Presented here are the findings of research into the fate of the Danube Swabians in Vojvodina by Helena Rill and Marijana Stojčić. The research was started at the end of 2010 and intensified in the spring of 2014.
The question arises of why today, in a sea of problems in relations between the socially most visible ethnic groups after the wars of the 1990s, why go back to “some” Germans and what happened to them after the Second World War?
Well, the idea behind our research “… was not motivated by the desire to right the wrongs committed against people almost seventy years ago, but by the need to make these wrongs visible and have them acknowledged, to pay respects to the victims, and to thus better our present and draw a parallel with the wrongs of more recent date, which are still treated as present-day even though they concern the wars of the 1990s.
Just as the Swabians of Vojvodina are unpopular victims, generally believed to have gotten their just and deserved punishments (collectively), there are also unpopular victims in more recent history, hidden in the layers of narratives about just wars, our own innocent victims as opposed to their guilty ones.”
…
“But what is the use of all this?
The benefits are not material, but they do present an opportunity for us to become better people, to diminish the pain of the humiliated and injured and to make our society more humane. And in the future to be more cautious, careful, fair and persistent in finding out everything, taking nothing for granted.”
(from the Foreword to the publication).
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