Communist purges in Serbia in 1944–1945

Some contend that the killings were not planned, but were unorganised vendettas of individuals during the post-war chaos, or that those considered victims of execution instead died in battle against the Partisans.

From the beginning of the occupation, the occupying powers committed numerous war crimes against the civilian population of the region, especially against Serbs, Jews and Roma.

[17] On 17 August 1944, Josip Broz Tito proclaimed a general amnesty for Chetniks and members of the Croatian Home Guards on condition that they did not commit any crimes and join the partisans before 15 September 1944.

This amnesty, as well as the proclamation of King Peter II on 12 September 1944, that all armed formations should come under the command of Marshal Tito, led to a fall in the numbers of the Chetnik and the Croatian Home Guard.

[9] According to Milovan Đilas, before communist forces entered Belgrade, their leaders decided that followers of Serbia's former pro-Axis puppet Government of National Salvation should be liquidated immediately.

[24] The establishment of communist administration was, therefore, followed by a brutal showdown with notable participants in the cultural, political and public life of the German-occupied territory of Serbia, and also with members of the rival Chetnik resistance movement who were defeated in a civil war.

The specific circumstances under which these territories had to live during the occupation, and a mission to fully avert all adversities inflicted to our people by the occupying forces and foreign ethnic elements colonized here, requires that, in the beginning, we concentrate all power in order to mobilize the economy and carry on the war of liberation more successfully".

In the 28 October 1944 issue of Slobodna Vojvodina, the newspaper of the People's Liberation Front in Vojvodina, one member of the Regional Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia summarized the intentions suggested from above, with the obvious aim to raise spirit for revenge by exaggerations and distortions: Although we destroyed the occupying German and Hungarian hordes and drove them back to the west, we have not yet eradicated the roots of the poisonous weeds planted by them...

The hundreds of thousands of foreigners who were settled on the territories where our ancestors had cleared the forests, drained the swamps, and created the conditions necessary for civilized life.

After the entry of partisan forces into Novi Sad on 23 October 1944, by the order of general Ivan Rukavina (who was a commandant of military area of Bačka and Baranja),[clarification needed] mass arrests of respectable Serbs had begun.

Citizens who were executed included dr Miloš Petrović (former mayor), dr Obrad Milutinović (doctor and vice-president of Novi Sad municipality), Dragoljub Ristić (an industrialist), Pavle Tatić (one of the founders of Socialist Party in Novi Sad), Vojislav Matić (editor and publisher of "Nova Pošta" magazine in Serbian language), Miloš Kostić (footballer of FK Vojvodina), Svetislav Vilovski and Đurica Vlaović (members of Serbian Soko society), Milan – Peca Popović (intellectual and member of Rotary club), Jovan Begović (provincial clerk), Aleksandar Silber (economist), Pera Savić (journalist), Fedor Radić (doctor), and Gaja Gračanin (director of "Putnik" agency).

[35][better source needed] Especially tragic fate is that of pre-war mayor dr Miloš Petrović, who was creditable for elevation of monument dedicated to Svetozar Miletić that still stands in the centre of Novi Sad, and who also helped in saving lives of hundreds of Serbs who were imprisoned in concentration camp "Šarvar" during Hungarian occupation.

[46] Unlike in Banat, in Bačka there were drastic punishment of members of the Hungarian national minority, especially those found, often on the basis of witness statements, that took direct or indirect involvement in the January 1942 raid and in the suffering of the Serbian population in April 1941.

The largest number of Hungarians killed was recorded in the region of Šajkaška (towns Žabalj, Čurug and Mošorin), which were affected by the January 1942 raid.

According to the book of the deceased from January to May 1945, due to poor conditions in the camp (maltreatment, hunger and disease), 66 adults and 55 children from the age of one month to 18 years have died.

The Yugoslav partisans then established control over this village and took their reprisals out on the Rusyns and Serbs who were sympathetic towards the Hungarians, the Serbian Royal Government or for their religious views.

[30] In June 2013, members of the Serbian Parliament adopted a declaration, which condemned the massacres and application of the principle of collective guilt against Hungarians in Vojvodina at the end of the Second World War.

It was named "Federal Commission for determination of the crimes conducted by the Occupators and their helpers during World War 2" (in Serbian: Državna komisija za utvrđivanje zločina okupatora i njihovih pomagača iz Drugog svetskog rata), and it immediately started its work.

[52] This investigation was very extensive, because the newly formed government wanted to collect the best possible set of data that can be presented in a demand for war reparations from Germany (both East and West), Italy, Bulgaria and Hungary – countries responsible for the attack on Yugoslavia and violation of its sovereignty.

Even though the assessment of its results, and its methodology for collecting data (mainly through civil reports of cases) would be different today, the work of this Commission is very important to the reconstruction of events, especially those that followed shortly after the war.

The first extensive study, and also the first ever attempt to systematically analize the events that occurred between 1941 and 1948 on the territory of Serbia happened in 2001 on the initiative of the Assembly of the Autonomous province of Vojvodina (Skupština Autonomne pokrajine Vojvodine).

On 22 January 2001 in the building of the Assembly in Novi Sad, this governmental department formed a specialist group with a long name "Surveying Committee for investigation of the truth on the events that took place between 1941. until 1945. in Vojvodina" (Anketni odbor za utvrđivanje istine o događajima u periodu od 1941. do 1945. godine u Vojvodini) and this institution became a formal body of the Assembly of Autonomous province of Vojvodina.

Important step forward was the collecting of data about all known retention camps, and the victims of the period are classified by ethnic structure and also age and sex, as well as by the place of death.

[55] The representatives said (and was briefly published[53]) that in Bačka, Banat, Srem and Baranja, and also in other countries but from the territory of Vojvodina, between 1941. and 1948. a total of 86.881 civilians perished (above 40.000 Serbs, above 20.000 ethnic Germans, above 15.000 Jews, about 5.000 Hungarians, about 2.700 Croats, about 1000 Slovaks and about 3000 others[53]).

It is important to say that this is not data that summarises victims of the 1944/45 communist purges, because it does not separates specifically the circumstances of death, but it is a raw list, with documents and literature, that was intended for future examination by experts.

There is also an important statement that should be considered by the scholars of victimology, that this study showed independently that more than 12.000 inhabitants of Vojvodina, of different nationality ended up and were killed in Jasenovac and also in Banjica.

Two very large, unfortunate numbers demonstrate this: among the persons who lost their lives the percentage of women (as compared to men) was 49,90% in Jews, and about 60% in the group of the ethnic Germans.

[53] On 9 July 2009 the government of Serbia founded a "Commission for the secret graves of victims killed after September 12, 1944" (Državna komisija za tajne grobnice ubijenih posle 12. septembra 1944.

[57] The mission of the 2009 Commission was to locate and mark all secret graves in which bodies of those shot after the 1944. liberation lay, and also to exhume them, for the purpose of determining the cause and investigation of the circumstances of death.

This separate task force, that officially formed 15, December 2010 in Belgrade, is called "Hungarian–Serbian academic Joint Committee for the civilian victims during and after the Second World War in Vojvodina, 1941-1948"[59] (in Serbian: Mađarsko–Srpska Akademijska mešovita komisija;[60] in Hungarian: Magyar–Szerb Akadémiai Vegyes Bizottság[61][62]).