Lovas is a village and seat of municipality in the Vukovar-Srijem county of eastern Croatia

Croatia

Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...

, located on the slopes of Fruška Gora

Fruška Gora

Fruška Gora is a mountain in north Syrmia. Most part of the territory is located within Vojvodina, Serbia, but a smaller part on its western side overlaps the territory of Croatia...

, a few kilometers south of the main road connecting Vukovar

Vukovar

Vukovar is a city in eastern Croatia, and the biggest river port in Croatia located at the confluence of the Vuka river and the Danube. Vukovar is the center of the Vukovar-Syrmia County...

 with Ilok

Ilok

Ilok is the easternmost town and municipality in Croatia. Located in the Syrmia region, it lies on a hill overlooking the Danube river, which forms the border with the Vojvodina region of Serbia. The population of the town of Ilok is 5,036, while the total municipality population is 6,750...

. Lovas has a population of 1,167 (2001), and its municipality also includes the smaller village of Opatovac (pop. 412 in 2001) which is located to the north, at the Danube

Danube

The Danube is a river in the Central Europe and the Europe's second longest river after the Volga. It is classified as an international waterway....

.

History

The village of Lowas in Feudal times was in the District of Vukovar a village belonging to the Eltz

Eltz

The House of Eltz is a noted German noble family of the Uradel. The Rhenish dynasty has had close ties to the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia since 1736.-History:...

 family. It was the home of Croats

Croats

Croats are a South Slavic ethnic group mostly living in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and nearby countries. There are around 4 million Croats living inside Croatia and up to 4.5 million throughout the rest of the world. Responding to political, social and economic pressure, many Croats have...

, Hungarians, Serbs

Serbs

The Serbs are a South Slavic ethnic group of the Balkans and southern Central Europe. Serbs are located mainly in Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and form a sizable minority in Croatia, the Republic of Macedonia and Slovenia. Likewise, Serbs are an officially recognized minority in...

, and Germans

Germans

The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....

.

Recent history

Lovas was almost completely destroyed during the Croatian War of Independence

Croatian War of Independence

The Croatian War of Independence was fought from 1991 to 1995 between forces loyal to the government of Croatia—which had declared independence from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia —and the Serb-controlled Yugoslav People's Army and local Serb forces, with the JNA ending its combat...

 when the villages were attacked by and later invaded by the Serbian forces. Lovas was a village of 1,681 at the time, mostly Croats

Croats

Croats are a South Slavic ethnic group mostly living in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and nearby countries. There are around 4 million Croats living inside Croatia and up to 4.5 million throughout the rest of the world. Responding to political, social and economic pressure, many Croats have...

 (85.7%), with some Serbs

Serbs

The Serbs are a South Slavic ethnic group of the Balkans and southern Central Europe. Serbs are located mainly in Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and form a sizable minority in Croatia, the Republic of Macedonia and Slovenia. Likewise, Serbs are an officially recognized minority in...

 (7.9%) and others (6.4%). Opatovac was populated by 550 people, of which there were 43.4% Croats, 26.2% Serbs, 21.1% Magyars, and 9.5% others.

In Lovas, 261 houses were completely destroyed, and all others were damaged, whereas in Opatovac, 15 homes were destroyed and fifty-odd others were damaged. Most of the damage was caused by Serbian bombing prior to the occupation, while some was caused afterwards.

Lovas was captured on October 10, 1991, and Opatovac on October 14. On October 11, a group of 51 Croats was forced to enter a mine field just outside of Lovas in order to "clear" it, causing death to 21 of them and injury to another 14. Another 19 people were killed in the village the same day.

The Serbian army occupied a building in the village and used it as an improvised jail. There, the non-Serb population was mistreated to the extent of atrocity - men and women were arrested and subsequently beaten and molested with any and all instruments at their captors' disposal - from crowbars to knives to electrodes. Those Croats who remained were forced to wear white arm bands as a sign of racial recognition.

The Catholic church of St. Michael in Lovas, a 250 year old building, was set on fire and later completely destroyed by explosives. The chapel of St. Florian at the Lovas graveyard was also set ablaze and devastated. The Catholic Church in Opatovac was pillaged and damaged. Later, in the center of Lovas, four adjacent family houses were unlawfully destroyed to make way for a new Orthodox church building.

The buildings of the Hrvatski dom (community house, lit. "Croatian home") and the municipality were also destroyed. Numerous private barns, warehouses and other buildings were destroyed, the "Borovo" factory was burned, the agricultural company "Lovas" immovable property (driers, silo) was destroyed as well, while the movable machines were stolen and transferred to Serbia. In Opatovac, the oil company INA's dispatch centre and the was badly damaged by rockets, as was the VUPIK plant Opatovac-Pustara.

A total of 1,661 people became refugees because of all this, of which 1,341 from Lovas and 320 from Opatovac. After the war, a mass grave

Mass grave

A mass grave is a grave containing multiple number of human corpses, which may or may not be identified prior to burial. There is no strict definition of the minimum number of bodies required to constitute a mass grave, although the United Nations defines a mass grave as a burial site which...

was exhumed near the village cemetery, with 68 bodies, and another ten bodies were found in assorted graves around the village. These people were officially buried properly on March 21, 1998.

As a result of the war, a total of 83 villagers of Lovas lost their lives and four are still listed as missing. In Opatovac, two people are dead, and one is missing. After the war ended, almost two thirds of the Serbs moved out of the villages, reducing their number to 106. The number of Magyars was cut by almost one half as well (77). There are also 335 fewer Croats in the municipality.