Janics: Czechoslovak Policy and the Hungarian Minority

A follow-up story in the same issue of Èas dealt with the international aspects of the case and condemns the Hungarian protests in sharp terms:

The Hungarian radio broad casts rumors to the effect that the recruitment campaign had resorted to inhumane methods. Even official government organs-as can be learned from Foreign Minister Gyöngyösi's speech-are spreading misleading information and describe the recruitment procedures in a distorted manner. At the same time, the Hungarian media are conducting a crude propaganda campaign against the recruitment of manpower [in Czechoslovakia in-citing the Hungarian population to provocative acts. The scare rumors spread by the Hungarians are inventions of ill will and do not correspond to reality in any way. In the commune of Gutor disorders erupted among the Hungarians when agents provocateurs began to spread rumors that people would be taken to Siberia. Some families fled to Hungary. But ten families, upon finding out that it was only a matter of labor service in the Czech lands, sent a messenger over to the Slovak side with the word that they wished to return voluntarily and subject themselves to the labor service law rather than remain in Hungary. The distortion of the true nature of things and the continued slanders against the Czechoslovak Republic certainly do not serve the cause of peaceful settlement of disagreements between Hungary and Czechoslovakia. The Hungarian government, crudely and intentionally disregarding its treaty obligations, refuses to carry out the population exchange agreement, persecutes and oppresses the Slovaks of Hungary, particularly those who have signed up for resettlement, and incites systematically against our State, in order to blacken our reputation before world public opinion . . . Those who know Hungarian propaganda could easily fit the present campaign against Czechoslovakia among the memories of past slanders which distorted the truth, spread lies about Czechoslovakia where peace, order and exemplary democracy prevails, where, instead of unscrupulous propaganda, every effort is concentrated on constructive work.¹²

Three days later, without comment, Èas reported on November 29: "Hungary sent a note to the foreign ministers of the four Great Powers in New York, as well as to the Czechoslovak Government, protesting against the alleged persecution of the Hungarians in Slovakia. The note lists a whole series of incidents which allegedly took place last week."¹³

The right-wing Hungarian nationalist press, in its zeal to stir up sentiments against Czechoslovakia, carried exaggerated stories about the deplorable events taking place on the other side of the Danube. The Slovak press, eager to discredit Hungarian propaganda, readily quoted such articles, like the one published in Kossuth Népe which stated: "The terrorist groups of the Hlinka Guard deport thousands of Hungarians to their unknown fate. Diplomatic measures and articles which appeared in the Hungarian and world press have not contributed to a mitigation of the misfortune of tens of thousands of Hungarians. The Slovak agencies accelerate the deportation of the Hungarians, for they fear intervention on the part of the Great Powers. Many Hungarians have met their death in the waves of the Danube. The Slovak soldiers scan the waters of the Danube with searchlights. As soon as they spot a Hungarian refugee they wildly open fire with their machine guns . . . Human fantasy cannot conceive of all the horrors happening in southern Slovakia . . ."¹⁴

While the Hungarian right was exaggerating the events in Czechoslovakia, the Hungarian left did the opposite by condoning the Czechoslovak measures. In the confusion of propaganda, quite a few Hungarian progressives failed to recognize the true situation, and let themselves be misled. This, too, was welcome news for the Slovak press. Thus Práca reported from Budapest: "In Népszava, the daily of the Hungarian Social Democratic Party, the editor-in-chief Zoltán Horváth, writes an article in which he rejects the Hungarian press attacks against Czechoslovakia. Horváth was a member of a delegation of Hungarian Social Democrats who participated in a congress of Social Democrats held in Prague. The Hungarian journalist had a chance to freely visit Southern Slovakia and could see how baseless are the Hungarian press reports according to which the Czechoslovak authorities persecute the Hungarians living in Czechoslovakia. Editor-in-chief Horváth could see it for himself that no deportations of any kind had taken place, that there was no persecution, but simply recruitment and truly for labor service. This duty for labor service is valid for the Hungarians of Czechoslovakia no less than it is for the Slovaks themselves."¹⁵

It remains a mystery how the Slovak hosts managed to convince the visiting Zoltán Horváth that resettlement of Hungarians and confiscation of their belongings was in harmony with labor service obligation.

