Talk:Communist purges in Serbia in 1944–1945

Article

The aim of this article is allegedly to present the bloodletting at the end of World War II. Instead it already questions the FACT that it was commited by the Yugoslav Partisan Movement in the intraductory sentence! It's ridiculous that the chapter "Killings" is constituted from two lines, as well as the lack of a description of the crimes committed. This is purely denial and relativisation of a historical crime. Ethnic cleansing or crimes against humanity, should be stated in the first paraghraph, "killings" is preposterous. "Killings were killings" is childish and not really a decent English sentence, but the main goal of some here seems to be the denial. Disappointing.Transylvanus 20:55, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

The point is that we should have here an article that will correctly describe these events. We should not use this article as modern irredentist propaganda which have goal to propagate for territorial autonomy of Hungarians in northern Vojvodina. History is one thing, politics another... PANONIAN (talk) 15:42, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

How come the German and Hungarian ethnic cleansing is referred to as "crimes of the occupiers", whereas the Yugoslavs´ murders of Hungarians are simply "killings"??

Because crimes of the fascists in WW2 are well known and undisputed historical facts, while these killings after the war are very controversial issue, hence the "killings" is best word that can describe it. PANONIAN (talk) 23:04, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

So the massacres of Serbs are "undisputed, historical facts" but the massacres of Hungarians are "a very controversial issue"? Christ, what double standards. As far as I can tell from these articles, both events can and should be labelled as "killings" or "massacres".

No, you missed the terms - the crimes of the Axis side in the war are undisputed historical facts, while crimes of Allies are controversial issue, no matter of the ethnic origin of the victims. And furthermore, counting victims by ethnic origin here might not be the best solution because we know that fascist Hungarian state in World War II killed many ethnic Hungarians. Of course, the modern Hungarian nationalists do not care for those killed Hungarians because they were not killed by "evil neighbours". That are double standards, my friend. PANONIAN (talk) 01:39, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

The aritcle has being attacked by the Serb nationalist (User:PANNONIAN). I wanted to make a memorial artcile for the victims, but he can't stand that we should talk about the innocent civilian victims of the partisans. HunTheGoaT 18:31, 29 September 2006 (CEST)

Please refrain from personal attacks, ok? And better do not ask me to say what you "wanted" here, mister "No Trianon" guy. PANONIAN (talk) 16:43, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

And by the way, if I am nationalist, how you explain the fact that when you created this article, an user from Italy taged your article as non-neutral: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=1944-1945_Killings_in_Ba%C4%8Dka&diff=78500862&oldid=78500585 Is he a Serbian nationalist too? PANONIAN (talk) 17:04, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

For User:Öcsi

Do you please have some reasonable explanation for this edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=1944-1945_Killings_in_Ba%C4%8Dka&diff=78874310&oldid=78791238 You changed numbers, but you left here a sources that present different numbers to show that they in fact present "your" numbers. There is one word for it - a falsification!!!

Now here is list of sources, and a quotation what they claim:

• 1. Dimitrije Boarov, Politička istorija Vojvodine, Novi Sad, 2001. Quotation: "estimations about number of killed Hungarians range from 4,000 to 40,000 with 20,000 being most probable number"
• 2. Dragomir Jankov, Vojvodina - propadanje jednog regiona, Novi Sad, 2004. Quotation: "There were 20,000 killed Hungarians and this number included both, those that commited war crimes and innocent civilians".
• 3. http://www.krater.hu/pprint.php?print=102&PHPSESSID=086c47ea596fafd2ed0f5f10ca1a0262 This is article in Hungarian. I cannot read this, but User:Laslovarga told me that article claim that most probable number of killed Hungarians is 20-25,000. I assume it is this sentence: "A bácska-bánáti 20-25 000 magyarnak azért is pusztulnia kellett"
• 4. http://www.huncor.com/delvidek4445/delvidekindex2.htm According to User:HunTheGoaT this site claim that the highest estimation about number of killed Hungarians is about 50,000.

So, let write this article in accordance with Wikipedia policy:

• 1. Our job is not to declare which source is right and which is wrong, but to present data from ALL sources that we have.
• 2. we have to write two things here: 1. the lowest and highest possible estimation of this number and 2. the number that is most probable. So, if we compare all these sources, we will see that lowest and highest estimations are 4,000 and 50,000 and most likely numbers are 20-25,000. If somebody have opposite opinion, it would be good to discuss it here instead to simply change numbers with no explanation. PANONIAN (talk) 21:12, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

The number of killed Hungarians is much higher than 20000, and 4000 is only ridiculous. My source is the Hungarian Wikipedia, the Duna TV and hungarian people living in the Bácska. But the fact is that nobody knows exactly how many people died in these killings. I could also mention the ten thousands of Hungarians who died in the prisoner-camps. Öcsi 11:08, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

"The number of killed Hungarians is much higher than 20000, and 4000 is only ridiculous"

I am sorry, but it is your personal opinion and nothing else. I simply presented here what my sources say and it is in accordance with verifiability policy of Wikipedia. Whether you personally like or dislike this data is only your own problem. Regarding your sources, you use Hungarian Wikipedia as a source? Is this a joke or something? I hope that you know that anybody could edit that article on Hungarian Wikipedia and could write anything there. As for Duna TV, I can watch that TV on my cable television, and I just can say that they too much times showed a map of Greater Hungary in their TV program. The only correct thing that you said is "that nobody knows exactly how many people died in these killings", so our job is not to present only those numbers that we personally like more, but numbers from ALL sources. PANONIAN (talk) 14:43, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

reason for totallydisputed tag?

