Romanian & Hungarian war-crimes

Gyulafehérvár and Brassó... Alba Iulia.... and Brasov... formally known as Kronstadt.

... lame post.... huh....



This post has been edited by aerialls on October 25, 2004 09:46 pm

"... lame post.... huh.... "

Your answer was great and substantive!

Your answer was great and substantive!

I think it is short and with no meaning what so ever.... besides that:

elaborate... pls.

anyway.... i should have give an adjective aswer but bad luck...: (

This post has been edited by aerialls on October 26, 2004 10:58 am

[split from the "Ethnic minoriteis in the Romanian Army" topic"]

It was slt. av. Franz Secicar, from the 65th Fighter Squadron/2nd Fighter Group, who was shot down in IAR-80C no. 406 on 25 September 1944. He was found dead on the Feleac Hill, near Cluj, hanging upside down and skinned alive.

He was a German ethnic I believe, not Hungarian.

Thank you Victor - what book was this written in ? Was it IAR-80 book ?

I've read several versions of the story. I would like to see the original report, as this 'skinned alive' version is rather fishy and smells as propaganda...

Indeed, Victor is right, he was an ethnic German, or at least half-German.

Gen. Dénes

Hi Guys,

It also smells of black propaganda to me. I would also be interested in knowing the original source.

Cheers,

Sid.

Vanatorul IAR-80 by Dan Antoniu and George Cicos.

Hi Victor,

Thanks. I have the book on order in French, so I cannot follow up their sources at the moment. I understand that their work is based on archive research. Do they give a document file number or other source?

Cheers,

Sid.

No, there is no file mentioned for this information, but I can ask mr. Antoniu about it if you are really interested.

Hi Victor,

Yes, it would be very useful to know what Mr. Antoniu's source was. There is a big difference in reliability between contemporary archive material and ill-remembered anecdote sixty years later. It would help establish the credibility of this tale, which is important not just in terms of historical accuracy, but because it can create or perpetuate animosity today.

Cheers,

Sid.

Sid, I am almost sure his source came from the archives - but it is good to be 100% sure.But even if it was from the arvhives remember one thing: propaganda is the most efficient weapon, that pilot could have been found dead (hanged by a tree and beaten to death for example) and propaganda machine turned it into "skined alive" .

Hi D13th-Mytzu,

I tend to agree. Angry civilians in many countries beat downed airmen to death (i.e. in Germany and Malta). Such a report could therefore turn up virtually anywhere.

However, while beating to death of downed airmen in the heat of the moment is commonly recorded crowd psychology, the skinning alive of someone is not. This is something that requires cold calculation and previous expertise, which implies a contemporary culture of such activities.

I think it very likely that what you say is correct. If the incident is verified, it is far more likely that the pilot was beaten to death and his body then strung up. Thereafter, rumour and/or propaganda probably exaggerated the story. Either way, it is not a happy tale.

Cheers,

Sid.

Unfortunately such a culture existed and has prolonged its existence until recently. A succession of facts:
- 1601, city of Cluj: Baba-Novac, Michael the Brave’s mercenary general of Serbian origin, then around 70 years old was skinned alive and then impaled, together with his confessor (an Orthodox Serbian monk) in front of a wide audience composed by the Hungarian nobles and their wives. He survived the skinning because, conforming with contemporary sources, the executioner has orders to stop from time to time and pour water on his body in order to keep him alive as long as possible. This was meant to be an example for all the “usurpers”, with an emphasis on those of Walachian/Romanian origin.
- September 1940: after the Treaty of Viena imposed the annexation of North-Western Transylvania to Hungary, a series of abuses and atrocities followed. In Huedin, Cluj County (a part of the annexed territory), an Orthodox priest was beaten to death for hours by a gang of local civilians of Hungarian origin; they torn apart his hair and beard (together with the flesh) and one of them forced a walking stick into his mouth until in came out on the other side. A former civil guard (employee of the Romanian state before the annexation) tried to intervene and convince the aggressor to let go of the priest (he was one against more that ten); for this reason only, he was beaten to death too. It took ten days until the family was allowed by the authorities to bury the priest.
- 1956, the Hungarian Revolution, the first large scale anti-communist upheaval in Eastern Europe: some Communist Party activist and secret police officers were beaten to death, skinned (alive, according to some sources) and hanged upside down by the public lighting pillars and by the main Danube bridge (“Lanc Hid”) in Budapest.
- December 1989, the “Secui/Szekely land”, a region with Hungarian speaking majority in Central Romania: after the overthrow of the communist regime some police officers were beaten to death by their fellow citizens, Hungarian (Secui/Szekely) ethnics; their eyes were poked out, their penises cut off and stuffed into their mouths, and then they were abandoned to be found by their families. This was the real version documented by the newspapers, later next year; the TV version (without images) was that they put dead rats into their mouths…

I don’t say that those proofs of “furror Hungarorum” were completely unprovoked or that all the victims were innocent. I don’t want neither to open the gates of hell in the never ending Romanian-Hungarian dispute (now fortunately taking place at the intellectual level) nor say that they represent a specific or inherited treat of the Hungarian people - it would be stupid, illogical and incorrect to do so. But those things happened and they weren’t exceptions. Such barbaric acts (and a subculture of such practices) are a shame for any modern people, and the most shocking fact is that some, if not all of them, tried to be justified in a way or another, after they took place. When condemned, the savage killers of the policemen from 1989 claimed to be some kind of victims of a prejudiced Romanian majority (and its biased judicial system) and their pardon was asked by both the Hungarian president (at that time) and by the political organization of the Hungarian ethnics from Romania, RMDS… and eventually they were released before having done their time in jail. If a fellow citizen would have done or inspired such acts I would not be content but with his conviction to the most severe penalty allowed by the judicial system, as a small but necessary compensation for his crimes and for the offense brought to me as his fellow citizen/ethnic by his evil acts. Let’s take the example of Miron Cozma, the ex-miners leader, Romanian ethnic by the way, responsible for the street violence in Bucharest, 14-15 June 1990: I think his liberation before the term is a mistake and an unwelcome act of mercy. But for some it appears that such a judgment is obscured by the reason of common language or ethnicity with the perpetrator (or fight against a common enemy), which is a very sad thing.

This post has been edited by Agarici on June 18, 2005 10:09 pm

Hi Agarici,

I would suggest that what you are doing is perpetuating inter-ethnic hostility without hard contemporary evidence.

It is perfectly possible to believe in such cruelties in the Late Middle Ages, even 1601.

It is also perfectly possible to believe that people are beaten to death by mob violence in the contemporary world. (There was film on the BBC of Chinese peasants being beaten todeath by a club-wielding mob only yesterday).

However, if one wants to suggest that calculated acts such as skinning alive are a feature of the last 60 or 70 years one must come up with the who, what, when, where and how, and respectable verifiable sources. If one cannot, one is simply spreading ethnic hatred.

Have you such evidence?

Cheers,

Sid.