The Bratislava Pravda quoted a similar Hungarian point of view from the Communist Szabad Nép; "The Hungarian Communists condemn the propaganda campaign directed against Czechoslovakia under the title disturbers of the peace." The newspaper Szabad Nép objects to the irresponsible way the Hungarian press writes about Czechoslovakia. It points out that right wing elements are exploiting the momentary difficulties of the Hungarians of Slovakia, fermenting thus additional tensions between Czechoslovakia and Hungary. 'The newspaper wonders what effect it has abroad when Hungarian papers denounce the Czechoslovakia of Benes, Gottwald and siroky' for allegedly doing the same thing which Goering and Ribbentrop had been condemned for. Szabad Nép warns that the Manchester Guardian has already accused the Hungarian press of conducting a propaganda of lies."¹⁶

The Hungarian press did exaggerate. On the other hand, it was the protest of the Hungarian press which placed the issue of the Hungarians in Czechoslovakia into the focus of international attention. And it was the pressure of world public opinion which eventually forced Czechoslovakia to stop the deportation of the Hungarians.

As for the press war between the two countries: the Czechoslovak press certainly exaggerated no less in its efforts to defend and conceal the deportations than did the Hungarian press in its efforts to attack and denounce them. A good illustration of Slovak reporting on this subject was the news story datelined from Budapest in the 1946 Christmas issue of Èas comparing the minority policies of the two countries:

The Hungarian papers swarm with sharp and inconsiderate attacks against Czechoslovakia because of the labor service performed by Hungarians from Slovakia in Bohemia. They raise a hue and cry around the whole world, and sent out diplomatic circulars asking that the Powers take the Hungarians of Slovakia under their wings and help prevent the use of force against them. The articles in the Hungarian press appear under fantastic headlines: Manhunt in Csalóköz, and the like. Those who are misled by these articles must believe that the most reactionary regime rules Czechoslovakia, or one at least of the wild West variety . . . And what is the situation in Hungary? Here the Slovaks who have signed up for repatriation have been fired from their jobs, they have been cut from all sources of income. Thus in Békéscsaba alone more than 200 civil servants are without work and pay since July . . . Can there be a greater terror and lawlessness than to take away the bread of the people, their livelihood, and to prevent them from going where they can make a living? Is there a person or statesman who would understand this? Especially since this is happening in a country which pretends to be democratic! How would Mr. Minister Gyöngyösi justify such heinous injustice? ¹¹

The question has often been raised: Why did millions of Slovaks and Czechs accept every nationalist excess against the Hungarian minority without any dissent whatsoever? ¹⁷

For one thing, one must remember that there were very few Slovaks who were not implicated in one way or another in the affairs of the Fascist Tiso Slovakia. Since the anti-Hungarian policy had been paraded as an anti-Fascist policy, any dissent with it might have easily been labeled as "Fascist," an accusation which at that time might have carried with it, if not the threat of prison, but at least existential bankruptcy. And then, too, even those who did have a so-called anti-Fascist or revolutionary record could not so easily turn against the policy of nationalist fanatics either. After all, that policy had been ushered in by the victors whose deeds were immune to criticism.

Not even the Czech writers could find an answer to this dilemma. They invariably approved of the Presidential decrees and of other measures devised against the Hungarian minority. From Budapest, the Hungarian Writers' Association asked the Czech writers to denounced the offenses committed against the Hungarians. The Czech reply was evasive:

The Czech Writers' Association reassured the Hungarian Writers' Association that they feel at one with their faith in humanity and world solidarity. But, if the offenses mentioned refer to the Hungarian population living in Southern Slovakia, the Czech Writers' Association must note that the Hungarian press campaign in connection with the labor service in South Slovakia has been denounced as unwarranted and has been criticized recently in the Hungarian press itself. The Czech Writers' Association assures the Hungarian writers that the Hungarians of Southern Slovakia are treated decently and humanely within the letter of the Czechoslovak laws and decrees."¹⁸

What could one expect from the simple citizen, if there wasn't a spark of courage even in the Association of Writers? Actually, I know of only two written dissents: A protest from the Catholic church, and a criticism by a political party. The Slovak Katolické Noviny expressed at least once its astonishment at the deportation of Hungarians-and was promptly rebuked for it as being "un-national." The Slovak Catholic paper wrote: 'The resettlement of the Hungarians of Slovakia is tantamount to the deprivation of rights of the Hungarian people."¹⁹ The other written evidence of outspoken dissent against the deportations came from Jaroslav Fabok, secretary of the Slovak Democratic Party. He declared at _diezovce (Zseliz) on January 21, 1947: 'We will not tolerate that the inhabitants of Hungarian nationality be resettled . . ."²⁰ This was all.

It must be added, however, that the Slovak people observing the events had noticeably been filled with anxiety. The unusual roughness astounded the public. But what one could hear was Only the voice of Slovak nationalist fanatics running amok. The Slovak population at large was scared and silent.

