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

121PACSERAt Pacser sixteen Serbians fell in the shootings in 1941. Two hundred Hungarians had tosuffer death for it. It was the butcher, Ivo Jovkovics, who organized the administration of"justice" and the death-ceremony on the road leading to Bajmok, where three big mass graveswere dug with the help of the Third Battalion of the Eighth Brigade of Vojvodina. They picked adistrict inhabited by Hungarians and those who were found there were all driven to their graves.The Rev. Jozsef Kovacs was seized separately. In the course of an inspection, an officerof the brigade recognized Kovacs as an old schoolmate. It was not easy for him to save thepriest, as his accuser, since a church going Catholic Serb insisted that the priest was a greatenemy of the Serbs. He had often been heard glorifying the Virgin Mary, protector of theHungarians. The priest, no longer under threat of death, tried to save the villagers alreadyrounded up, but the partisans of the Third Battalion preferred to follow the butcher, IvoJovkovics. Even the old schoolmate supported his efforts, but the two hundred Hungarians had todie anyway. On their grave, the dissembling, careful, Serbian generations planted wisteria, tocover the crimes of their fathers.BAJMOKThe local Hungarian Counter Intelligence Group took thirty-five Serbians toconcentration camps, although the burgomaster pleaded their innocence with his peasantnaivete.In the middle of October 1944, the Russian troops occupied Bajmok, and the partisansappeared on their heels with people who had been released from captivity by the CounterIntelligence Agency. They brought with them an ardent desire for action, which was a desirefor reprisal. On the first night of their arrival they rounded up seventy-eight Hungarians and twoGermans. They tortured them for days at the Village Hall; pretending they were selecting some.One or two friends were saved by some Serbians through a side door of the movie house, wherethe people to be executed were kept. That is where the Pharmacist, Erno Jeszenszki, the owner ofthe pharmacy called "Guardian Angel" was held. He was known for his willingness to helpanybody who came for help. Apart from being a Hungarian, he122was found guilty of being knighted by Regent Miklos Horthy in 1941 for his heroism in WorldWar I. This was considered by Titoist and Stalinist standards, equal to being a Fascist.After long tortures, the partisans took their captives to the clay pits near the railwaybridge, where they shot their victims by the hundreds. The bloody work was easier since they didnot have to dig, just dump soil on the bodies. The owner of the previously mentioned pharmacywas thrown on the heap too.The males of the village fled to the edge of the village where they spent the night in thecornfield so they would not be found. Those who joined the workers in the field during the day