Nothing, except PANONIAN's own researches. Nationalism rules. But not on Wikipedia. Tag removed, and will be considered as vandalism, untill a valuable reason won't be shown here for 1. what facts are not correct 2. wich part is POV, and why, and what text would be good instead of it. --195.56.80.183 16:17, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Reason for tag is data that come from unreliable sources in this section of the article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1944-1945_Killings_in_Bačka#Killings Unreliable sources are Hungarian Wikipedia and web site named "Hungarian holocaust in Yugoslavia 1944-1992". PANONIAN (talk) 16:22, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Read the books mentoned in the notes section dude. Some of them are in serbian. I put some more in, and changed those refs to those wich are in the hungarian one. (books) --195.56.80.183 18:07, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

The page, you disputed has a BIBLIOGRAPHY part, wich means, they put the text seen there, from these:

• Márton Matuska: Days of the revenge. Forum Publisher Novisad, 1991.
• Tibor Cseres: Blood feud in Bácska. Magvetö Publisher Budapest, 1991 Selections from articles:Weekly Hungary: Mihály András Beke Weekly Hungary: György B. Walkó
• Hungarian Word: Article of the editor, 4 August 1992 Hungarian Forum: Márton Matuska
• Gate: Ajtony Bese
• Sunday of the Hungarian Catholics: Attila Balázs
• Selections from the reports of Ferenc Szaniszló, made for the program of Hungarian Television, Panorama. ,
• Documents of the National Library "Széchenyi' were selected by István Bálint, librarian
• The Report was edited by Ferenc Kubinyi, historiographer

No more notes needed. Yours sincerely. --195.56.80.183 18:13, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, but it is not enough to list your books here. If you want to remove the tag, you should find a proper quotes in these books to support disputed section of the article. In another words, you should quote the exact book that claim this and not to quote article from Hungarian Wikipedia. PANONIAN (talk) 19:54, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Ok, you changed some of the quotes, but there are still those from web site named "Hungarian holocaust in Yugoslavia 1944-1992", which are still disputed because this site speak about non-existing "holocaust". I mean, killings in 1944-1945 did happened, but they certainly did not happened in 1945-1992 period. PANONIAN (talk) 19:59, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Cleanup

I've done a bit of cleanup, still needs a lot more. - Francis Tyers · 22:24, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

The source that was added is far from impartial or academic "hungarian-history.hu", come on, the site is called "Serbian Vendetta in Bacska" hah. - Francis Tyers · 09:15, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

If your study of site is deeper, you would see that this is an e-book version of the book published in Budapest in 1991. I recommend you to read chapters from "Cover" to "Vendetta. Retaliation Multiplied", because of discernment. Enough academic? Bendeguz 19:34, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

No. Basing the whole thing on one book published by Hungarians (the alleged victims) is NO DEAL. Find some impartial, non-partisan, reliable sources. Books, journal articles etc. written by non-Yugoslav, non-Hungarians. - Francis Tyers · 08:48, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

One of the main principles of collective amnesia is: "If we don't talk about events, the events didn't happen." You modified this principle to: "If we don't have reliable (English) sources, the events didn't happen." (alleged is your word). The tragedy of losers and small nations is that, there is nobody to write their history, except themselves.

From interview with author:

I: Were your hopes fulfilled in the form of Serbian writers making the same symbolic act of collective regret, if not a confession for their crimes like the one you had made in Cold Days .

A: None of my hopes were fulfilled. A few Serbian writers voiced their opinion that in World War II almost two million people lost their lives in their country, so these few tens of thousands of Hungarians should not be of interest to them, especially not as writers.(COLD DAYS - A NOVEL AND A FILM, Page 18)

Collective amnesia and denial , instead of regret. This is - {{Fact}}, Serbia even now.

To do (warm up your cleaning-machine Francis)

• Crimes of the occupiers in Vojvodina, 1941-1944 "alleged victims" mainly Serbs, completely Serb sources.
• Foibe massacres, "alleged victims" Italians, completely Italian sources.

(to be continued) Bendeguz 22:10, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Neither of these should exist unless there are sources as I specified above. - Francis Tyers · 11:04, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

PS. I don't insist on English, if you can find reliable sources in French or Romanian -- or any other language -- written by non-Yugoslav, non-Hungarians then that would probably be ok. - Francis Tyers · 11:14, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Merged

I've merged this into Occupation of Vojvodina, where it looks much more at home. - Francis Tyers · 12:11, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

If we ever get enough non-partisan, reliable sources to write an article on this, we can demerge it. - Francis Tyers · 12:18, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Merging is not a good idea because we have here two different events with different motives. Besides this, the Yugoslav/Serbian sources do speak about killed Hungarians in 1944-1945 as well as Hungarian sources speak about killed Serbs in 1941-1944, so both events are not "alleged", but well known in literature published in both countries. Of course, I speak about events in general, although the certain parts of the article like number of killed people is indeed controversial issue and should be indeed confirmed by reliable sources. PANONIAN (talk) 01:06, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Serious concerns

1. This article is below any acceptable standard, in its present form seems more like a stub. 2. This article is seriously biased.

