Vojvodina massacre 70th anniversary marked in Szeged

Budapest, January 24 (MTI) – A commemoration was held to mark the 70th anniversary of the massacre in Vojvodina, the northernmost province of Serbia, in Szeged on Saturday.

Pushing into the region in the winter of 1944-1945, Yugoslav partisans massacred about 30,000 civilians, among them an estimated 15,000-20,000 Hungarians, and buried them in unmarked mass graves.

The raid came in retaliation of a massacre committed by the Hungarian military and gendarmerie in Novi Sad (Ujvidek) and other localities, killing 3,340 residents, including 2,550 Serbs and over 700 Jews, in January, 1942.

The commemoration in Szeged is held traditionally around January 23, the day the last group of Hungarians were taken from their homes in the village of Curug (Csurog) to a death camp in 1945.

Attending the ceremony, Istvan Pasztor, the head of the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians (VMSZ) said reconciliation is a process that cannot be reversed.

Julia Teleki, a survivor, said that for a reconciliation Hungarians and Serbs need to get to know and recognise each other’s victims.

Photo: MTI

Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters#sthash.EguQ1QYf.dpuf