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

victorious powers would leave a chair empty in the course of future peace talks. Churchill andhis victorious allies forgot all about this promise, Churchill does not even mention it in hismemoirs. At the peace talks, only the accusations of the enemy were listened to, the muchgraver atrocities committed against the Hungarians remained unheard.On April 11, 1941, the Hungarian troops crossed the Yugoslav-Hungarian border andreoccupied the territory of the former Bacska in a few days without much resistance, as theYugoslav regular army had been forced to withdraw by the military operations of the Germanarmy. After that, they still had to take into account the guerilla actions of the still royalistSerbian chetnik organisations. These actions started as soon as the reoccupation began. Forexample, in Zombor, the Chetniks left 40-50 youths hiding in attics, who started to shoot at thesoldiers after dark, who were walking around the town unsuspectingly. The Hungarian soldierswho were not used to ambushes started to shoot at random in sudden panic. Walking in thestreets remained very unsafe for Hungarian soldiers garrisoned in some mostly Serbian towns inVojvodina, as they would always risk becoming targets for snipers. In these circumstances, thenumber of partisans killed after the Hungarian occupation can be considered very low.According to Yugoslavian data (Zlocim okupatore u Vojvodini, Novi Sad, 1946), the totalnumber of deaths during the Hungarian occupation was 2142 persons. The majority of thesepeople died in armed resistance during guerilla fights, others, mostly Serbian chetniks, andnumerous Hungarian communists, were executed after summary justice.The local population was hostile towards the Serbs settled in 1918 in order to transformthe ethnic situation by force, and supported their resettlement to their original dwelling place,Southern Serbia. In their place, 13,200 Hungarians (Szekelys) from Rumania (Bukovina) weresettled in 1941.The Yugoslav Communist Party soon organized acts of sabotage and terror. In the"Lenin-letter" published at the beginning of July 1942, they described in detail how to carry outarson, poison the livestock, blow up railways, etc. As a consequence, the court of the Hungariangeneral staff condemned 93 people to death at summary courts within one and a half months forsabotage, arson and murderous attacks resulting in 56 deaths. 64 of those condemned wereexecuted, but those who participated only in the organization and did not actually commit acrime, got away with a few years of imprisonment.In spite of the sentences of summary courts, the organized16activities of Serbian partisans continued in the Southern parts of Vojvodina, this fact worried theHungarian authorities. Tension was increased by the fact that numerous criminals joined theranks of the Hungarian national guard under the pretext of pursuing the chetnik gangs. Thesecriminals were seeking illicit profits in the chaotic situation and they kept even the Hungarianpopulation in constant fear. On January 12, 1942, the Hungarian military staff reported to theMinister of the Interior that the partisans had concentrated their forces in Novi Sad and that araid was necessary. On January 21, they put up notices in the streets of Novi Sad, announcing ageneral raid. On the first day, around 25 to 30 chetniks were shot to death. Lieutenant-GeneralFerenc Feketehalmi-Czeydner, the leader of the raid, found the level of Hungarian retaliationinsufficient. On the news of such strict proceedings, chief of staff Ferenc Szombathelyi orderedthat the atrocities cease immediately, they did not cease for another two days. Members of thenational guard went from house to house demanding documents, arresting suspicious