Janics: Czechoslovak Policy and the Hungarian Minority

Hungarian democracy, born out of the chaos of war, found to its surprise, and to its chagrin, that thousands of Hungarians had been expelled from Czechoslovakia in a manner making a mockery of human rights, often on a few hours notice, with nothing but a few handbags. In Slovakia, 650,000 Hungarians were deprived of their civil rights, even of their basic human rights. Property of persons of Hungarian nationality was confiscated. Hungarians can engage neither in intellectual nor manual work. They have no rights what ever, cannot organize, cannot exercise their rights as citizens. The use of the Hungarian language is prohibited in public offices, in public places, often even in the churches; its public use is punishable. No periodical in Hungarian may be published in the Czechoslovak Republic. It is against the law to telephone or send telegraphs in Hungarian. No Hungarian may own a radio. There is no public instruction in Hungarian in any form. Even private tutoring is prohibited in Hungarian. Employees of Hungarian nationality have been dismissed both by the State and private firms without compensation. Payment of social security benefits has been stopped, disabled veterans, widows, orphans of the war receive no aid whatever. In spite of all these deplorable measures the Hungarian Government did everything in its power to improve relations between Czechoslovakia and Hungary. To this end, and despite its own hurt feelings, the Hungarian Government considered it its duty to enter into direct negotiations to conclude the population exchange agreement, as recommended by the Great Powers. ²⁵

There were a few exaggerations in Gyöngyösi's speech. For instance, Hungarian workers in Slovakia did continue to find work in construction and mining; general confiscation of Hungarian property was not carried out; and, as a rule, Hungarian language in church services was not restricted. In any case, Gyöngyösi's statement had no international impact. No body believed it. Victorious Czechoslovakia's democratic prestige was safe against the accusations of Hungary, Hitler's defeated ally.

The following day, on August 15, Jan Masaryk replied, It was a nationalist propaganda speech. He emphasized the "betrayal" of the Hungarian minority, without bothering to mention the Slovak People's Party's role in the destruction of Czechoslovakia. He also said quite a few fuzzy half-truths and straight untruths which should have been promptly answered by the Hungarian delegation, but it was not. According to Masaryk: "Well before the war the leaders of the Hungarian minority had allied themselves with the Sudeten German traitor Henlein and, even worse, with Frank, the mass murderer at Lidice . . . After South Slovakia had been unfairly awarded to Hungary by Germany and Italy, the Hungarians promptly occupied this territory and expelled tens of thousands of Slovaks and Czechs in a manner worthy of the Axis . . . In the nice little town of surani [Nagysurány] Hungarian troops fired at the peasants as these were leaving church, simply because they were singing in Slovak."²⁶

Most likely, Masaryk's denunciation of the leaders of the Hungarian minority made a deep impression. Yet the truth is, as I have said before, the only time János Esterházy, executive director of the United Hungarian Party, negotiated with K. H. Frank was in February 1938, following Frank's negotiations with the chairman of the Slovak People's Party, Ondrej Hlinka. Furthermore, to implicate the Hungarian minority with the wartime Nazi mass murders at Lidice, as Masaryk did, was simply dishonest. The Hungarian delegation should have promptly responded to these and other unfounded charges. But it did not.²⁷

The Czechoslovak press back home was jubilant: " Gyöngyösi's words decreased the sympathy towards Hungary among its former supporters. Masaryk's speech on the other hand was regarded as a model of a reply to insults.''²⁸

The Czechoslovak press was particularly pleased by a report of the diplomatic correspondent of the British Reuters news agency: "The Hungarian hopes are dissolving at Paris. [According to the report by Reuters] Molotov had a long talk with the Hungarian foreign minister and explained that Hungary could not count on Soviet support in its attitude of blocking the expulsion of the Hungarian minority from Slovakia . . . If the Hungarians did not know until now on which side the Soviet is standing writes the diplomatic correspondent of Reuters-now they can rest assured that Molotov identifies himself with Prague regarding the Hungarians' deportation. The Hungarian hopes have vanished."²⁹

On August 24, 1946, V. Clementis took part in the debate and brought up charges which have never been substantiated: "We could provide documentary evidence (photographs, reports) about the fate of tens of thousands of Czechs and Slovaks who were chased Out of the southern areas of Slovakia by the Fascist units of Horthy's army,"³⁰

In September, the Czechoslovak demand for the transfer of the "remaining" 200,000 Hungarians was debated and decided upon.

