During the World War II Tovarnik was a part of Independent State of Croatia, a puppet state led by the fascist Ustaša organization which at the time ruled the entire Syrmia region and implemented genocide of Serbs on its territory. The historical Serb village of Ivanci, which was located south of Ilača, was completely destroyed on 30 November 1943 while 73 inhabitants were killed in half an hour. The village of Ivanci was center of the Yugoslav Partisans in Syrmia with established local branches of Women's Antifascist Front of Yugoslavia and League of Communist Youth of Yugoslavia. Surviving villagers found rescue in Šidski Banovci, Tovarnik and Ilača. After the Syrmian Front broke through on 12 April 1945 local Danube Swabians and some Croats in Tovarnik (51 in total) were exposed to a wave of executions of suspected collaborators who were executed by being pushed from the tower of the Church of St. George. Protestant Danube Swabians from Šidski Banovci were expelled despite the fact that they helped to save survivors from Ivanci and were more protective of local Orthodox population than Catholic Danube Swabians.