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

safe. Unfortunately, as word spread around town, one student, who the teacher had failed, hired athirteen-year old lad to take him away. He was never seen alive again.What could Istvan Kuden have done? He was a Czech, who did not speak perfectHungarian and served art as a double-bass player in the theater orchestra of the HungarianReaders Circle. It might have been since living on Parhuzamos Street, in the ghetto area andbeing a hobby gardener, he refused someone a lettuce.During the first elections at the courthouse, one could look at the list of people who wereeliminated. I did not dare to look at the list, but my mother went ti see if my father and mybrother would be on it. Some one thousand names were listed, but the list was rather inaccurateand our people were not on it. The list was hung in three rooms each labelled "enemies of thepeople", "traitors" or "Fascists". Where this list is or whether it still exists at all, no one knows."In 1948, one could inquire about those who had disappeared. It128was Istvan Vukovics, later president of the Supreme Court of Vojvodina who, in 1944,announced that all those who had "disappeared" were dead. The authorities were willing tocertify the innocence of those who had been certifiably executed wrongly. During the first daysof the distribution of the certificates there was such an onslaught of relatives at the court that thepresident, fearing rebellion, stopped the distribution of rehabilitation papers. Those who did notget one then, would regret it later. Many, out of hatred for the murderers, did not ask for paperstestifying to the innocence of their relatives. Many of them paid for it, since they could notprove the innocence of those who had been executed, they were deprived of all their belongings.Among the executed people, there were many in transit; these people were seized at thestation. Those who could not certify themselves were promptly executed. It was chiefly theHungarian soldiers or deserters from the army that fell victim to their desire for freedom.APATIN - KULAIn Apatin would have been no reason for reprisals since no one was killed when theHungarians came in, yet some three hundred people were killed by the partisans. Some of themon the spot, but the majority were taken to Zombor to the notorious Kronich Palace, where afavorite means of torture was making captives run on hot coals; the name of the chief torturerwas not forgotten, Zika Laszics. Those who were burnt in this way knew that the next day theywould be shot either by the Danube or on the race course. Those who were not taken to Zomborwere taken to prison camps by the hundreds. There they died of hunger or of different diseases.Some survived, only to die from the greasy feast in their honor; when they returned to theirhome, their stomach just could not take it. That is how the number rose to three hundred.In 1941, a big celebration was held on the main square of Kula. The parish priest camewith his curate. When the chief spokesman began to abuse the Serbians, the priest left the squarein protest and hardly veiled disapproval; his curate joined him. The incident was not forgotten bythe Serbians present who on December 11 and 13, during the days of the Kula massacres; they