On September 9, a statement was presented by the United States delegation to the Political and Territorial Commission on the subject of the transfer of the Hungarian population. The statement proposed the constitution of a sub-committee to examine all documents concerning the Czechoslovak amendments. In explaining this proposal, the American statement said in essence: the United States was convinced that the principle of forcible removal of civilian population should not be included in the peace treaty with Hungary. Instead, the American statement suggested border rectification's and bilateral agreements as better solutions "in mutual interest" of the minority question.

On September 16, Dr. Clementis spoke in support of the Czechoslovak amendment to the draft peace treaty with Hungary. The main point in his argument was the collective guilt of the Hungarian minority. He altered historical facts to suit his objectives and took episodes out of con text by selective distortions. He kept silent about the part the Slovak nationalist movement played in Czechoslovakia's destruction, but exaggerated the Hungarian minority's role in it. Not unlike Jan Masaryk before him, Clementis too resorted to moral turpitude by mentioning in an entirely distorted context Esterházy's meeting with "Konrad Henlein and K. H. Frank the ill-famed leaders of the Germans of Czechoslovakia before and after Munich." He accused the entire Hungarian minority of having, at the time of the Vienna Award of 1938, "hurled itself against the Czechs and the Slovaks."³¹

Not a word was heard from Dr. Clementis about the expulsion of some 120,000 Czechs from Tiso's Slovakia. But he recalled the recent "census" taken by the Czechoslovak Resettlement Bureau in Hungary and he claimed that "dose to half a million" Slovaks lived in Hungary.³² As I mentioned earlier, according to the Hungarian census of 1930, only 104,000 Slovaks lived in Hungary. This might have been less than the actual number of Slovaks-nationality statistics are never accurate in the Danube region. But the Hungarian census certainly was closer to the truth than the Clementis statistics.

Dr. Clementis also sharply criticized the attitude of the Hungarian Government regarding the execution of the population exchange agreement: "The Hungarian-Czechoslovak Mixed Commission, which should have worked Out the details of the resettlement met for full fifty days, yet even the last meeting remained fruitless because of the obstruction of the Hungarian members."³³ For a change, this was true. Indeed, the Hungarians did everything in their power to delay any population transfer until the decision of the peace conference.

The principal argument Clementis resorted to in order to overcome Western opposition to the transfer of Hungarians from Czechoslovakia was the Potsdam decision directing Hungary to transfer the Germans. The Germans, he argued, are made to leave in order to make room for the 200,000 Hungarians from Slovakia. Then echoing once again Jan Masaryk's words, Clementis lashed out against any return to the prewar system of international protection of minorities: "If in spite of past experiences there are still some who hope that the happy days of treason under the cover of democracy and freedom may yet return, then permit me to say what the cruel lessons of the past compel me to say: Never again! In Czechoslovakia, there is no politician, not a single politically thinking person who even for a moment would consider the return to a minority policy whose failure has been so amply demonstrated by expen.ence."³⁴

Aladár Szegedy-Maszák, member of the Hungarian delegation, answered Clementis' statement: "I believe they [the Slovaks] now want to achieve a two-fold aim: one, to make the world forget the role the Hitlerite Slovaks played in the disruption of the Czechoslovak Republic and later in Slovakia under German protection. Two, they want to seize the wealth of the industrious Hungarian peasantry of Slovakia . . . Czechoslovakia now wants to force the revision of Potsdam. The reasons however, which motivated the Potsdam decision have not changed. That is why we firmly believe that the Paris conference will not favor further extension [regarding population transfers] of the Potsdam decisions."³⁵

The debate continued on September 20 with another speech by Clementis. He took issue with the Hungarian delegation's assertion that there were 650,000 Hungarians in Slovakia. (Since then even Czechoslovak sources have agreed with the figure.) He rejected the claim that the people's tribunals and the charges against the Hungarians in Slovakia had gone to excesses, then he questioned the Hungarian claim regarding re-Slovakization, denying that anybody had been compelled to surrender his nationality. (The rate of "re-Hungarianization" since 1948 is sufficient proof in itself that "re-Slovakization" in 1946 had taken place under duress and terror.) Clementis also charged that in 1945 the Hungarian army had taken active part in the suppression of the Slovak national uprising and in the execution of Slovak partisans and patriots.³⁶ It is well-known, and Clementis knew it, that Hungarian units did not take part.

