Knićanin

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For other meanings, see: Knićanin (disambiguation)

Main street.

Center of the village with market place and park. Here stood until 1948 the razed German church.

The memorial at the edge of the old German graveyard, where the internees themselves buried those who died of "hunger, disease, and cold", according to the sign.

Knićanin (Книћанин) is a village in Serbia. It is located in the Zrenjanin municipal area, in the Banat region (Central Banat District), Vojvodina province. Its population is 2,034 (2002 census) and most of its inhabitants are ethnic Serbs.

1 Name
2 Population
3 History
4 See also

[edit] Name

The village was named after voivod Stevan Knićanin, who was the commander of the Serbian volunteer squads in the Serbian Vojvodina during the 1848/1849 revolution. Another name for the village used in Serbian was Knićaninovo (Книћаниново).

The former German name of the village, Rudolfsgnad, was in use since 1868, when the village was named after the Habsburg prince Rudolf (1858-1889). In Hungarian, the village was known as Rezsöhaza.

[edit] Population

Knićanin has a Serb ethnic majority; ethnic Serbs number 1,981 inhabitants of the village. Other ethnic groups include Hungarians, Yugoslavs, Slovaks, Croats, and others.

Before the end of the World War II, the population of the village numbered about 3,000 people, and was mainly composed of ethnic Germans (Danube Swabians).

[edit] History

The village was founded in 1866. It formerly had a large German (Danube Swabian) population. In the 19th and the first half of the 20th century, the villagers were mainly farmers and artisans. In 1931, the population of the village numbered 3,072 inhabitants.

After the World War II, the village was used as a prison camp for Germans of the Vojvodina region (mostly from central and south Banat) by the Yugoslav partisans. The average number of people inside prison camp was 17,200, while the largest number was 20,500. The camp operated from 10 October 1945 until middle of March 1948 (total operating time was 29 months or 880 days). It is estimated that about 11,000 people died in the camp, of which 7,767 death cases are documented. Main causes of death were typhus, malaria, and malnutrition.

After the prison camp was closed, Serb families from Bosnia, Croatia, and Montenegro were settled in the village.

A memorial to victims of a mass grave was constructed nearby in 1998 with an inscription in both Serbian and German. The larger sign on the memorial reads: "Here rest our fellow citizens of German ethnicity, who died of hunger, sickness, and cold in the camp 'Knićanin/Rudolfsgnad' 1946-1948. May they rest in peace". The smaller sign reads: "To the victims from German Elemir/Elemer in the camp of Knićanin/Rudolfsgnad 314".