2011-11-29 Swabian Germans: The Others of Communist Yugoslavia and the Case of the FYROM Slavs against Greece

Swabian Germans: The Others of Communist Yugoslavia and the Case of the FYROM Slavs against Greece

12/29/2011

While Yugoslavia was occupied by the axis forces, the AVNOJ met on November 26, 1942 at Bihać (First Session), in northwest of Bosnia under Josip Broz Tito, in the hope of gaining political legitimacy, proclaimed support for:

1.democracy;

2.the rights of ethnic minorities;

3.the inviolability of private property; and

4.freedom of individual economic initiative for the different groups.

Despite the above statements, the new class had to efface many of the societal ills, as the new regime had perceived them. In the communist Yugoslavia, the ills were the fault of the “Others” who were a). The Swabian Germans; b).The Pre-War II Yugoslavism (Unitarism, Centralism, Statism, and Bureaucratism); and c). The Soviet-style socialism.

Historical Background– Swabian Germans

The incursions of the Huns in Europe forced waves of Slavs and Germans during the 4th century to migrate. Germans migrated to the Danube and the Mediterranean as early as the year 375, but the Germans of Yugoslavia migrated to their respective areas approximately 800 years ago. Between the time of their migration to Yugoslavia and WW I the Swabian Germans lived in Austro-Hungarian held territories, as Vojvodina, Croatia, Slovenia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The loss of Austro-Hungarian territories to the newly formed Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes a.k.a. Yugoslavia, Romania, and Hungary forced the Swabian Germans to separate into three different chauvinistic countries as Hungary (700,000), Yugoslavia (550,000), and Romania (350,000). The new states were not very understanding of the fact that these people did not have any contact with Germany over the centuries, making them the scapegoat that paid for the Third Reich Germans’ brutality in the eastern occupied countries.

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AVNOJ and the Swabian Germans

On21 Nov. 1943 (Second Session),the AVNOJ Committee made sure that the first “Others” had to be eliminated issuing a proclamation ‘On the Deprivation of Civil Rights’ Act, depriving the people of German ancestry (Swabian Germans) of ALL human rights, including the right to live! The above Act formed the legal basis for the treatment of the Germans in Yugoslavia, including the creation of many labor and concentration camps:1.All persons of German ethnicity living in Yugoslavia automatically lose their Yugoslavian citizenship as well as all civil rights.2.The entire movable and immovable possessions of all persons of German ethnicity are confiscated by the state and henceforth its property.3.Persons of German ethnicity are allowed neither to claim, or exercise any rights, nor to use courts or other institutions for their personal or legal protection.

Nevertheless, the above decision, as we saw, did not apply to all citizens of the new Yugoslavia. People that committed no crime against the state, Swabian Germans, by now 650,000 of them, the largest non-Slavic ethnic group in prewar Yugoslavia, were denied and deprived of all human rights, including the right to life

. The result was that in 1944, Germans were stripped off of their Yugoslavian citizenship; their property was confiscated also. Their property was to be distributed among Tito's rough, illiterate fighters who were his main support. Approximately 27,000 to 37,000 were deported to the Soviet Union, and others were placed into concentration camps, which had been made from Swabian villages. The result of this deed was that 35,000 to 45,000 children were separated from their parents. This certainly is α reminder of the Greek children kidnapped from Greece a few years later.? Thousands died in the camps from starvation, malnutrition, and disease, but thousands as well escaped and went to Germany. The camps were finally closed in 1948, and from 1952 to 1955, the survivors were resettled in Germany by the International Red Cross. Only ten per cent of the pre-war German population remained in Yugoslavia.

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One of the Swabian villages that all Greeks are very familiar with is Bulkes

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. Settled by German colonists in 1786, the inhabitants of the town never thought that one day their ancestors would be forced to join murderous Waffen SS units, which did not operate in Yugoslavia, but in German occupied territories of the USSR.

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Subsequently, in retaliation of their in voluntary “participation” to the Waffen SS that operated in territories of the USSR and not in Yugoslavia, they were tortured, mutilated, killed, uprooted and dispersed to the four corners of the Earth. These horrendous actions took place under the auspices of an organization that declared democracy, rights of ethnic minorities, the inviolability of private property, and freedom of individual economic initiative for the different groups. Then it turned around giving orders of their (Swabian German) elimination. One must have in mind that not only men of Swabian extract underwent such inhumane indiscriminate retribution, but also children, women, and old people, as well as the handicap.