1. The article does not fulfil the promise of the title, the Chapter entitled Killings contains TWO LINES of low quality "explanation".

The English of the intraductory sentence is extremely poor.

There aren't any sites mentioned, in contrast with the "Occupation of Vojvodina, 1941-1944" article: "include Novi Sad, Bečej, Vilovo, Gardinovci, Gospođinci, Đurđevo, Žabalj, Lok, Mošorin, Srbobran, Temerin, Titel, Čurug, and Šajkaš."

The pictures aren't very relevant.

2. The title in itself is strange enough. Killings as the most appropriate term for the events? As a comparison articles dealing with Yugoslavia of the same era: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleiburg_massacre ,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foibe_massacres, or: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_Vojvodina%2C_1941-1944 (the author, Panonius? speaks about "war crime" and "the mass murder of the civilians" in connection with the 1942 raid. I agree with those terms, but why did he restore "killings instead of my "ethnic cleansing"? The lowest estimate given by the present (shameful) page is 4000, compare this with 3800 after the 1942 raid. How is this not a massacre, war crime or ethnic cleansing???

In the same sentence "allegedly"! Come on! Were there any other armed men capable of committing a crime on this scale? What are you suggesting? That not all of them were officially members? Some of them lost their Partisan ID?

"This was due to the fact that members of these two ethnic groups showed the largest level of collaboration with the Axis authorities and committed most of the war crimes against the citizens of Vojvodina." This is not a fact only an accusation, or an excuse for the perpetrators or war criminals. As far as I know War Crimes are War Crimes regardless from their origin.

"many citizens of Vojvodina belonging to all ethnic groups joined the partisan resistance movement to fight against occupation" is this a factual sentence or something taken from a communist internationalist fairy tale?

"Some Hungarian houses were sacked and one number of Hungarian civilians was executed and tortured. [10] Some women and children were raped. [11] Some men who were able to work were deported to Siberia." This is the most disgraceful sentence, "some" as a cover for 4000 to 50000 murders plus rapes and all the others, this is the clearest example of downplaying of a Second World War tragedy I have ever seen on Wikipedia.

I am afraid that the moderators of the page aren't really experts in the field. Thus, please consider the mistakes made and do not restore the original version when I make a correction. Transylvanus 22:44, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, you don't own this article (and neither of us does). As far as I can tell, no serious source apart from Hungarian partisan sources describes the events as "ethnic cleansing" and I don't see any proof of "attempt at expelling the entire ethnic group", which is the definition of ethnic cleansing. As with any inter-ethnic massacre, we're witnessing both downplaying the numbers on one side and overblowing them on the other. Yes, this article is bad. But your edits didn't improve it either. Duja► 10:44, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi, yes, there is a problem. The problem is of inadequate sourcing. As I have requested above, please find sources that are reliable, written by non-partisan scholars. We can't just base the whole article on unreliable Hungarian sources. I admit I have tried to find references to these killings in reputable publications (via a search on Google Scholar) but was unable to find anything. Perhaps you will have more luck? - Francis Tyers · 11:48, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

The problem with the event described in the article is that Greater Hungarian irredentist propaganda often twist historical facts regarding the event with goal to advocate the creation of territorial autonomy for Hungarians in northern Vojvodina. Therefore, we should first see the difference between political propaganda and historical facts. Part of that propaganda is claim that the intention of partisans was to ethnically cleanse Hungarians and that is simply not truth because partisans were internationalists and their goal was to "cleanse" unloyal population no matter of the ethnic origin of that population. Therefore, partisans also killed many ethnic Serbs who were members of the chetnik forces or members of the forces loyal to Milan Nedić. Besides this, the Hungarians that were loyal to new Yugoslav regime gained very large amount of rights in Vojvodina including official usage of their language, preservation of their culture, their participation in the Vojvodinian government, etc. Since we know all these facts, it is simply ridiculous that somebody claim that goal of partisans in 1944-1945 was to ethnically cleanse Hungarians. Regarding terms, it was already discussed, the term "massacre" usually refer to one specific event, while this article speak about various events in various places, hence the term "killings" is most appropriate (some of these killings were individual when only one person was killed, so we cannot use term "massacre" if only one person was killed). On the contrary, the 1942 raid is a clear example of massacre because it was a mass murder of civilians in specific time at specific place. Regarding reasons for killings, the members of Hungarian and German ethnic groups indeed showed the largest level of collaboration with the Axis authorities and that was reason why they were target of these killings after the war. The goal of partisans was to "cleanse politically incorrect population", and in Vojvodina most of such population was among Hungarians and Germans. Regarding participation of citizens of Vojvodina in anti-fascist struggle duting the war, it is correct that many Hungarians were members of the partisan movement and fought against fascism. Therefore, such Hungarians were not persecuted by the new Yugoslav authorities, which again disapprove theory about ethnic cleansing after the war. And regarding sentence that "some Hungarian houses were sacked", the usage of word "some" is most correct here or you would say that "all" Hungarian houses were sacked? Regarding "expertism" about this page, Duja and Francis might not be experts for Serb-Hungarian relations in Vojvodina and Hungarian irredentist propaganda, but same cannot be said for me, so I very well know the difference between historical facts and propaganda here. PANONIAN (talk) 15:38, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Right. I'm glad for receiving some explanations, I will try to adress each of them during the week.