On September 20, A. J. Vishinsky spoke on behalf of the Soviet delegation. He marshaled his arguments in support of the creation of a homogeneous Czechoslovak nation-state, adopting Masaryk's and Clementis' charges against the Hungarian minority while disregarding the role of Slovak Fascism. He said: "The Czechoslovak Government claims-and lists unassailable facts - that in the days of the Munich tragedy the Hungarian minority played a negative role by siding with the hangmen of the Czechoslovak people, Henlein and Frank, by rising against Czechoslovak independence, against the Czechoslovak state, against Czechoslovak freedom." (Vishinsky seemed to have forgotten that it was always in the Hungarian inhabited regions of Czechoslovakia that the Communist Party received the largest number of votes.) Hinting at the anti-transfer statement of the American delegation, he continued: "Indeed we are talking about forced resettlement. Of course, this is a serious measure, but it seems unavoidable in view of a series of events that led to it . . ." Then he reiterated the argument already mentioned by Clementis in his speech on September 16:

The Hungarian Government claims that it has no room for these people in Hungary. In reality is there room or isn't there? It is a well known fact that Hungary is expected to transfer into the American zone 500,000 Germans-and I am glad that Mr. Smith is present, because he knows the situation well on account of his military activities in Germany. This plan was approved by the [Allied] Control Commission in Germany; 500,000 Germans have to be transferred from Hungary to the American zone. The question arises, whether there would be room in Hungary for the transfer of 200,000 Hungarians from Czechoslovakia after the resettlement of 500,000 people from Hungary to Germany? ³⁷

Unmoved by Vishinsky's pro-Czechoslovak arguments, Bedell-Smith reiterated, on behalf of the United States delegation the negative American view of population transfers as a means of solving controversies between small nations:

For us forced resettlement (transfer) is worse than unpleasant, it is unacceptable. We cannot approve a theory which strives to forcefully resettle large masses of people from Czechoslovakia to Hungary a measure that could be carried out only against the will of both the Hungarian government and the Hungarian people.³⁸

On September 23, the United Kingdom associated itself with the American view and declared that the transfer solution of the Hungarian minority question was unacceptable:

It would leave a very bad memory if the Czechoslovak delegation were to insist on chasing 200,000 Hungarians by force from their homes . . . Mindful of the general interest, we don't believe that it would serve the cause of justice to include compulsory deportation into the text of this treaty . . . The best solution for Hungary and Czechoslovakia would be to attempt to reach a direct accord.³⁹

The proposed Czechoslovak amendment on the transfer of Hungarians was doomed. By suggesting a "direct accord," the British hinted at a compromise amendment. The road has been paved to a "Big Three" agreement to amend the text of the draft treaty by calling on Czechoslovakia and Hungary to settle their differences on the issue of transfer by direct negotiations. The compromise amendment became the much debated "Section 4/b" of the treaty of peace with Hungary which says: "Hungary will begin bilateral negotiations with Czechoslovakia regarding the solution of the problem of those Hungarians who not be transferred to Hungary on the basis of the population exchange agreement signed on February 27, 1946. If no accord is reached within six months of the coming into effect of this treaty Czechoslovakia will have the right to bring the matter up before the council of foreign ministers and request the council to help find a final solution."⁴⁰

The debacle of the transfer plans at the peace conference has caused great disappointment in Czechoslovakia. Undersecretary of State Clementis gave expression to it in the Prague parliament: "The public may judge for itself from the profuse text of the deliberations that, while the justice of our claims and objectives has been recognized, the sound and sensible conclusions have not been drawn."⁴¹

As reported in the Czechoslovak press, Foreign Minister Jan Masaryk commented even more bitterly on the Paris decision of the Hungarian case:

[Jan Masaryk] expressed his disappointment over the attitude of the United States and Great Britain at the Paris peace conference for not supporting Czechoslovakia's just demands: the deportation of the Hungarian minority and border rectification. While declaring his regrets, he made comparisons with Munich, and added: 'It will be difficult to explain to our compatriots at home why our [Western] allies took this stand, whereas Russia and the Slav states supported us. The minister hopes that the negotiations to be initiated with Hungary will bring a solution, hence the principle of expulsion of the 200,000 Hungarians is not abandoned. As he said: "We are willing to go half way to meet Hungary, and discuss all necessary matters on the condition that it will be worth negotiating with democratic Hungary. But first we have to be convinced that a democratic spirit does exist in Hungary. Masaryk emphasized that Czechoslovakia will not accept any special status for the minorities, and the children of Hungarians who remain in Czechoslovakia will have to attend Slovak schools. We have been very patient, but we paid dearly for it."⁴²

