Peter Seiler’s Recollections
Vinkovci, Slavonia
Taken from the book:
"Logor Krndija 1945 - 1946"
by Vladimir Geiger
Translated by Rosina T. Schmidt
Peter Seiler from Vinkovci was taken
prisoner, like other ethnic Germans of Vinkovci towards the end of May 1945
and interned first in internment camp of Josipovac, later in the Valpovo camp,
from where they were supposed to be expelled to Austria. Since the Allied
occupied forces closed the boarder to Austria and with that made a flight to
Germany not possible, the expellees transport was returning form the Austrian
boarder or from the road to Austria, and a short stay followed with forced
slave labour at internment camp Velika Pisanica, then camp Krndija until May
of 1946.
… On the
morning of 15th of August 1945, the day of Assumption of the Virgin
Mary, we were herded together, in order to march to Krndija. – For many they
were the last hours. Only the death or the discharge from the starvation camp
could bring the end to this misery. – The marching colon from Koška to Krndija
could only go slowly forwards and stretched itself for quite a length. Those,
who no longer could walk, were later picked up by the carts and brought to
Krndija.
At the
march through Budimci (Serb’s) our guards had to protect us even. The
villagers intended to attack us, perhaps even to massacre us. While going
through a narrow laneway we were screamed at, spat at, and even bricks were
thrown at us. “They should all be killed” were the words accompanying the
actions. Those who were thirsty and asked for water -surprisingly it was
permitted- were even cursed “give them poison and not water”.
When we
arrived in Krndija, where prior to us Croats were imprisoned, we spread out
first our mostly wet cloths to dry and were looking around so the neighbours
would stay with neighbours in the empty houses. Dead tired, ill, hungry, we
disappeared quickly from the lanes.
The
organization of the prisoner’s camp started the next day. A forestry laborer
with rang of a captain, had taken over the command of the camp, whom we knew
already back in Josipovac. He was quite, forceful, but to my knowledge he did
not kill anyone. Besides him there was a political commissioner, a Gypsy, with
a rang of first lieutenant; he shot a family of three.
The guards
department consisted of 12-14 guards of which four where women (beasts). Those
guards had at least three, most likely more souls eliminated, as well as a
14-year-old youngster, who was martyred during one of the drunken orgies.
There was also shooting in the night of 23/24 of December 1945 in the “first
aid station” with a goal to kill a Mr. Schmidt. Schmidt was killed all right,
but also Rosalie Lohner; wounded was Mrs. Katarina Sikinger and one other
woman. Most likely some other people did similarly lose their lives, of which
I am not aware off.
The first
“first-aid-station” was in charge of a paramedic, a geese herder in civilian
life, who had no medical knowledge of any kind and hardly any medicine. Two to
three Aspirins and some kind of ointment were used in all the cases. The dying
started slowly. Much later an imprisoned Danube Swabian physician from Osijek
helped. He also died in the camp on typhus. The veterinarian Wesback from
Djakovo stayed until my discharge, who was assisted once a week by a physician from
Djakovo, of course without the necessary medicine.
After we
were crammed into our new ‘quarters’, one of Krndija’s longer streets where
the buildings were not yet too destroyed and stolen from by the close-by
civilian population, we had to enclose the area with barbed wire ourselves,
but at first the families received the permission to stay together, while
later the men were housed apart.
In order
for the food supplies to be divided we formed groups per counties and later in
area groups. My Landsmen trusted this responsibility to me. At first I had to
write down all the names to find out just how many people there actually were,
because the guards lost the evidence already. After the work was completed, we
received the food. At this first count of food and kettle we were advised how
much food we would be receiving for each person: 200g bread, 20g flour, 5g
salt, 5g oil, peas (or beans) 40g, 200g sauerkraut or 80g corn flour or 100g
potatoes (peas, beans, corn flour, sauerkraut, potatoes – one or the other.)
Of course
those were only theoretical quantities. We had no opportunity to weight any of
it, because we had no scale; to inquire or to complain could cost the life.