1. I have nothing to do with "Great Hungarian propaganda". 2.This is still a terribly unbalanced article. As a historian my concerns are connected to terminology, and the usage of language and that of the sources.

"unreliable Hungarian sources" Of course one could argue against every book and article. My problem here is that the only "reliable" sources according to the present form of the articles are Yugoslav ones. Now that is ridiculous. My suggestion is to present two narratives. 1. The official Yugoslav or serb version (preferably not simply based on the postwar idea of collective guilt as the present version does) 2. A Hungarian version (or a non extremist Hungarian one). Cseres Tibor for instance can not be interpreted as "irredentist". I can elaborate on his views if there is request for it.

But the whole problem here is that this is not a question of Serbian versus Hungarian version of the event, but the question of accuracy. If we want to find the truth what were motives of the partisans here, then we also should to raise a question of accuracy of sources that speak about such motives. We also cannot disregard modern political aspirations of some sources that mention this event. Therefore, the claim that motive of the partisans was ethnic cleansing is simply not supported by the two facts: 1. the fact that partisans killed thousands of Serbs that were members of chetnik army, and 2. the fact that partisans did not killed or expelled other Hungarians. PANONIAN (talk) 21:43, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Francis Tyers requested more reliable (non Yugoslav, non Hungarian) sources. I have two problems with this. Firstly, avoiding local sources is not accepted as a scholarly approach. (You can't study ancient history without the Greek or Latin etc. sources.) Sources from at least the two most affected nations have to be included. Or get rid of the serb sources? No, you have to use Cseres at least. Secondly, aricles published in the English speaking world were also mainly written by authors of Hungarian or South Slavic origin. The most respected of them was probably Jozo Tomasevich at Stanford University. However, I'm not sure how much of their research was based on primary sources. Their conclusions were reached in the 80's, when for example the shocking results of the Slovenian exhumations were not known (296 mass graves with 180000 (!) corpses, see Bleiburg massacre), which is four times more than Tomasevich's estimate!

Hi, thanks for getting back to me on that. Our articles on Greek and Roman events are largely not based on Greek or Latin sources. They are based on Western sources. PS. You should read: Dulic, T. (2004) "Tito's Slaughterhouse: A critical analysis of Rummel's work on democide". Journal of Peace Research. 41:1 pp. 85-102 . It isn't directly related to this particular set of incidents, but covers some of the issues with using selective, biased local sources. - Francis Tyers · 10:58, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Note, that while this is obviously written by a Slav, the paper has been published in a reputable international journal. I welcome sources written by Hungarians and Slavs that have been peer-reviewed and published in reputable international journals, or published by reputable academic western publishers, e.g. Cambridge University Press etc. - Francis Tyers · 11:06, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Anyway, I will get the Tomasevich, and some other publications as well (Barbara Jelavich). I will try to balance the article by including their results.

For the short term. 1.While no one disputes the internationalist character of the Parisan Army it still had a nationalist(South Slavic) layer in the same way as the Stalinist Soviet Union did; ethnic cleansings happened here and there as well.

The fact that partisans persecuted only smaller part of the Hungarian population and provided large amount of rights to the larger part simply do not support claim that ethnic cleansing was a motive here. PANONIAN (talk) 21:43, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

2. The term "Killings" is in no way acceptable, it is simply not in line with the standard of other Wikipedia or any scholarly war crime related article. Individual killigs occured during the 1942 raid or around Bleiburg as well. Those Wikipedia articles use the right terms: massacres, mass murder, war crimes. My suggestion is "Massacres in Bačka".

Massacres would be POV term, because we do not have clear example of one massacre here (read massacre article for description: individual events of deliberate and direct mass killing). So, we do not have individual event, but many events of which not all were mass killings. Besides this, since you compared it with 1942 raid, which is much closer to definition of massacre, even article about that raid do not say "1942 massacre", but "1942 raid". PANONIAN (talk) 21:43, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

3. The "Killings" chapter and "some houses". I very much doubt that you can describe at least 4000 deaths by saying "some". If you(?) don't want to reveal the numbers you should at least say somethig like "hundreds", "dozens" "several thousands" or "some hundreds". Neither can I imagine that a serious publication described the number of those affected in such terms, so the problem is with our interpreter.

Please at least change "killings", and specify the numbers.

Bests, Transylvanus 20:16, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, the person that originally posted this sentence did not specified exact numbers, so until numbers are specified, we cannot use better description than "some". PANONIAN (talk) 21:43, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

The wording is bad indeed; from my (admittedly very limited) knowledge on the subject, the most common methods were deaths by firing squad, with or without a short trial, or simple bullet-in-the-head. More cruel ways of execution were likely encountered as well, but their numbers certainly can't be specified. However, the section is referenced to Kasaš's and Karapandžić's books, presumably added by Panonian? Are they misreferenced, or just misquoted? Duja► 10:40, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

No, these two books were not added by me. PANONIAN (talk) 16:01, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Massacres or killings

Thanks for drawing my attention to the Wikipedias own massacre article PANONIAN, but I don't see there anything weakening my argument. You've quoted individual events of deliberate and direct mass killing. Yes at least 4000 (possibly ten times more) as agreed in the article is definitely "mass" and deliberate that is again supported by the article (pre-planning, orders). The massacre aricle also says: "A massacre shall be considered the execution of five or more people, in the same place, as part of the same operation and whose victims were in an indefensible state." That's spot on. I am convinced that you as a local historian (localpatriot,researcher?) must be aware of at least a dozen sites which correspond to this description. I have no doubt about the meaning of massacre and killing in the English speaking world, but I also checked their relevance in Wikipedia, the result is obvious "killings" only appears in this article to describe an atrocity. Massacre on the other hand is widely used. The Boston Massacre is used to describe the killing of 5 civilians on one day, while the Bleiburg massacre was committed during a longer term, involving tens of thousends. Still the English grammar allows the usage of the singular form massacre.

