The 1944-1948 ethnic cleansing of East European Germans has long been shrouded in silence. Following the liberation of Hungary from the Ottoman Turks, the Habsburg Monarchy encouraged Swabians from Southwest Germany to settle in and rebuild the war-devastated province along the Danube River. With pioneer spirit and strength of will, the colonists turned the former wasteland into the "Breadbasket of Europe." For 300 years, the descendents of the original settlers lived peacefully among various ethnic groups while continuing to cherish and maintain the customs and traditions of their ancestors.

In the aftermath of World War II following the Nazi Holocaust, these German speaking Danube Swabians were perceived as Nazi collaborators and, out of retaliation for war crimes they didn't commit, became Hitler's last victims, targets of Tito’s barbarous genocide that resulted in the extermination and murder of some two million innocent men, women, and children and the displacement of another fifteen million. The historical narrative is enhanced by the remarkable testimony of survivor Katharina Karl, a young girl separated from her family during the carnage, hidden, and then placed in inhumane work camps.

Author’s Preface 11 

Part One: Hitler’s Last Victims
Chapter One: Call It What It is 21
Chapter Two: The Resettlement Of Ethnic Germans 28
Chapter Three: When The Danube Flowed Red 39
Chapter Four: The Jews of the Batschka 56
Photos & Maps 67

Part Two: The Katharina Karl Marx Story 
Chapter Five: Fields of Sunflowers 84
Chapter Six: When the Music Stopped 94
Chapter Seven: Bearing Witness 100
Chapter Eight: From Homeland to Hell 105
Chapter Nine: Flight to Freedom 110
Chapter Ten: Roots 118
Afterword 125
Endnotes 127

Part Three: Teaching Guide 
Partial List of Crimes Against Humanity 139 
Research Activities 143

“On behalf of the Danube Swabian Associations of Philadelphia and Vicinity, Trenton, and New York, we...extend our heartfelt gratitude to you for...compassionately and lovingly telling [our] story to the world and honoring the memories of those who perished.”

Danube Swabian Associations of America

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Dr. Ali Botein-Furrevig is an English Professor at Ocean County College in Toms River, NJ  where she also developed and teaches courses in Jewish and Holocaust Literature and the History of the Jewish People and Culture. Dr. Botein serves as Academic and Programming Director for the college’s Center for Peace, Genocide, and Holocaust Studies. She is the author of Heart of the Stranger: A Portrait of Lakewood's Orthodox Community, winner of the 2010 National Best Books Awards in the category of General Religion.