Communist purges in Serbia in 1944 – 45 The Communist purges in Serbia in 1944 – 1945 were purges committed by members of the Yugoslav Partisan Movement and post - war communist authorities after they gained control over Serbia in 1944 . Most of these purges were committed between October 1944 and May 1945 . During this time , several tens of thousands of people were executed . The victims were of different ethnic backgrounds , but were mostly Serbs , Germans , and Hungarians . Different sources provide different estimates regarding the number of victims . According to one source , at least 80 , 000 people were executed in the whole of Serbia , while another source states that the number of victims was more than 100 , 000 . In Central Serbia there was some 30 , 000 victims , while number of victims in Vojvodina includes about 56 , 000 Germans , between 20 , 000 and 40 , 000 Hungarians , and some 23 , 000 - 24 , 000 Serbs . The names of about 4 , 000 individual Germans who were killed by the Partisans are known , but it is estimated that many more ethnic Germans were executed . These events during the fall of 1944 are referred to as " " bloody autumn " " by some sources . Central Serbia . Total number of victims in Central Serbia is estimated at 30 , 000 . According to Milovan Đilas , before communist forces entered Belgrade , their leaders decided that followers of former pro - Axis puppet Serbian regime should be liquidated immediately . According to communist leaders , Belgrade was the main center of Serbian reaction and , due to that , it was designed to be " very carefully cleansed from anti - communist elements " . Establishment of communist administration was , therefore , followed by brutal showdown with notable persons that participated in cultural , political and public life of German - occupied Serbia , but also with members of rival Chetnik resistance movement that was defeated in civil war . Vojvodina . In Vojvodina ( which then included Bačka , Banat , Baranja and Syrmia regions ) , most of the executions were performed during Military Administration in Banat , Bačka and Baranja , between October , 1944 and January , 1945 . Background . During World War II , in 1941 , Nazi Germany invaded and occupied Yugoslavia . The Vojvodina region was divided into three occupation zones : Banat was placed under direct German control as an autonomous region within the area governed by the Military Administration in Serbia , Bačka was attached back to Horthy ' s Hungary and Syrmia was attached to the Independent State of Croatia . Since the beginning of the occupation , the occupying powers committed numerous war crimes against the civilian population of the region , especially against Serbs , Jews and Roma . Therefore , many citizens of Vojvodina belonging to all ethnic groups joined the partisan resistance movement to fight against occupation . The victims of the Axis troops were mostly civilians , while some were the fighters of the partisan resistance movement . Vojvodina was a region with ethnically mixed population according to the various official censuses . At the end of 1944 , Axis troops were defeated by the Red Army and the whole of Vojvodina came under the control of the Yugoslav partisan forces . On 17 October 1944 , by the order of Josip Broz Tito , the Banat , Bačka and Baranja regions were placed under military administration . About the establishment of this military government , Josip Broz Tito said the following : " The liberation of Bačka , Banat and Baranja requires the quickest possible return to normal life and the establishment of the people ' s democratic power in these territories . The specific circumstances under which these territories had to live during the occupation , and a mission to fully avert all adversities inflicted to our people by the occupying forces and foreign ethnic elements colonized here , requires that , in the beginning , we concentrate all power in order to mobilize the economy and carry on the war of liberation more successfully " . The partisan troops in Bačka had a very strict order , they had to " show the strongest possible determination against fifth columnists , especially against Germans and Hungarians " . The term " fifth column " is applied to the subversive and resistant forces and organizations left behind by a retreating enemy . The National Committee for People ' s Liberation and the Red Army had agreed on the necessary cooperation in due time . Brigadier General Ivan Rukavina was appointed commander of the military administration . He was in constant and direct contact with Tito , the supreme commander . In his first decree , he ordered his troops to " protect the national future and the South Slavic character of the territories " . In the 28 October 1944 issue of " " Slobodna Vojvodina " " , the newspaper of the People ' s Liberation Front in Vojvodina , one member of the Regional Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia summarized the intentions suggested from above , with the obvious aim to raise spirit for revenge by exaggerations and distortions : Although we destroyed the occupying German and Hungarian hordes and drove them back to the west , we have not yet eradicated the roots of the poisonous weeds planted by them . . . The hundreds of thousands of foreigners who were settled on the territories where our ancestor s had cleared the forests , drained the swamps , and created the conditions necessary for civilized life . These foreigners still kept shooting at our soldiers and the Soviet soldiers from the dark . They do everything they can to prevent the return to normal life , preparing , in the midst of this difficult situation , to stab us in the back again at the appropriate moment . . . The people feel that determined , energetic steps are needed to ensure the Yugoslav character of Bačka . Executions . Serbs . The