Later on, Jan Masaryk explained what happened and why at the Paris peace conference, assuring his Slav compatriots that the Czechoslovak Government did everything in its power to gain international support for the expulsion of the Hungarians:

At the peace conference, the matter that interested Czechoslovakia most was the Hungarian issue. The Czechoslovak proposals were dictated by the endeavor to solve once and for all the question which until now has rendered the peaceful coexistence between the two neighborly states impossible . . . We have explained in detail the issues of resettlement and border rectification . . . In spite of our repeated endeavors, we did not succeed in having the expulsion of the Hungarians included in the amended peace treaty . . . By proposing the amendment, Czechoslovakia stressed before the world public opinion the seriousness of the problem from the point of view of European peace. The transfer proposal received the support of the Soviet Union, the delegations of the Ukrainian and Bielo-Russian Socialist Republics, and Yugoslavia. Poland [who also would have supported us] was not represented on the political and territorial committee dealing with Hungary. We also made use of France's approval of our first [expulsion] proposal.⁴³

The Paris peace conference left the question of the Hungarians in Slovakia unresolved. And considering that the peace conference imposed no international obligations for the protection of national minorities, the threat to Hungarian minority's survival in Czechoslovakia (and elsewhere) has not been removed. The renewed threat appeared in the form of radical dispersion of the minority as a substitute for an "exchange" of "peaceful resettlement." The new plan of radical dispersal appeared the more realistic since after Paris nobody could hope that Hungary would accept a mass transfer of 200,000 Hungarians from Slovakia as a result of bilateral negotiations stipulated in the Treaty of Peace.

The Czechoslovak press campaign in fact soon shifted to the propagation of "internal measures" rather than bilateral negotiations to solve the Hungarian problems. The thesis of D. M. Krno's book "We Negotiated with Hungary," published shortly after the Paris peace conference, promoted the new effort. Discussing 'internal measures," which became a euphemism for dispersal of the Hungarians from their homes in Southern Slovakia, Krno's book said: "While Hungary succeeded in shielding itself against the inclusion of transfer measures into the peace treaty, it received neither the right, nor the means to prevent the measures we deem necessary to eliminate once and for all the dangers of revisionism and irredentism from our border regions."⁴⁴

After Paris, the situation was aggravated by the fact that article 4/b of the peace treaty, calling for direct negotiations between Hungary and Czechoslovakia, could be interpreted by both parties according to their own interest. In Czechoslovakia it was argued that Hungary was obliged to undertake negotiations regarding the deportation of 200,000 Hungarians. Foreign Minister Masaryk made statements to this effect, although the text of the article merely obliged Hungary to negotiate regarding "the solution" of the problem, but not about "expulsion" of the Hungarian minority from Czechoslovakia.

Czechoslovakia certainly received a free hand in dealing with the Hungarian minority, and it was generally believed that in case of an internal dispersion of the minority she could count on the support of world public opinion. However, toward the end of the peace conference, the Czechoslovak press was also warning against the danger of delaying a radical solution, fearful that the world public opinion might shift to the Hungarian side: "The self-confidence of the Hungarians at Paris indicates that they created a good impression in the West. The future would soon decide whether Hungarian slyness or Czechoslovak justice wins . . . If the victor becomes the loser at the time of peacemaking, this would sadly reflect on logic, on consistency, on right and on justice. Sin would triumph over virtue, injustice over righteousness."⁴⁵

Czechoslovak apprehension increased after the peace conference. The Slovak Nové Prúdy wrote:

The fact that some took the side of the Hungarians [at the peace conference] indicates that they were able to arouse sympathy abroad, whereas our position and behavior have been looked upon with critical eyes. Our impression in this matter is supported by foreign press reports and also by the stand taken by the Australian delegate Ewatte, or by the delegate from New Zealand . . . Here forces are at work against our interests . . . It would be understandable that the Hungarians are defending themselves if their means of defense were not so offensive, as when they go as far as to call the entire Slovak nation collaborators and Fascists. It is difficult to understand whence the Hungarians have obtained such boldness, and how all this unpleasantness has come about. Our citizen, if he is reflecting over these matters, must frown while perusing foreign newspapers. Some Hungarian papers have gone so far as to advocate the solidarity of the progressive Hungarians and progressive Czechs against the reactionary Slovaks.⁴⁶

Slovak commentators were incensed and disappointed that even the chairman of the Hungarian Communist Party, Mátyás Rákosi, took a stand against expulsion. Rákosi was quoted as having said: "Both as patriots and as Communists, we deem the compulsory expulsion of Hungarians from Slovakia incorrect and definitely harmful to the nations of the Danube Basin." Thus did one Slovak commentator vent his anger against Rákosi:

