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

Serbian majority among the punters. Some of their privileges, which were the pride of the swiftboatmen, remained intact.Puntership is much older than infantry; it preserved far more features of ancientHungarian warfare. The Danube did not allow the use of large warships. Instead, the small boat(sajka-punt) ) was used for defence, transport and even offensive operations during the Turkishwars. The institution, whatever the crew working within it, kept its Hungarian character.Navigation had demanded special knowledge. It wanted only professional soldiers andprofessional boatmen. Chiefs had been elected from among the crew. The private soldier, if hedistinguished himself, became a corporal and a nobleman. The best corporals then becamechieftains.The treasury paid the Punters by the year. They had a number of privileges. With theadvent of modern warfare the importance of the Punter Force disappeared, but the spirit of thesefearless fighters of the rivers lived on. This inherited self-confidence has remained prevalent inthe neighborhood of Titel up to our time. The Hungarian military authorities, as well as Tito,should have taken this to account in the vendetta, when they roused and unleashed the punters'anger.Gyurgyevo and the RusynsThe subsequent investigation by Hungarian military authorities failed to recognize theconsequences of the raid affecting Sajkasgyongye. Whether there were partisans here in 1942, itwould be hard to say today. What is certain knowing the nature of the organising methods ofthe partisans, they could have had supporters. Did they deserve sanctions for that? Maybe. The1946 report from Novi Sad records two hundred and forty-four Serbian and Rusyn victims.Almost half of the four thousand and five hundred people living there were Rusyns.The majority of the 300 Hungarians, when sensing the desire for revenge , leftGyurgyevo on the heels of the retreating Hungarian forces.113For lack of Hungarians to take revenge on, the Serbians vented their anger on the Rusynpopulation. This was due to the fact that, having had no contact with the partisans during theraid, they had hardly suffered any losses.They had been fair to the Hungarian authorities from the beginning, a fairness which thelater returned. The partisans, besides massacring the few Hungarians who did not leave, theybehaved as cruelly to the Rusyns as if the later were Hungarians. They executed the headmaster,Marvojlovics, because he spoke Hungarian and supported the idea that besides knowing theconversational language, children in his classes should learn Hungarian. They cruelly torturedthe Greek Catholic priest Michael Boszormenyi. He was shoed like a horse and driven to NoviSad barefoot in that pathetic condition, only to be executed after further cruel tortures.In 1944 several hundred Rusyns fell victim to the partisans in this way as a consequenceof the 1942 raid which they had nothing to do with. The reprisal did nor spare those who showedthe slightest sympathy with the Hungarians or those who expected the Serbian RoyalGovernment, with its seat in far-off London, to return.Also doomed to die was an aged woman, Kata Babe, who operated a small boardinghouse. In 1943, she received an order from a Serbian youth to poison, on "superior orders", the