Mind you none of them is marked as POV only for using this term.

My reason for recommending the term massacre(or massacres) is to show our condemnation. It covers the "never again" message. I have no objection to use it when Hungarian are crimes are described.

Due to my profession I know that those times had different standards and I understand their emotions,["Massacres are the fruit of bitterness, and of the calculations of leaders." concluded Milovan Djilas in his "Wartime" after describing the massacre of some Italian prisoners (translated by Michael B. Petrovich, 1977. edition, London page 338.)] but I'm convinced that in the 21. century our norm ought to be different. Bests, Transylvanus 02:01, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps you simply want to make partisans to "look more evil" with your name change proposal. But I will give you one example why all these events cannot be desctibed as massacres: I read on some irredentist Hungarian web site (do not remember which one) detailed description of some of these events and there for example was described a event like this: partisans came to the village and killed local Hungarian priest, i.e. they killed only one person (do not remember which village that was), but the killing of one person certainly cannot be described as massacre. The numbers of killed people presented in this article certainly include people that were individual victims and not part of mass killings, thus change of the name of the article would also ask from us to change number of killed people as well, i.e, to include only those that were killed as part of mass killings, but not those that were killed individually. PANONIAN (talk) 02:40, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Don't get into personal attacks. That only shows your lack of arguments. 1. You can not bend a language as you wish. Terminology is important in history. 2. The war was brutal enough in the whole area, there is no need to denigrate the partisans. The Foibe massacres and the Bleiburg massacre proves this perfectly, Djilas is not denying it either. I'm not saying that one side was better or worse than the other! Individual killings occured in each of the quoted cases but they all happened "as part of the same operation" Again: "A massacre shall be considered the execution of five or more people, in the same place, as part of the same operation and whose victims were in an indefensible state." Transylvanus 09:29, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

What personal attacks? I do not remember that I attacked you personally. However, your own political goals that stand behind your proposal are not so irrelevant issue at all. As I already said before, these killings are very controversial issue, thus naming article "massacres" would not help it to be NPOV. I really have no intentions to discuss names of "Bleiburg massacre" or "Foibe massacres" articles because I have no any knowledge about these events. I am well aware of irredentist attempts to rewrite history and to make WWII Allies look more evil than Nazis. Let just keep this article in the line with generally accepted World history. This article is alredy POV to certain level and its further POV-ization is the last thing that we need here. PANONIAN (talk) 16:57, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

At least, you realized, that this page is POV, wich is good. Nevertheless, you moved this page illegally, without a survey [1], so in fact this page sould be moved back to that name, then you should write out a RM survey, for moving this page to it's recent name. --Vince ^{hey, yo! :-)} 16:42, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I do not think that you understand what is really POV here. I moved name of the page simply to make it less POV than it was, but the POV nature of the article is that it speak about controversial events and much of its content could be found only in Hungarian irredentist sources and nowhere else. PANONIAN (talk) 14:31, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm gettig bored by these "irredentist" and "Nazi" charges. Do I have to assume that every massacre article in Wikipedia, describing Allied war crimes is motivated by some form of fascism??? This must be a joke.

Instead of accusations we should work together to improve these articles. I can find the relevant English and Hungarian articles, while you and Duja might check articles, books published in Yugoslavia.

Maybe we could write a new article in paralel with the Occupation of Vojvodina, 1941-1944. Let's call it "The liberation of Vojvodina in 1944-45". This could include a "War cimes committed during the liberation" with chapters about massacres and individual killings. The crimes and rapes commited around Belgrade by the Red Army leading to a confrontation between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union could be mentioned as well. The Aftermath should deal for instance with the post-war trial of war criminals. I'm sure that if we trust each other and cooperate a consensus can be reached. Bests, Transylvanus 09:47, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

We do not discuss here other articles, but only this one. I told you that I do not know much about other similar events (i.e. if these events are really similar to this one), but what I know is that we should not use irredentist sources to write this article. These events did happened, but let try to write an NPOV article and not to turn it into political propaganda. If one Greater Hungarian irredentist web site say that those were massacres that does mean that it is a proper word that should be used used in one non-Hungarian and non-political encyclopaedia such is Wikipedia. Regarding usage of word "liberation", it is exactly Greater Hungarian irredentists who objected that this word should be used within articles describing this event, so I do not think that usage of this word would be good choice. PANONIAN (talk) 14:42, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi Transylvanius. Write out a RM survey, and report personal attacks here: Wikipedia:Personal attack intervention noticeboard. Since discussing with PANONIAN unfortunately leads to nothing in recent times, whatever you do, he'll revert, and starts a endless polemia on the talk page(s), to prevent NPOVing of the article(s).--Vince ^{hey, yo! :-)} 16:39, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone. But yes, I'm not against the NPOV tag; too many things are there to be straighten out. Duja► 16:48, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Tu quoque. --Vince ^{hey, yo! :-)} 16:56, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Vince, you was already blocked because of this behaviour, so I kindly ask you to stop this false accusations and personal crusade against me on Wikipedia or I will report this to some administrator that could deal with such things. PANONIAN (talk) 14:46, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

This is a massacre, genocide, and/or ethnic cleansing, since it occured on the winter of 44-45, within 2 month.

