PLEASE NOTE: This book contains graphic description ... - HUNSOR

members of the brigade who were from Topolya and to bring letters from them to reassure theirfamilies. Sinkovics brought a letter with the signatures of all. Now from the letter:"We want to destroy Fascism and build a new democratic state and we want to beworthy of the name of our brigade and of Marshal Tito, the most perfect partisan of peace... Letthe cowards spreading false information shake in terror. Those who, by their escape and bybesmirching the fair name of our brigade, support the Fascists. We will be there at the showdown,and woe to the traitors. We will wash this filth off the honour of the Hungarian nationwith the blood of our traitors!"However, the show-down with the traitors came about in a different way than promisedin the letter, which must have been written by the commissar. The escapees were rounded up inseveral weeks' time. Led by Istvan Varga they were taken back to the corps, which was fightingin the neighborhood of Bolmany and had already suffered losses. It was in Baranya, Bolmany,that the brigade, now three times as numerous, clashed with the detachment of the well equippedretreating German Balkan Army, marching towards Transdanubia and Budapest.The survivors created legends about their battles; evaluation is not our task:According to General Kosta Nadj there were fifty killed and one hundred and ninetywounded. The number is small if we consider later rumors, that the Serbian generals had thebrigade massacred by the German SS corps.According to other sources, in the March battles, lasting for one week, nine tenths of thebrigade was annihilated. Those who136survived were enlisted in other partisan units. Whether it happened this way or another, it is truethat the remaining soldiers were sent to other corps.At the end of 1944, and the beginning of 1945, the German Balkan Army tried to crossthe Danube first, to approach the Hungarian capital through Bacska. When they failed, theyassailed the Drava west of Eszek (Osiek), and they did cross temporarily to the left bank.But remembering the alarming news spread in Topolya, we should not forget theirattempts to cross the Danube in the beginning of 1945. Our correspondent enlisted withexceptional luck, as a clerk to a Serbian military workers' detachment in Szabadka.Our platoon was stationed on the Danube cutting an acacia forest, because, they heated thewagons with wood. We were lodged in peasant houses.One night we saw soldiers marching by, four abreast, in tattered clothes from the station.The feet of some were covered in rags speaking Hungarian. When we asked them who theywere, they said they belonged to the Petofi Brigade from Topolya. When we asked them wherethey were going. they said they were going to the front. "Without a gun," I asked one of them inwonderment. He said, ecchoing the commissar: "The Germans have guns, we have to take themfrom them!"The front line in those days was between Ilok and Sarengrad. The Germans had apowerful artillery against the Serbian trenches. In front of us, the terrain was full of landmines.The Petofi Brigade was needed to neutralize the mines. The people were driven onto the minefield at night. One could hear the sporadic explosions. At eight in the morning, a messengercame to me bringing an order that the workers' detachments should go to the Danube to pick upthe casualties. No statistics were made of the people who lost their lives there..."