number of the Serb victims in Vojvodina is estimated at about 23 , 000 - 24 , 000 ( According to the professor Dragoljub Živković , 47 , 000 ethnic Serbs were killed in Vojvodina between 1941 and 1948 . About half of the Serb victims were killed by occupational forces and the other half of them were executed by post - war communist authorities ) . In 1944 , in Rajina Šuma near Novi Sad , partisans executed about 200 - 250 Serbs , who were accused that they simpatized Chetnik movement of Draža Mihajlović . They were buried into two mass graves , which were discovered in 1991 during communal works in that area . After entry of partisan forces into Novi Sad in October 23 , 1944 , by the order of general Josip Rukavina ( who was a commandant of military area of Bačka and Baranja ) , mass arrests of respectable Serbs had begun . They mostly were reputable and rich householders , industrialists and intellectuals , who were seen as a possible threat for the new communist authorities . Order was carried out by the 11th Vojvodinian people ' s liberation brigade and most of the arrested citizens were executed until the middle of November . Citizens who were executed included dr Miloš Petrović ( former mayor ) , dr Obrad Milutinović ( doctor and vice - president of Novi Sad municipality ) , Dragoljub Ristić ( an industrialist ) , Pavle Tatić ( one of the founders of Socialistic Party in Novi Sad ) , Vojislav Matić ( editor and publisher of " Nova Pošta " magazine in Serbian language ) , Miloš Kostić ( player of " Vojvodina " football club ) , Svetislav Vilovski and Đurica Vlaović ( members of " Soko " society ) , Milan - Peca Popović ( intellectual and member of Rotari club ) , Jovan Begović ( provincial clerk ) , Aleksandar Silber ( economist ) , Pera Savić ( journalist ) , Fedor Radić ( doctor ) , and Gaja Gračanin ( director of " Putnik " agency ) . Especially tragic fate is that of pre - war mayor dr Miloš Petrović , who was creditable for elevation of monument dedicated to Svetozar Miletić that still stands in the centre of Novi Sad , and who also helped in saving lives of hundreds of Serbs who were imprisoned in concentration camp " Šarvar " during Hungarian occupation . Germans ( Danube Swabians ) . The estimated number range of Germans victims in Vojvodina is between 17 , 000 and 100 , 000 . According to Friedrich Binder , the total number of the German victims in Yugoslavia was 56 , 736 , of which 240 died while escaping in October , 1944 , 8 , 049 were executed by the Yugoslav partisans and 48 , 447 died in prison camps from starvation , illness and in the coldness . Before World War II , the German population of Vojvodina numbered about 350 , 000 people . 250 , 000 left during the withdrawal of Nazi forces . As a consequence of the World War II events in Yugoslavia , the Yugoslav Communist government took a reprisals on ethnic citizens of German origin in Yugoslavia : they had their citizenship revoked , their belongings were taken by force , and they were forced to share their houses with ethnic Serb , Montenegrin , Croat and Macedonian refugees from other parts of Yugoslavia who were colonized in Vojvodina ( houses of these refugees in other parts of Yugoslavia were mostly destroyed by German army during World War II ) . Between 1944 and 1946 , a prison camp system was established for all Vojvodina citizens of German origin in almost all settlements where they lived ( see also : List of concentration and internment camps , Yugoslavia ) . In those camps , ethnic Germans were used as slave labor , they were tortured , beaten , and left to die from preventable illnesses and starvation . Some members of the German community were executed by Yugoslav Partisans in those camps . Yugoslav Partisans handed over some of the ethnic Germans to Soviet Red Army , who then took them to Siberia and used them for work in mines as slave labor . Some members of ethnic Germans of Vojvodina were expelled to Germany or Austria . Hungarians . Various sources provide very different numbers of Hungarians executed in Vojvodina at that time . " " The Book of Evidence of Killed War Criminals in 1944 / 1945 " " published in Yugoslavia states that that a total of 1 , 686 people were executed in Bačka of which approximately 1 , 000 people were presumed to be Hungarians . However , the estimation of historian Kasaš tells 5 , 000 executed Hungarians . According to other estimations , the number range of the executed Hungarians in Vojvodina may be between 40 , 000 and 50 , 000 . Some sources claim that that the most probable number of the executed Hungarians in Vojvodina was between 20 , 000 and 25 , 000 , while others claim that that it is about 35 , 000 ( Cseres Tibor gives an exact estimate of 34 , 491 executed people ) . Some Hungarian houses were sacked and a number of Hungarian civilians were executed and tortured . Some women and children were raped . Some men who were able to work were deport ed to Siberia . Rusyns . Some members of Rusyn ( Ruthenian ) population in Đurđevo were also targeted by partisan forces in 1944 . According to Hungarian author Cseres , the majority of the Hungarian population of this village left with the retreating Hungarian army . The Yugoslav partisans then established control over this village and took their reprisals out on the Rusyns and Serbs who were sympathetic towards the Hungarians , the Serbian Royal Government or for their religious views . Several hundred Rusyns were executed and some prominent figures tortured . Aftermath . In June 2013 , the Serbian lawmakers adopted a declaration , which condemned the massacre in Vojvodina in 1944 - 45 and resolutions made under the principle of collective guilt during the war . In response , Hungarian President János Áder apologised in Serbia ’ s national parliament for crimes Hungarians committed against innocent Serbs in Vojvodina during WW2 .