There's no mention of the internal camps of Gakovo, Jarek, Kruševlje, Molidorf, Knićanin, and Sremska Mitrovica where between 1945-1948 another 70,000 german and hungarian civilians died, so in fact this page is only abt those massacres, wich are made by the Yugoslav armies, and does not mention the german fatalities, so also one sided. The full number of dead ppl is around 80-100 000 (!). This WAS a mass genocide, not "killings". --Vince ^{hey, yo! :-)} 16:55, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Claim that it was ethnic cleansing is wrong because if the intention of the partisans was to perform ethnic cleansing, then why other Hungarians were not ethnically cleansed too? Regarding name of the article, if you want, you can ask for arbitration about this from the third neutral party, but I remind you that in this case some really neutral sources about these events should be provided to support your claims about usage of the name massacre. PANONIAN (talk) 14:55, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

It's a pity that no one seems ready to do more work to improve the article. Accepting minor changes would already make a difference. Available English publications on ethnic cleansing alone: Fires of hatred : ethnic cleansing in twentieth-century Europe / Norman M. Naimark., Redrawing nations : ethnic cleansing in East-Central Europe, 1944-1948 / edited by Philipp Ther and Ana Siljak., Ethnic cleansing in twentieth-century Europe / editors, Steven Béla Várdy and T. Hunt Tooley, German scholars and ethnic cleansing, 1919-1945 / edited by Ingo Haar and Michael Fahlbusch ; foreword by Georg G. Iggers., The dark side of democracy : explaining ethnic cleansing / Michael Mann. etc.

Transylvanus 17:32, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Then please, go ahead with editing if you do have those sources. The dispute so far revolved about VinceB's attempts to use partisan Hungarian sources and portray the events as pure ethnic cleansing and genocide, and Panonian's (and mine) opposition to it, and the unsuccessful attempts to describe the motives for those killings rather than to describe the killings themselves. But the article certainly lacks the facts: who was killed? how many? by whom? at which site? in retaliation or in pure hatred? Who says it's a genocide? Who says not? But, as we explained on the talk page, your attempts were met with resistance from our side because they didn't add to solution, but to the problem. Duja► 10:12, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Duja. Due to my other duties I need a few weeks to locate and read the available English sources, but ideally we should also include the Yugoslav version. Could you possibly have a look at the sources published in Serbian language? We could than present the claims of each side, hopefully reaching some kind of consensus. Bests, Transylvanus 11:35, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I could probably get in touch with dr. Aleksandar Kasaš, who works at my university; his Ph.D. thesis "Mađari u Vojvodini 1941-1946." seems to be fairly widely cited all around; I could probably get a copy at the faculty library, although I don't think I can take it out for deeper reading; I'll ask him for an electronic copy. Here's an overview of the wider Hungaria-related history, with a passing mention of Cseres and Matuska works (page 13). Office for Hungarian Minorities Abroad's document is also an interesting reading (pp. 10-11); while they say that "This genocide had a three-fold purpose...", they also acknowledge that "One tenth of this distributed land was given to 18,000 landless Hungarians. With the exception of the Germans, no large scale deportations or population exchange took place. Yet, about 30,000 Hungarians – mostly those who had served in the Hungarian army and members of their families – moved to Hungary". Here's a news article (Serbian) about the establishment of Assembly of Vojvodina's commitee for investigation of all WWII crimes in 2000. I can't seem to find its findings, though. Duja► 12:37, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

The article in the current form is severely biased, it presents the mass murder of Hungarians as a "justifiable collective revenge" for the atrocities committed by the occupants between 1941-44 (which undeniably happened, also out of revenge for Partisan violence against regular forces and the local population). It also fails to mention the sadistic cruelty by which most of the murders were carried out (impaling, mutilation, torture). See the book of Tibor Cseres as a reference. Árpád 07:13, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Requested move

1944-1945 Killings in Bačka → 1944-1945 massacre in Bačka (or 1944-1945 ethnic cleansing in Bačka, however most popular name of the event (in hungarian) is "1944-1945 blood feud in Bačka") – the page was illegally moved [2] to recent name, wich does not describe the action properly, and Serbian POV. The death of 35,000 ppl within three month can not be describet as "killings". It was a massacre, and an ethnic cleansing. It was a feud for the 1941 annexation of Northern Vojvodina by Hungary. (see refs, and discussion above) Vince ^{hey, yo! :-)} 15:30, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