In the last days of January 1947, the Hungarian Foreign Minister, János Gyöngyösi met in secret at Bratislava with Jan Masaryk's Deputy secretary of State Vladimir Clementis. The news of the secret meeting was leaked to Associated Press in Bratislava, which prompted Foreign Minister Gyöngyösi to call a press conference upon his return to Budapest and inform the public of his meeting with Dr. Clementis.

The Associated Press report and the Gyöngyösi press conference revealed that the Hungarian-Czechoslovak meeting at Bratislava to resolve the crisis created by the deportations and other unresolved issues had ended in failure. The Czechoslovak press reported at great length the press conference of the Hungarian Foreign Minister, but also expressed indignation over the failure to be informed from domestic sources: "What is the advantage of being informed about matters of direct relevance by foreign press agencies? - asked Nové Prúdy. ²¹ Another paper, Práca, published a lengthy and polemical report on Gyöngyösi's press conference under the headlines: "The Hungarian Foreign Minister continues to distort the facts. Hungary wishes to bring up the matter of resettlement at the United Nations." - The news report itself stressed that the failure of the Bratislava meeting was caused by Hungary's "recalcitrant stand." The paper also informed the public of an exchange of notes between the two countries:

Gyöngyösi read the text of the diplomatic note which our [Czechoslovak] Government had sent to Hungary on January 7,1947 . . . The note explains that we hope for a continuation of the dialogue with Hungary, and would like to interpret the original agreement on population exchange in such a manner that the persons already [forcibly] resettled and those who already left [voluntarily] as refugees should not be included in the count of those to be resettled in the future. Our government also hopes that the Hungarian government would grant a 30 day extension for the registration of the Czechs and Slovaks in Hungary [for resettlement to Czechoslovakia] and that the exchange be concluded by December 31,1947. The Hungarian reply remitted on January 14 stated that those proposals constitute changes of substance in the agreement signed On February 27, 1946. As long as the dispersion of the Hungarians [in Czechoslovakia] continues, the Hungarian Government considers any kind of an accord as useless.

The Práca report continued with an account of the Gyöngyösi press conference on the controversial Bratislava meeting:

Gyöngyösi referred to the fact that the meeting was meant to be secret but was betrayed by circles in Bratislava. He denied that he demanded cessation of the labor service in Czechoslovakia, but he insisted that the workers not be compelled to abandon their homes under the guise of labor service . . . To the question, whether Hungary had carried out the population exchange agreement, he [Gyöngyösi] answered that the actual resettlement according to the terms of the agreement had not even begun because neither party had studied and arranged the proposal for exchange. As far as the Bratislava meeting was concerned, he declared that the meeting took place on his initiative . . . [and] that the Great Powers will be informed . . . [According to Gyöngyösi], the Czechoslovak Government wishes to replace the earlier agreement with a newer one, even more favorable to itself. After the signing of the peace treaty Hungary intends to bring up the matter at the United Nations.²²

Following the miscarried Bratislava meeting, the Hungarian Government had sent a note to the Great Powers informing them of the dispersion and persecution of the Hungarians of Slovakia. The Slovak press responded with a threat: "If Hungarian propaganda assumes that it can camouflage its own responsibility by unjust charges and systematic interference in our internal affairs, then it will soon be cured from this error."²³

Slovak anger had been further heightened by Cardinal Mindszenty's radiogram to the King of England and to President Truman. Said the first page headlines of the February 8, 1947 issue of the Bratislava Èas: "General Hungarian offensive against Czechoslovakia. Both Gyöngyösi and Mindszenty complain about us. "Yet the report itself led one to believe that even Czechoslovak circles were worried about the developments:

The Hungarian Cardinal Mindszenty . . . urges intervention against the policy of the Czechoslovak Government, in order to stop the persecution of the Hungarians. The radiogram contends that the Hungarians in Czechoslovakia had suffered the most cruel oppression during the past two years. On the grounds of collective guilt for the war they have been deprived of all human and civil rights, even though these rights are guaranteed by the Charter of the United Nations which Czechoslovakia flouts. Under the disguise of general labor service . . . Czechoslovak authorities, assisted by armed forces, deport farmers and their families, whose estates range between 10 to 100 hectares, including the sick, children and women. There are also priests among the deported. These people are taken to places more than 600 kilometers away from their homes. Mindszenty urges rapid intervention on behalf of these Hungarians. He sent a similar telegram to the Vatican requesting that the Holy See intervene with the Czechoslovak Government . . .

