REMEMBRANCE IN TIME - Index of

VAE VICTIS!
RETALIATION, REVENGE AND COLLECTIVE
PUNISHMENT (THE HUNGARIAN MINORITY
BETWEEN 1944 AND 1948
Gábor VINCZE 1
The 20th century brought much suffer for the Hungarians of the Carpathian Basin. After
the Great War (1914-18), the treaty of Trianon, due to which one third of the Hungarian
people were tossed to be minority, and the further ordeals of the Second World War the
Hungarians suffered even more. The most serious plague blew again the Hungarian
minorities of the Carpathian Basin. 2
Voyvodina/ In Hungarian Southland
In autumn-winter of 1944 the Hungarian minority of 510.000 suffered the most. To
represent the direct antecedents it is worth to get back to the summer of 1941. When in the
beginning of April, 1941 the former Yugoslavia broke up (Croatia came out), Hungary
occupied the Southern part of the Duna-Tisza Köze region (in Hungarian language Bácska,
in Serbian language Voyvodina). In that territory the one third of the population was
Hungarian, one third of them were German, and one third was Serbian. From the summer
of 1941 a strong Serbian partisan movement was formed, directed by the Yugoslavian
Communist Party lead by Tito. In January, 1942, the Hungarian Authorities tried to end the
murders and the sabotage-actions by clean-ups and razzias near Titel and in Novi Sad.
However, not only communist partisans or their supporters became the victims of these
actions, but innocent Serbian and Jewish civils, too (the number of victims was about
3.300). We have to mention that the people, responsible for the massacre were accused
and sentenced – during the WWII! -, and the families of the victims were paid
compensation.
Just as the partisan-army lead by Tito marched in Voyvodina in October of 1944, the
cruel revenge by the Serbians was inevitable. The majority of the massacres were
executed during the military administration – introduced on the 17th of October
according to the order of Tito. The murders were mostly executed by the troops of the
feared communist political police – the OZNA, and sometimes by the corps of the
partisan-army. In many cases the local vindictive Serbian citizens were the violators.
Mostly they killed the people according to completed lists, but in several cases (mainly
1 Emlekpont Museum, Hódmezıvásárhely, Hungary.
2 For extensional reasons I don’t detail the German minority’s fate.