Paedomazoma or the Kidnapping of Greek Children

After the elimination of the Swabian Germans from Bulkes (present day Bački Maglić) the empty town became the most known town inhabited by Greek communists of the “Democratic Army” and their families and some of the kidnapped Greek children (for details see Dominique Eudes

The Kapetanios

and Milan Ristović,

Long Return Home, Children Refugees from Greece in Yugoslavia 1948-1960)

.Dominique Eudes in the chapter “The Greek Children” (The Kapetanios) mentions that according to the Red Cross reports, there were 23,693 of them: 10,000 in Yugoslavia, 3,801 in Rumania, 3,800 in Hungary, 2,660 in Bulgaria, 2,235 in Czechoslovakia and 2000 in Albania.

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Ristović on the other hand indicates that, "In January of 1950 there were 2000 children in Bulgaria, 3,500 in Czechoslovakia, 3,000 in Hungary, 500 in Poland, 6,500 in Romania, and 11,000 in Yugoslavia, a total of 26,500 children."

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But the actual number of these children who lived to see the end of the tragedy known to the Greeks as Paedomazoma or “gathering of children” is unknown as the Red Cross and the UN estimated their number to 28,000. Unknown also is the number of Greek children transferred to the USSR most of them to Uzbekistan. It has to be noted that the kidnapped children originated from all parts of Greece, from areas that the communists had even temporary exercised control, not just the Greek region of Macedonia.

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Myths and Facts

The People’s Republic of “Macedonia” (later Socialist Republic of “Macedonia”) was part of the scheme of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and became its heir after Yugoslavia’s dismemberment. As for Skopje, the above acts of the AVNOJ (the expulsion of the Swabian Germans and the kidnapping of Greek children) were not only acceptable, but Skopje additionally supported them because all the horrific deeds took place in the name of socialism/communism. The ill-conceived perpetrators were enemies of the state (!) in the case of the Swabian Germans and aimed to the communist indoctrination of Greek children janissary-type in the case of the kidnapped children as it was part of the elimination of the “Others.”. The above expulsion of the Swabian Germans, however, has instituted a legal precedent that goes against those of the Skopjan diaspora who claim loss of property against Greece and mandatory expulsion, neither of which is true. Despite the nonsense that they are fed by their communist parents, Greece had never expelled them for their treason against her; they had left on their own in order to avoid criminal persecution and believing the rumors their own communists friends were spreading. Communist Yugoslavia deliberately had expelled its own citizens, the “Swabian Germans”due to their race, language, and heritage and not due to any criminal activity, and the country went unpunished. That act has established an international legal precedent. The following statement was taken from an anti-Hellenic Australian-based website. It is prepared by Mr. Atanas Strezovski under the title “My First Visit To My Birthplace, The Village Neret Near Lerin in Aegean Macedonia,” in Greece. At a point Mr. Strezovski states,

We started again for Bitola [Monastiri] and my cousin said to me “Oh cousin, Tanase, if you had stayed here instead of emigrating you would have a house in Neret, a farm in Neret, and a shop in Lerin. Because your family was not here your grandfather Hristos gave everything to us and made us promise we would not sell the shop to anyone.”

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The above statement- confession is only one example of many that exonerate Greece from all accusations of property confiscation. No Greek government has ever confiscated any properties but they voluntarily gave them to their own relatives, and since they had left Greece and stayed out of the country for more than 28 years, their properties have legally passed to those who were their caretakers. It is a Greek law that applies to all. It is the law of the land and applies to all. The same, by the way applies to the Tsams who left Greece for Albania in order to avoid justice for their collaboration with the Fascist Italians and later the Nazi Germans. Because of the Yugoslav precedent, no Human Rights Court would prosecute any state with legitimate war criminal grievances who took arms against it and facilitated the kidnapping of children as documented by the International Red Cross and the UNSC and then left the country on their own accord in order to avoid war criminal prosecution.

