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

"I must have let about seventy people go. Who rounded up these people? A studentcalled Mile, who arbitrarily named himself police commander of a district. He went from houseto house,125questioned people, and arrested some. Well, I punished this student."Now, about the executions. It happened just before the introduction of the militaryadministration. One night I was going home to my parents' house. It was dark, like inside a sack.When I got to the second district, in front of the church, a truck drove past. The only thing Icould make out was that there were people on it. At the corner I also saw that they wereaccompanied by others wearing guns. As I got home and opened the gate I heardtratratratratratra...and I heard the moaning. I was horrified and said to myself, excuse the word,"you mother fuckers, you murderers.""The following day I met the deputy of the military commander, Matija Poljakovics, andI told him what I had seen. He told me that was the way things are, that there were a lot of peoplearrested and there still would be.""Now a few words about how they rounded up the people. There was a Serb here calledFranje Pujindzsics, we only called him Farsa. He was a nice, liberal thinking man. He wassincerely happy about the fall of Fascism and the liberation. At the time, I was already thecommissar of the military command. Poljakovics was telling me that Farsa's wife wasdesperately looking for her husband, she wondered if we had sent him somewhere. I madeinquiries and sent her to Lajos Jaramazovics, president of the local liberating committee.Jaramazovics came to me with her, said I was on the military staff, but we could get noinformation. I made inquiries with the officers of OZNA, who I only knew by the names Milos,Uros, Vanja and Csapo. At last Poljakovics got the information that Farsa had information abouta Croat. He reported that he hobnobbed too much with the Croatian Fascists. This man reportedFarsa, so there would not be any witnesses and Farsa was eliminated"."I do not know how severe the reprisal was, but I am sorry it happened. I am sorry we didthe same as Horthy's Fascists. I am sorry it was a reprisal, although the military court alreadyexisted and it should have happened through those channels. Many became victims; there weresurely some who were guilty but not so much as to deserve death. Those who survived these firstmonths, later got away with a few months in prison.""The OZNA kept twenty-five workers here; these were mostly privates from the country.The people from Szabadka knew me and thought that I was fully involved. I only put one personto death, because he had killed and robbed a lonely woman. The victim happened to be aHungarian the criminal a Serbian. The126woman hid this Serbian, who was an army deserter."It is not a secret that, behind the cemetery, where the Mackovics brick factory oncestood, there is a mass grave. We used to organize sports events there, later it was closed. Afterthe war, Tito visited Szabadka. He gave a long speech here and in the introduction he saidsomething hardly anyone understood; I understood. He said:"You have done some cleaning up here; now you'll have to go on working."