f the
newly formed Kingdom of Serbs, Croats
and Slovenes (later renamed Yugoslavia). According to 1921 census,
speakers of German language were most numerous in the town, while 1931 census
recorded 13,425 speakers of Yugoslav languages and 11,926 speakers of German
language. During the Axis occupation (1941–1944), Vršac was part
of autonomous Banat region within the area governed by the Military Administration in Serbia.
Many Danube Swabians collaborated with the Nazi authorities and many men were
conscripted into the Waffen SS.
In 1944, one part of Vršac citizens of German ethnicity left from the city,
together with defeated German army.Those who remained in Vršac were sent to
local communist prison camps, where some of them died
from disease and malnutrition. According to some claims, some were tortured or
killed by the partisans. Since 1944 when it was liberated by
the Red Army's 46th Army, the town was part of the
new Socialist Yugoslavia. After
prison camps were dissolved (in 1948) and Yugoslav citizenship was returned to
the Germans, the