The Èas report then turned to the protest note sent by Hungarian Foreign Minister Gyöngyösi to the representatives of the Great Powers in Budapest:

[The note] describes the situation of the Hungarians in Czechoslovakia, and points out those international guarantees which might serve to solve the problem of the Hungarian minority. The Hungarian

Government requests the friendly help of the Allied Great Powers in resolving the continually deteriorating Czechoslovak-Hungarian relations, caused by the problem of Hungarians deprived of all rights. According to the note the Hungarian Government is convinced that as long as the Hungarian question is not solved by bilateral negotiations, there can be no improvement in the situation of the Hungarians of Czechoslovakia; establishment of diplomatic relations among the nations of Central Europe remains likewise an impossibility. Finally the Hungarian Government requests the Great Powers to assert the decisions of the Paris [peace] conference in the matter of the Hungarians of Czechoslovakia.

While reporting at great length the Hungarian complaints, the Slovak press was also anxious to repeat some Hungarian leftist opinions and some more recent foreign views which found no fault in the Czechoslovak treatment of the Hungarian minority. The February 9 issue of Práca wrote: "Even the representatives of the Hungarian people, for instance Kisházy and Horváth, who in December visited the Hungarian workers [deported to Bohemia] , could see it for themselves that the Hungarians are provided with everything the same way the Czech or Slovak workers are . In January, it was an Englishman from London, Johnson, who visited the Hungarian workers He spoke to them, and declared afterward that his general impressions were very favorable. "²⁴

On February 10,1947, the Treaty of Paris between Czechoslovakia and Hungary was signed in Paris. On the same day, the Slovak National Council and the Board of Representatives in Bratislava issued a communiqué expression hope that the population exchange between the two countries will soon start so that "100,000 Slovaks could return home" from Hungary. It also made reference to the fate of the Hungarians of Slovakia: "By authority of the peace treaty, and for the sake of building a lasting peace, we wish that the question of the remaining Hungarians living intermingled with Slovak elements in the southeastern borderlands of our country should be solved once and for all. "²⁵

In the meantime, deportations of the Hungarians from the Slovak southeastern borderlands continued to the Czech northwestern borderlands, despite renewed unusual cold waves all over Europe. Also further legislative measures against the national minorities kept coming from Prague. On February 14,1947, the National Assembly approved a law regarding the confiscation of property. The Slovak press thought the law was long overdue. Commented Práèa the next day: "The law has great significance regarding Slovakia as well, because it makes it possible to solve the economic issue of the Hungarian minority in South Slovakia where there continues to be many stores, industries, or estates in operation which should have been in the hands of Slovak settlers a long time ago. "²⁶

The press war, too, continued full force between Hungary and Czechoslovakia. On February 13, Èas reported that "Czechoslovakia rejects and denies the Hungarian falsehoods. Our correspondent in Budapest informs us that General Dastich, the Czechoslovak liaison at the Allied Control Commission in Budapest, handed two notes of protest in the name of the Czechoslovak Government to the Hungarian Foreign Ministry. The first note rejects the attempts of the Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs to interfere in the internal affairs of Czechoslovakia in connection with the execution of Presidential decree 88/1945 regarding universal labor service obligations. The second note points Out the systematic disregard on the part of Hungary of the population exchange agreement concluded between Czechoslovakia and Hungary.

However, Hungary did not stay idle either. On the occasion of signing the Treaty of Peace with Czechoslovakia, Hungary handed a note to the president of the peace conference in Paris. The note expressed the Hungarian nation's dissatisfaction with the unjust peace. The Czechoslovak press duly noticed that the Hungarian protest is expressing dissatisfaction in particular with the situation of the Hungarians in Czechoslovakia. Èas reported on February 13, 1947:

The [Hungarian] protest declares that the exclusion of legal guarantees [for the protection of minorities] from the peace treaty allowed for the cruel persecution of the Hungarians in Czechoslovakia. The Czechoslovak Government outlawed the Hungarian minority, and has displaced tens of thousands of Hungarians under the cover of universal labor service, carrying away the population in the dead of winter under the most inhumane conditions. All this contradicts the spirit of the United Nations. The Hungarian Government requests that the peace conference intervene to ensure the rights of the Hungarian minority. Hungarian Foreign Minister Gyöngyösi made similar statements in the course of his conversations with the editor of the Swiss Neue Zürcher Zeitung. ²⁷

The Czechoslovak Foreign Minister Jan Masaryk, too, made a statement in Paris on the occasion of signing the peace treaty. He expressed his hopes that the question of the dispersion of the Hungarian minority in Czechoslovakia could be solved by direct negotiations between Hungary and Czechoslovakia. He added:

When I return to Prague I hope I will have the opportunity to examine the situation, and to arrive at a sensible agreement. I don't know how we are dealing with the Hungarian population. It is possible that errors have been committed. If indeed this was the case, I will be the first one to recognize and attempt to rectify it.