The Hungarian Communist Party does everything in its power to prevent the compulsory deportation of Hungarians. [Rákosi pledged that the Party] will devote greater attention to the interests of the Hungarian minorities beyond the borders, and will always speak up wherever and whenever the democratic rights of the Hungarians beyond the borders are being curtailed. Our answer to Mr. Rákosi regarding the deportation of the Hungarians is very simple: All minority Hungarians, who remain beyond the borders of Hungary in the neighboring states, become most harmful for the entire Hungarian nation the moment [Buda] Pest begins to care for them.⁴⁷

Disappointment led to bitter outbursts. After Paris, it became obvious that, for the Slovaks, the population exchange and the demand for the expulsion of the "remaining" 200,000 Hungarians were a matter of nationalist minimum. The Slovaks have actually been hoping to gain more territory from Hungary. An article in the Nové Prúdy expressed the bitter mood of disappointment:

We must realize certain facts which not so long ago nobody among us would have believed. What happened to the plans we made at the time of the [Slovak national] uprising or the Kosice program? How convinced we had been at that time that this war signifies the burial not only of German but also of Hungarian expansionism. We were told of a corridor linking [across Hungary] Czechoslovakia with Yugoslavia. We were whispering of [detaching from Hungary] Vác and Miskolc in order to connect central [mountainous] Slovakia with Kosice [in the east] by way [of plainlands] of the South. Then retreat was sounded. We were left with our pre-Munich borders. And the next stage was already a defensive one. We had to fend off the bites of Hungarian appetite.⁴⁸

The Czech press did not pay much attention to the development of the Hungarian affair. It reconciled itself to the lack of success at Paris with short and objective comments. Only Obzory, organ of the Czech People's Party, wrote a relatively longer report, not shying away even from quoting "Hungarian satisfaction" with "achieved successes."⁴⁹

Meanwhile, in Southern Slovakia, among the Hungarian population the atmosphere was growing tense. The Hungarians had over-estimated the results achieved at Paris. They became ever more aware of the ominous sharpening of Slovak nationalist propaganda. Insignificant local incidents were blown up out of proportion in the Slovak press: "Every day we receive news about the misdeeds of the Hungarians. It seems we have reached a point where the so-called Hungarian blue-blood is continually boiling, and us Slovaks can no longer feel at home because our safety is constantly endangered. The Hungarians who are still living in our southern borderlands have indulged in some detestable acts. The Hungarians of Pozsonypüspöki have gone so far in their impertinence that the portrait of the President of the Republic has become the target of beer mug shootings. Those who honor [their] crown of St. Stephen have turned [our] symbolic Partisan statue into an object of derision. While tearing [our] flags off the houses, they sing the [Hungarian] national anthem of our eternal enemy . . ."⁵⁰

According to another story in the Bratislava Pravda: "How far will the impertinence of the Hungarians go? Hungarian chauvinists and terrorists have committed excesses in the county of Verebély. In the village of Baracska, persons of Hungarian nationality have it so good that they have completely forgotten that the Hungarian chauvinist regime of terror is no longer in charge. One day, they started shooting in the streets with military rifles that had been hidden illegally and singing Hungarian songs . . . The shots were aimed at the houses of peaceful Slovak settlers.

The dark days of November in 1946 have foreshadowed grave events which were to follow. Anti-Hungarian Slovak nationalist sentiments have been growing threateningly. To the Slovaks the Hungarian problem was no longer a matter of population exchange, or direct negotiations with Hungary, or re-Slovakization. The new wave of dissatisfaction called for "internal regulations." General Dr. M. Ferjenèik, the Slovak deputy in charge of internal affairs, declared in the predominantly Hungarian town of Érsekújar (Nové Zámky) on November 17, 1946, two days before the beginning of the first deportations:

While we want to bring home from abroad every Slovak soul, Hungary has obstructed the return of Hungarians to their country. We know why. But precisely because we do know, it only strengthens our resolution to put an end once and for all to all threats and revisionist attempts directed against our country.⁵²

General Ferjenèik's veiled hint sounded like a declaration of war. Two days later the Hungarians had learned what he meant. The deportation of the Hungarian population to the Czech lands had already been prepared in detail. The decision had been taken to "solve" the Hungarian question by a radical dispersion of the population. The Hungarian minority found itself at the edge of the precipice.

Janics: Czechoslovak Policy and the Hungarian Minority