I do want to add one more idiotic nonsense that the Slav FYROM diaspora disseminate online. They have filled the Internet that the exchange of populations between Bulgaria and Greece was mandatory and because of it Greece had violently expelled all “Macedonians” to Bulgaria. Then we read and hear similar allegations of the same people about Greece’s forceful expulsion of the Slavic population in 1949. Now according to various Skopje mouthpieces the numbers of Slavophones loyal to Skopje who live in Greece are between 180,000 to 750,000 although in the EU elections, should be noted, that in the prefecture of Florina in the last Euro-elections the Europaiki Eleutheri Symmachia– Ouranio Toxo received 1,195.

1

The same people received less than 3,000 votes in the entire country. Thus the questions that arise form the statement above that have surpassed the definition of malarkey a. how many mandatory expulsions did the FYROM loyal Slavophones suffered in the hands of the Greeks? If the exchange of population of 1924 was mandatory, how come Slavophones were still in Greece in 1949? If the second mandatory “expulsion” of the same people did take place, how come there are Slavophones in Greece loyal to the Skopje now consisting a “Macedonian” minority? If the Slavophone population loyal to Skopje in Greece were all expelled how come the Slavs of the FYROM think that the number of their compatriots in Greece are between 180,000 to 750,000, but only less than 3,000 of them vote for Europaiki Eleutheri Symmachia– Ouranio Toxo?

Endnotes

1

This article is part of a monograph on “The Effects of the Slavic Awakening in South Balkans : From the Roots of Macedonism to the Slavic “Antiquization” Process- An Overview of the Roots of the Name Dispute with the FYROM.”

2

Susan Clarkson, “History of German Settlements in Southern Hungary.”http://www.banaters.com/banat/clarkson.asp?category=history (accessed September 22, 2011);Compare to Frank Schmidt, The Swabians: Southeastern Europe’s Forgotten Victims, 2008.http://www.read-all-about-it.org/archive_english/genocide_in_yugoslavia/the_swabians.html.(accessed September 22, 2011).

3

Bulkes in the Batschka, http://www.swabiantrek.com/?page_id=136; also Marián Sloboda,Bački Maglić (Buljkes) i grčka komuna u Vojvodini prije odlaska u Čehoslovačku 1945–1949,http://www.sloboda.cz/marian/publikace/maglic.pdf (accessed September 22, 2011).

4

On the contrary, the Bosnian Muslim Handjar

Division aka 13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Handschar (1st Croatian) was a units of volunteers and fought in Bosnia against the Yugoslav communists. In addition, the Croatian 369th Reinforced Infantry Regiment, 369th"Devil's" Division, 373rd "Tiger" Division, 392nd "Blue" Division, the Croatian Air Force Legion, the Croatian Naval Legion, the 23rd Waffen SS Mountain Division "Kama", "Croatia" Police Regiments 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, Police Anti-Tank Company "Croatia", and Gendarmerie Division "Croatia," served within and outside Yugoslavia. The Light Transport Brigade and Croatian Legion both served under Italy during WWII.

1 Ministry of Interior, European Elections 2009, http://ekloges- prev.singularlogic.eu/e2009/pages/index.html?lang=en (accessed October 29, 2011)

5

Dominique Eudes, The Kapetanios. Partisans and Civil War in Greece...1943-1949 (London:Monthly Review, 1972) 317.

6

Milan Ristovic,

Long Return Home, Children Refugees from Greece in Yugoslavia 1948-1960, (Thessaloniki: Institute for Balkan Studies, 2000), 95.

7

In an effort to protect Greek children from being kidnapped by the communists, the Greek government under the auspices of the then Queen Frederica organized the camps for children of all ages known as

Paidopoleis

. It was a network of 53 Camps all over Greece where mostly orphans and children of poor families were housed and educated. The camps were the only means of survival through shelter, food, and education. The irony of the whole thing is that the communists who violated every single human right of the same children accused the system of anti-communist propaganda because of its education. In essence, the communist and Skopjan objections are as “the pot called the kettle black” or in Greek “είπε ο γάϊδαρος τον πετεινό κεφάλα.” Queen Frederica’s act alone saved thousands of children from being taken away from their homeland and their relatives.

8

Atanas Strezovski under the title “My First Visit to My Birthplace, The Village Neret Near Lerin in Aegean Macedonia.”http://www.pollitecon.com/html/life/My_First_Visit_To_My_Birthplace.html (accessed September 23, 2011).

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