• • The Massacre article claim that term massacre "refers to individual events of deliberate and direct mass killing". We do not have here an article that describe individual event, but article that describe many different events. It also was not an ethnic cleansing because partisans were internationalists who killed people because of the political affiliation, not because of ethnic origin. Finally, the article itself is very controversial and based on controversial sources, so the proposed name change would make it even more controversial than it is now. Also, name "blood feud in Bačka" is certainly not popular name in Hungarian, but only among certain irredentist Hungarian historians - I am sure that reliable Hungarian historians do not use this term. Also, the page was not moved "illegally", it was just moved to NPOV title - the article with old title was originally created by Hungarian nationalist who had "No Trianon" sign on his user page: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:HunTheGoaT&oldid=78704643 That can say all. Also, the real number of killed people was never exactly established and the lowest estimation is 4,000 and much of those were individual executions, not mass killings. Anyway, if current title of the article is not best solution, I can support move of the name to any better title, but I do not support the move to POV and wrong titles such are "massacres", "ethnic cleansing", etc, because those are just unproved accusations. PANONIAN (talk) 17:15, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Survey

Add "* Support" or "* Oppose" followed by a brief explanation, then sign your opinion with ~~~~ Vince ^{hey, yo! :-)} 15:30, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

By the way, I believe it is against Wiki voting practice to call users to vote like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Hungarian_Wikipedians'_notice_board#Request_for_move PANONIAN (talk) 17:31, 25 March 2007 (UTC) Of course, just read this to see why: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Canvassing#Votestacking and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Canvassing#Campaigning PANONIAN (talk) 17:42, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Also, VinceB, please read Wikipedia policy about voting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Discuss%2C_don't_vote PANONIAN (talk) 17:39, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

The discussion above is ongoing since Nov 23, 2006. 6 month is more than enough to decide something. No compromise reached, so survey is the next step. Lots of wiki policies/guidelines are on enwiki, such as „Don't be a dick”, PANONIAN. --Vince ^{hey, yo! :-)} 22:55, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but false voting (you called other Hungarian users to vote in favor of your proposal and that is clearly against Wikipedia voting policy) canmot resolve this problem. Also, please refrain from personal insults. PANONIAN (talk) 23:15, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

• support per above. --Vince ^{hey, yo! :-)} 15:30, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
• Neutral - obviously Panonian thinks it's much better to simply kill people of other nationalities than do a thorough ethnic cleansing. It's true that the partisans would have been able to eliminate the whole Hungarian minority in 1944-45 if they had this intention. For me it seems that they intended to kill only the Hungarians in the Titel District. Zello 18:23, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
  • I do not think what is better, but what happened and what did not happened - it is fact that partisans had intention to kill people who were of "wrong political affiliation" and that (if we look Yugoslavia as a whole) they killed much more Serbs (those who were chetniks) than Hungarians. What that can tell about motives? PANONIAN (talk) 23:15, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Discussion

There's a section, called "Discussion" below (here). How about adding your comments here, instead of other parts in the survey? I put them here. You know what? I never brought not really known WP policies, but now on, I'll. I'm just avoiding instruction creep, because Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy, so I kindly ask you to stop wikilawyering. Thanks. --Vince ^{hey, yo! :-)} 23:48, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

PS: I'm intrested, what did you consider a personal attack here? I just attracted your attention to a WP policy, named Don't be a dick. Or from now on bringing policies will be pa-s also? --Vince ^{hey, yo! :-)} 23:59, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I will post my comments where I consider appropriate (not you), so please do not play with my comments, you have your own... And you (indirectly) called me a dick, which is a personal insult. PANONIAN (talk) 00:29, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

No, I am wrong, you directly called me a dick. Here are your words: "Lots of wiki policies/guidelines are on enwiki, such as „Don't be a dick”, PANONIAN". So, since you mentioned my nickname in the sentence it is direct implication that I am a dick. PANONIAN (talk) 00:35, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

:-))) Ok, I won't argue with you about this, if you're that sure about it. --Vince ^{hey, yo! :-)} 22:16, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

PS: All right, don't stick to rules, if you're the one, who has to keep them. :)) and turn the survey into a mess. I like ppl with double standards. --Vince ^{hey, yo! :-)} 22:16, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Preface section

There was already a dispute which numbers should be mentioned in the preface part and dispute was solved by moving all numbers to separate section. The exact number of killed people was never exactly established and estimations range between 4,000 and 50,000, with claims that between 20,000 and 35,000 is most probable number. So, if we mention any of those numbers without other numbers, that would be POV because we have no proof that any of the numbers is correct one - there are only different estimations, and since this is the case, all estimations have to be mentioned together. In fact, we can even move all numbers from the separate section to preface part, but my point is that all numbers should be together, no matter if that is in the preface or in separate section. PANONIAN (talk) 22:56, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

{{POV}}

Can someone give an update on the neutrality issues here? The tag had been around a year, where does the article stand now?--BirgitteSB 22:51, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

PANONIAN you dirty nazionalist, who are you backing?? "Claim that it was ethnic cleansing is wrong because if the intention of the partisans was to perform ethnic cleansing, then why other Hungarians were not ethnically cleansed too?" ARE___ YOU___ NUTS?:?????? :O why others were not cleansed???? YOU ARE IN NO WAY A HISTORIAN JUST A WILD SERB PROPAGANDA PRODUCT, YOU ARE DEFENDING WAR CRIMINALS AND GENOCIDE, YOU D BE THE FIRST TO DO THAT TOO, YES I M GOING PERSONAL! ABOUT NUMBERS: 10.000 JUST IN CSUROG! COMPLETELY UNPOPULATED! SURVIVORS COMMEMORATE IT EVERY YEAR WHERE 3000 INNOCENT WERE BURIED, THEY BRING FLOWERS JUST TO HAVE THEM TRASHED BY THE DAY AFTER! BY PEOPLE NOT AS SOPHISTICATED AS YOU! ABOUT OBJECTIVES: THERE ARE DEATH LISTS AND OFFICIAL ORDERS CLEARLY ON ETHNIC CLEANSING! VICTIMS ARE NO WAY "COLLABORATORS" JUST EVERYDAY PEOPLE LIKE YOU AND ME! EXCEPT FOR YOU BACKING WAR CRIMES! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.131.154.159 (talk) 10:35, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

