REMEMBRANCE IN TIME - Index of

Gábor VINCZE: VAE VICTIS! Retaliation, Revenge And Collective Punishment … 175
base. Firstly, the civils identifying themselves Rusyns, were let home. And if he was
Hungarian, they didn’t even consider if he was the member of the communist party (in
Subcarpathia the communist party was strong between the two world wars).
In the camp of Svalyava the mortality rate was extremely high due to the unbearable
conditions, the starvation and the typhus-epidemic. In a short time the men being able to
work were transported to labour camps of Ukraine or even farther to the Ural. Those who
stayed in Svalyava were let home in 1946 – in an awful condition: seriously ill and
weakened. According to the estimations about 30% of the prisoners died on the road to
Svalyava, or in the camp of Svalyava or other Soviet camps (there were even villages,
where the mortality rate was 70%!). In Subcarpathia more Hungarian men died of the
deportations than during the fights or in captivity.
The Hungarian men were deported not only from the Subcarpathia, but there were 2.400
men taken away also from the settlements populated by Hungarians, geographically
connected to this region, near the rivers Uzh and Bodrog. Their fate was similar to the
Hungarians from the Subcarpathia.
Slovakia (in Hungarian – Upper Hungary)
In 1945 the Hungarian minority of 800.000 got in the most hopeless situation, as the
intention for their complete elimination raise to an official level: the government program
of the 5 th of April, 1945 in Košice collectively depriving the Hungarians (and the Germans)
from their citizenship.
In 1943 the Czechoslovakian immigrant government in London, lead by Eduard Beneš
decided to expel all the Germans and Hungarians from the reborn Czechoslovakia to be
restored at the end of the WWII. However, in the spring of 1945 it became clear, that the
western allies, the USA and Great Britain support only the collective relocation of the
Germans, but not the Hungarians. So, Prague decided to remove the Hungarians with
discriminative measures step by step: they ordered total confiscation of their property, the
usage of the Hungarian language was prohibited on every level, and they introduced many
other outlawry measures. Furthermore, in the spring of 1945, about 20.000 Hungarians
were interned and about 32-36000 Hungarians were deported to Hungary according to false
accusation of being “war criminals”. Several thousands of Hungarians were taken to force
labour to Bohemia and Moravia.
In November, 1945, due to the brutal persecution of the Hungarian minority of the
Felvidék the Hungarian government of Budapest offered direct talks to Prague, but in
December it became clear that the Czechoslovakians had not given up their plan to
eliminate the Hungarian minority; they only changed their tactics: according to their
offer the Slovakians of Hungary (their estimated number was 450.000 – with no base)
would be “exchanged” to the Hungarians of Slovakia; they expel the “war criminals”;
and those Hungarians remaining in Slovakia (who had been of Slovakian origin, but
later were formed to Hungarians) would be reslovakizated. Of course, the Hungarian
government lead by Ferenc Nagy could not accept the above offer, but forced by the
Allied Commission partially lead by the Soviets, he had to sit at the conference table.
Finally, the Ferenc Nagy-government – fearing from the further deportations; and