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

Hungarian retaliation was the partisan activity originating from the Banat, which had elevenHungarian victims: two policemen, seven border guards and two gendarmes.)The Hungarian court laid charge to 653 Serbian victims, while the Serbian indictment referred toonly 581 victims. The extent and ferocity of the retaliation was not diminished by this numericaldifference.The retaliation against the Hungarians started as soon as the Russian troops and the partisansarrived. They began gathering the Hungarians, most of whom were immediately executed on thespot in the most savage and ferocious of ways. Many of the more well-to-do Hungarians, whomthe Serbs disliked, were drowned in the filth of the latrine. Others were beaten, whipped to death,and many of the real or imagined adversaries of the Serbians had their finger nails torn off first.Some victims were dragged to a smithy and burnt with a hot iron. The passion for burning andsingeing naked sex organs increased the partisans thirst for inflicting more pain and passing theintervening time by literally destroying the captives piece by piece.Some of the partisans lost their patience, gave up the pleasures of torture by burning, and floggedthe backs of naked Hungarian men until their skin came off in strips. Those who died duringtorture were buried in the carrion pit.110A father had eight sons executed. The father was killed first, and his sons had to accompany himto the execution in parade step. His youngest son, thirteen years old, refused to march. Thoughbeaten savagely by the murderers, the teenage boy held out and did not do the parade step inspite of the beating. All his brothers were executed one by one. When he was led to his ownexecution, he spit at his guards, who cruelly knocked out his teeth in turn before killing him.Istvan Mate, a Store owner (born 1911), who escaped in a miraculous way, recalls those weeks:"I was living in Zsablya in October, 1944. The partisans invaded the village at 4 p.m.. PeterFekete, a farm worker with seven children, was caught and hanged on a mulberry tree in front ofthe Village Hall, and left there for three days to the horror of the public. The partisanswrongfully blamed him for collaborating with the gendarmerie.I was arrested the same day as Peter Fekete. I was locked up in the village jail. Every daytwenty to thirty people were pushed into the room. They were always questioned and tortured atnight. Peter Fekete's brother was tortured savagely; he died in jail. He said his brother's testicleshad been pulled back with a piece of wire and smashed with a hammer. We took the dead bodiesto the cemetery on carts. I had to dig graves, which were 8 meters long, 4 meters wide and morethan 2 meters deep. Fourteen cartloads of corpse, that is 150 people, were buried in each of thesepits. On the way out, I had to lay on the corpse lest I should get shot. There were thirteen orfourteen year old students among the corpse. The victims were made to undress first and werethen executed with machine guns. I recognized Andras Magyar gendarme, Vida Borcsok innkeeper,Andras Csirpak, a disabled soldier, High Sheriff Bela Bukovary, Peter Kutri, JozsefBorcsok and Janos Borcsok among the corpse; they had all been judges or members of the jury. Iknow about five mass graves in Zsablya."The following is an account of Mrs. Terez Gregus: