the Yugoslav partisans and 48,447 died in prison camps from starvation, illness and in the coldness. Serbian State commission formed in 2009 established the list of 27.367 German victims in total. and 200,000 were left after the withdrawal of Nazi forces. As a consequence of the World War II events in Yugoslavia, the collaboration with Nazi forces and committed war crimes of the German community the Yugoslav Communist government took a reprisals on ethnic citizens of German origin in Yugoslavia: they had their citizenship revoked, their belongings were taken by force, and they were forced to share their houses with ethnic Serb, Montenegrin, Croat and Macedonian refugees from other parts of Yugoslavia who were colonized in Vojvodina (houses of these refugees in other parts of Yugoslavia were mostly destroyed by German army during World War II). Between 1944 and 1946, a prison camp system was established for all Vojvodina citizens of German origin in almost all settlements where they lived (see also:
List of concentration and internment camps, Yugoslavia). In those camps, ethnic Germans were used as slave labor, they were tortured, beaten, and left to die from preventable illnesses and starvation. Some members of the German community were executed by Yugoslav Partisans in those camps. Yugoslav Partisans handed over some of the ethnic Germans to Soviet Red Army, who then took them to Siberia and used them for work in mines as slave labor. Some members of ethnic Germans of Vojvodina were expelled to Germany or Austria. File:Gakovo Memorial1.jpg|The German victims' memorial in
Gakovo. Image:Rudolfsgnad.jpg|The German victims' memorial at the edge of the old German
graveyard in
Knićanin, dedicated to those who died of "hunger, disease, and cold", according to the sign. File:Bački Jarak, post-WW2 memorial.jpg|The German victims' memorial in
Bački Jarak.
Serbs After king Peter's speech via
BBC on 12 September 1944, those Chetniks who didn't join Partisans became effectively outlaws. In time of the king's speech, Chetniks and Partisans were engaged in
Battle of Jelova Gora, which ended with serious Chetnik defeat. Mihailović with his party fled to
Bosnia, while smaller Chetnik groups remained in Serbia, hoping that
Red Army would accept them as allies. When this did not materialize, those groups, joined by former Serbian State Guard, began retreat toward Bosnia through
Sandžak, on flanks of retreating German
Army Group E from
Greece. On their route through Sandžak, Chetniks and Germans were harassed by Partisans and air raids from Allied Balkan Air Force. The number of the Serb victims in Vojvodina is estimated at about 23,000–24,000 (According to the professor Dragoljub Živković, 47,000 ethnic Serbs were killed in Vojvodina between 1941 and 1948. About half of the Serb victims were killed by occupational forces and the other half of them were executed by post-war communist authorities). They were buried into two mass graves, which were discovered in 1991 during communal works in that area. After the entry of partisan forces into Novi Sad on 23 October 1944, by the order of general
Ivan Rukavina (who was a commandant of military area of Bačka and Baranja), mass arrests of respectable Serbs had begun. They mostly were reputable and rich householders, industrialists and intellectuals, who were seen as a possible threat for the new communist authorities.
Hungarians cemetery, elevated for the 50th anniversary of the executions (1994). Behind: names of victims. Various sources provide very different numbers of Hungarians executed in Vojvodina at that time.
"The Book of Evidence of Killed War Criminals in 1944/1945" published in Yugoslavia states that a total of 1,686 people were executed in Bačka of which approximately 1,000 people were presumed to be Hungarians. However, the estimation of historian Kasaš tells 5,000 executed Hungarians. According to other estimations, the number range of the executed Hungarians in Vojvodina may be between 40,000 and 50,000. Some sources claim that the most probable number of the executed Hungarians in Vojvodina was between 20,000 and 25,000, while others claim that it is about 35,000 (Cseres Tibor gives an exact estimate of 34,491 executed people). Some Hungarian
houses were
sacked and a number of Hungarian civilians were executed and
tortured. Some women and children were
raped. Some men who were able to work were
deported to
Siberia. People of Hungarian nationality are third in terms of the number of dead after the liberation, according to the 2014 data from Serbian state commission. In 2014 there were 6,112 registered persons (with 300
potential duplicate names), of which 589 are
alleged to have disappeared (some of whom
possibly fled to Hungary) and 279 died in camps. Unlike in
Banat, in
Bačka there were drastic punishment of members of the Hungarian national minority, especially those found, often on the basis of witness statements, that took direct or indirect involvement in the
January 1942 raid and in the suffering of the Serbian population in April 1941. Members of
Arrow Cross Party were especially targeted, as well as members of collaborationist apparatus, leadership of the DMKSZ (
Cultural Union of the Hungarians of the Southern Territories that was also proclaimed to be a fascist organization), but also and others that were considered to fall under the category of associates of the occupiers. The largest number of people of Hungarian ethnicity died after the liberation of Vojvodina was recorded in places where, during the occupation, the Hungarian army and local Hungarians participated in mass crimes against the
Serbian,
Jewish and
Roma population. The largest number of Hungarians killed was recorded in the region of
Šajkaška (towns
Žabalj,
Čurug and
Mošorin), which were affected by the January 1942 raid. The attitude towards the Hungarians began to change from November 1944. The military administration of Banat, Bačka and Baranja warned that in some cases, especially in Bačka, mistakes were made and that the treatment of Germans was better than the Hungarians. In its instructions, it is pointed out that only those Hungarians who committed or incited crimes against the Slovene population were to be detained in the camps, and that Hungarians who did not fall into the category of war criminals should be released from camps. These guidelines are not accepted in all places with approval, especially in the Šajkaška region. In January and February 1945, some residents of Čurug and Mošorin demanded that all Germans and Hungarians should move out of these places, because their co-existence is impossible after events during the war. Almost the entire Hungarian population of Šajkaška was expelled and the largest number of detained in camps in
Bački Jarak,
Gajdobra and
Mladenovo. Part was sent to
Srem as a labor force in the preparation of the partisans for the breakthrough of the
Syrmian Front and in repairing of the
Belgrade-
Zagreb railway. People detained in Bački Jarak were used as labor force for agricultural works. According to the book of the deceased from January to May 1945, due to poor conditions in the camp (maltreatment, hunger and disease), 66 adults and 55 children from the age of one month to 18 years have died. Nevertheless, the Hungarian population was accepted into partisans ranks. At the time of these events, the 15th Vojvodina Shock Brigade "Sándor Petőfi" was formed from the Hungarians from area of
Bačka Topola and
Sombor. About ten thousand of Vojvodina Hungarians took part in the final operations for the liberation of Yugoslavia.
Rusyns Some members of Rusyn (Ruthenian) population in Đurđevo were also targeted by partisan forces in 1944. According to Hungarian author Cseres, the majority of the Hungarian population of this village left with the retreating Hungarian army. The Yugoslav partisans then established control over this village and took their reprisals out on the Rusyns and Serbs who were sympathetic towards the Hungarians, the Serbian Royal Government or for their religious views. Several hundred Rusyns were executed and some prominent figures tortured. Serbian State commission formed in 2009 established the list of 40 Rusyn victims in total. ==Aftermath==