The cornbread was most often only half way baked; it was supposed to be three
kilograms, therefore to be cut in 15 parts. The received food had to be
divided without any scales. Different sized cans, pots, baskets and bowls were
used (for instance 1 kg flour = 2 cans, 1 kg peas = 1 can, 250g salt = a tiny
pot, 780g beans = one can, etc.)
(Note of the translator: now follows
a theoretical table of the food supplies. Since the reality was much different
that table is not of any interest to the actual documentation.)
At the
same time as the Krndija concentration camp was being organized, other efforts
were being undertaken to herd most of the ethnic Germans from the area of
Croatia-Slavonia into Krndija. Here were assembled from the cities, market
towns or counties of: Vinkovci, Djakovo, Slavonski-Brod, Bijeljina, Brcko,
Zupanja, Zagreb, Kutina, Bjelovar, Slatina, Pozega, Vukovar as well as from a
few other counties. – Osijek (Esseg) and other counties were in the camps of
Valpovo, Josipovac, Tenje and in a camp in Baranya.
The
highest number of internees was about 3,000 people. This number changed often.
Through continued imprisonments new people arrived all the time. Already at
Josipovac the men were sent to slave labour: agricultural work, brick factory,
cart factory in Brod, etc. The farmers from the surrounding areas could later
purchase ‘slaves’ from the camp for their work. As I remember 15 dinars were
paid to the camp commander per day per head. Many took this opportunity to at
least for a short time escape the hunger, louse and flea miseries.
One part
of the ethnic Germans from Croatia-Slavonia area spent from 15th of
August 1945 to middle of May 1946 in this starvation camp. During this time
about 1,300 people died there through hunger and killings.
A distress
knows no borders; it was so at our place also. In order to make our sleeping
places somewhat more comfortable, since we were crammed tightly together as
is, we demolished the stroh-covered houses outside of the barbed wires. The
surrounding villagers had already stolen the doors and windows – we used the
stroh for the beds and the wood for heating our quarters and for the kitchen
(kettle). The camp commanders tolerated this destructive work. After all it
was a Danube Swabian village, and it had to be demolished! If somewhere a
broken cooking top was found it ended in our patch and was made into a new
cooker.
The winter
was very cold. There was no more room inside the houses for the new arrivals,
so they had to sleep at –20C in the attic. If there were any boards found at
all, they were used for making beds, and in the beginning for making caskets.
– The fences and sheds were long ago used for heating prior to us demolishing
the houses.
Any way we
could we tried to keep warm, so at least we would not freeze to death even if
we had to go hungry. The heat and the stroh did a good dead for our fleas as
well, which population exploded into
billions in shortest time and
they kept biting
deeply to suck the blood. Our major vermin plaque, the
louse, received with them a great support. Even though we were
on the hunt around the clock
for the louse and fleas, our bodies were bitten black and blue and yet we
could not get rid of them.
It was no
surprise when the typhus fever epidemic arrived beginning of January 1946 and
in no time spread with a lightning speed. Our gravediggers were very, very busy,
to burry all the dead, two to three in one hole. If we had not received
the disinfector kettle and DDT powder
around beginning of April or end of March, most likely all of us would have perished.
We cooked
in our kitchen what we received from the camp ‘economist’. For breakfast we
even had cherry leaves tea, the sugar to it we had to imagine. The cooked food
was real pig slop but at least it was warm.
Our
arrival in Krndija was soon made known in the wide neighborhood area. The
parcels from relatives and friends arrived and saved quite a few lives.
By the end
of April a commission arrived, which freed already by the 1st
and 2nd of May 1946 a large part of the internees. I was one of the very last
that was released on the 10th of May. As I was going with the
release papers to the camp office of my quarters, the current camp commander,
captain Komlenovic was running around with a stick herding the inmates still
there towards the camp office to be counted. Those still present were sent
next day to Baranya, later to Tenje and later still to Batschka.
I went to
the village of Novi Mikanovci to my sister who was married to a Croat, and the
next day to Vinkovci to pick up my wife from the hospital, where through
connections we managed to smuggle her in, as she also had typhus fever.
For the
next four years I was working as farm worker, even though my trade was
photography.