Masaryk's statement was a step in the right direction inasmuch that, implicitly, it admitted the possibility of a critical re-evaluation of the policy of dispersal introduced against the Hungarian minority. However, he also questioned the Hungarian contention that the Hungarians had been dealt with roughly in Czechoslovakia. He declared: "We are a small, peace-loving nation, and the whole world knows us for our humanistic policies. The attempt to make us appear as slave-holders is unreasonable to say the least. "²⁸

To prove that there are influential people in the world who disagree with the Hungarian point of view, the same issue of Èas, covering the signing of the Treaty of Peace between Czechoslovakia and Hungary, published this report from London: "Labor MP John Haire handed an inquiry to the British Foreign Office asking whether the British Government knows about the deportations of Hungarians in Czechoslovakia. In reply Christopher Mayher, Secretary of the Foreign Office answered: 'The resettlement of Czechoslovak citizens within the borders of the State is not in contradiction with article 5 of the Peace Treaty concluded with Hungary."²⁹

Another Czechoslovak paper, however, felt disgruntled about a pro-Hungarian stand of American Slovaks in the matter of the deportations. Práca took issue with F. Hrobák's statement in the New York Times: "He takes the side of the Hungarians against us. He reproaches Czechoslovakia that they use allegedly barbarian methods to chase the Hungarians from places where they had been living for centuries . . . Andrej J. Valusek defended us vis-à-vis the insults of Hrobák."³⁰

The deportation of Hungarians from Southern Slovakia came to a sudden end on February 25,1947. The decision to stop the deportations had come, most likely as a result of the unfavorable publicity in the West and under pressure of the Great Powers, the United States in particular. The deportations came to a halt at a time when the eastward moving action to disperse the Hungarian population had just reached Tornalja. Thus, the Hungarians in the eastern counties of Southern Slovakia from Ro_òava (Rozsnyó) to Vel'ké Kapusany (Nagykapos) were spared the experience of being deported to Bohemia. On balance the deportations, not unlike the population exchange and re-Slovakization, did not achieve its goal. But the memory of the 99 days left an indelible mark on all Hungarians of Slovakia, including those who were not directly victims.

It was no secret that the deportations had a twofold objective. Its aim was to weaken the Hungarian ethnic element in Slovakia on the one hand, and to force the execution of the population exchange agreement with Hungary, on the other. In that sense, the action was successful on both counts.

Jozef Dickal, writing in Nové Prúdy, summed up the success of the action this way: "The Hungarian authorities had to be forced to put an end to their delaying tactics and to seriously begin the execution of the population exchange. This took place thanks to the resettlement of the Hungarians from South Slovakia into the Bohemian borderlands. "The author was less satisfied with the work ethic of the Hungarian deportees: "How did the Hungarian workforce function in Bohemia? Not very well. Although the Hungarians were provided with everything in the Czech lands, and nobody expected unusual productivity on their part (women and -children were not expected to work), still they shunned the assigned work and, whenever possible, filter back to their birthplace. In this they are often successful. However, the Hungarians who filter back do not return to their own homes, for these have in the meantime been assigned to Slovaks from abroad. Thus, they hide at their friends or relatives who have not yet been deported."³¹

The great élan with which the deportations were carried out came to a halt after 99 days, without further commentary. After the Communist -seizure of power in February 1948, the victims were able to sue for the recovery of their confiscated properties. These suits continued for years. However, in most cases the dust of time covered the losses caused by confiscation. The conditions were never really ripe for compensation: "In South Slovakia, in the middle of 1949, there were more than 10,000 unsolved cases of confiscation affecting mostly small (land-holding] peasants of Hungarian nationality."³²

All in all, according to Czechoslovak sources, 44,129 Hungarians were transferred from the borderlands of South Slovakia and settled in the Czech lands. They left behind 4,000 buildings, 25,000 hectares of land numbering 11,164 plots.³³ By this count, the average individual plot of the deported Hungarians would have consisted of 2.12 hectares. But quite a few were much larger, those of the so-called kulaks. In any case, these figures show that most of the deported peasants were rather small Hungarian landholders, attached to the land they worked on, since time immemorial, with their own hands.

Janics: Czechoslovak Policy and the Hungarian Minority