If I was not in a good mood, there would be a lot of words in this place, that your mother would not like. The fact that Serbian government during '90s had bad international propaganda is not enough for you to SHOUT HERE WITH CAPITAL LETTERS. Numbers you mention here can also be classified as Hungarian propaganda, and killings that Hungarian fascist did in Vojvodina can be named as ethnic cleansing. Could this be true? Jdjerich (talk) 12:05, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

CAPSLOCK went to dear PANONIAN, he seems to like it. head responsibles of killings in vojvodina were condemned to death in hungary right away! while those killings went all the winter long, systematically and with state support! not to mention the aftermath where memorials (oh well...speaking) were forbidden, mass graves are built upon in the next years, or even exhumated for industrial use of remnants! making glue. but can we all just cite horribilities? past is past. but mr P and his likes destroy truth today. and facing the facts would already be a step towards tomorrow! some destroy the memorials, some destroy the facts. one day P will say it was a tea party! :( i'm taking the numbers from black lists. the juridiction and guiltiness in ethnic cleansing from military orders. known documents today! not to mention the survivors and executors still alive in numbers! the witnesses! but there comes a "historian" who plays with numbers and adjectives to relativise events. with brilliant phrases like "should ve it been an ethnic cleansing, why didn't they cleanse other hungarians?" he also adds proper contributions at science... pisses me off, really. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.97.19.203 (talk) 02:09, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Please do not insult other users. Thank you. (and have a nice day in Trianon Hungary) :) Btw, everything that I said still stands and, furthermore, seems that we now have new data which say that partisans killed more than 20,000 Serbs in Vojvodina as well. This is clear evidence that "ethnic cleansing of Hungarians" was not their goal. "Political cleansing" would be most accurate description for both, Serbs killed by partisans and Hungarians killed by partisans. PANONIAN 22:42, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Outesticide

Ok, now you deleted sourced data with explanation "not important". It is clear now that your goal here is exactly propaganda against Serbia and an attempt to present Serbia as country where "minorities are persecuted" and where "monuments of minorities are destroyed". this source clearly states that damaging of monument was performed by two young non-adult boys, who were arrested by the Serbian police. If we mention that something was damaged then it is important to mention who damaged that. Seems that you purposely trying to write this sentence in a way that state of Serbia looks guilty for minority monument damaging and that Serbia, because of this, should no longer govern territories where "persecuted minorities" are living. I am sorry, but we have a source that say who damaged monument and there is no reason why this should not be mentioned. I do not insist that statement of Šandor Egereši is mentioned, but fact that boys who damaged monument were arrested by Serbian police is very important. PANONIAN 22:36, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Outesticide, you now reverting this article without discussion. Please try to use talk page to explain your edits. The whole question about damaged monument is unrelated to subject of this article, which are events in 1944-1945. So, if you want to mention that monument is damaged in our days then info that boys who damaged it are arrested cannot be excluded. If you continue to revert this I will crop central part of your picture and I will upload it as new file in which only central (undamaged) part of monument would be visible. I will replace your original image with this one and then we would not have problem to explain why monument in the picture looks damaged. You please decide which of the two possible solutions we should implement. PANONIAN 19:03, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

One more thing: despite your obvious intention to hide info, you using "ref" tag in wrong way. "Ref" tags are used to mention references, not to hide parts of the text.I hope that you understand this simple thing. PANONIAN 19:09, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Each year should be change the text to exactly who destroyed it therefore unnecessary. maybe we should write all incident from 1994. Outesticide (talk) 21:04, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, as I said, this is not article about destroyed monument. It would be best that we have picture of undamaged monument instead of this one. However, since you took this picture of damaged monument in 2009, events relevant to this picture are only those after 2009, i.e. the events that we should describe in relation to this picture are that monument was damaged and that boys who damaged it are arrested. Why else would somebody speak about damaged monument if not with a goal that police find and arrest those who done this? So, they are arrested and what seems to be the problem if that is mentioned? Of course, in that way, Wikipedia readers would see that Serbian state and police are actually protecting Hungarian minority and their monuments, which contradicts to Greater Hungarian nationalistic propaganda that human rights of Hungarians in Serbia, Slovakia and Romania are violated. The goal of such propaganda is certainly not this action of Serbian state and police that arrested those who are responsible for minority monument damaging. The true goal of that propaganda would be much larger event in which borders would be changed and these lands would be transfered from Serbian to Hungarian state, and then, Hungarian police would "rightfully punish" those boys responsible for monument damaging, not only by arresting them, but by executing them, since "no such enemies of Hungarian state should walk alive" (of course, such fate could reach all non-Hungarians in "future Greater Hungary", no matter if they are damaging Hungarian monuments or not - by the view of Hungarian nationalism, they are just "minor races" that should be ruled by "noble Hungarians"). This is the true nature of this problem. PANONIAN 08:49, 2 April 2011 (UTC)