STEPHEN D. KERTESZ - Between Russia and the West

148

Hotel Alkron and stated he had to clear up an unfortunate misunderstanding--namely, that to his great regret it had not been possible to transmit in Budapest the full reply of the Czechoslovak government to our communication of January 30. Handing over a document in English he explained that it ought to have been sent by the cypher service of the Czechoslovak Foreign Ministry as early as February 2 to the Czechoslovak mission in Budapest and that delay was due to an error on the part of the cypher service.

After reading the text I informed Krno that we had arrived in Prague with the conviction that the Czechoslovak government accepted the conditions of the Hungarian government as a basis for negotiation. Now the Czechoslovak position as elaborated in the English text deviated in fundamental questions. I expressed my opinion that in the circumstances there seemed little likelihoodof agreement.

As appeared from the text handed over by Krno, the Czechoslovak government wished to have free hand in regard to selection of Hungarians to be exchanged for Slovak volunteers from Hungary and refused to accept the Hungarian proposal looking to a Hungaro Czechoslovak commission to select Hungarians in Slovakia for transfer. The Czechoslovak text rejected again the American and British representatives on the international commission and proposed instead a representative of the ACC in Hungary. 36

Against my advice the foreign minister decided to begin negotiation on the basis of the Czechoslovak surprise note. This meant practical acceptance of the Czechoslovak thesis on selection of Hungarians to be transferred from Czechoslovakia to Hungary. It is true that in subsequent negotiations the Czechoslovaks accepted an obligation to see that the choice of Hungarians to be transferred under the agreement should correspond on general lines--proportionally--to the social structure, profession, and material situation of the Hungarian population of Czechoslovakia. 37 This general statement was nothing but face-saving formula.

In a plenary session Gyöngyösiagreed that the two delegations should work out a draft convention concerning the population exchange and appointed Sebestyén and myself to a committee of four to discuss details. The Czechoslovak members of this committee were Arnost Heidrich, secretary-general of the Foreign Ministry, and Juraj Slavik who later became ambassador to the United States. The committee considered the drafts proposed by the Hungarian and Czechoslovakian governments respectively for the treaty, and major disagreements were decided by the heads of the two delegations, Gyöngyösiand Clementis. Finally Sebestyén and a legal expert of the

149

Czechoslovak Foreign Ministry were charged to draft the text of the treaty and the attached declarations and exchange of letters. They completed this work with amazing rapidity in a few hours before our scheduled departure on February 9. We hardly had time to compare the various drafts. I did not believe that the text, prepared with such haste and without the consultation of financial and other experts, would be final. The Czechoslovaks agreed that Sebestyén would return, if needed, with observations of the Hungarian government.

Before our departure I had an exchange of views with leading officials of the Czechoslovak Foreign Ministry; one of them mentioned that at the close of hostilities Hungary was almost in the same political situation as Germany and thus it did not seem probable that the solution of the Hungarian problem in Czechoslovakia would present more difficulties than that of the Sudeten German. Now we were in the process of formal diplomatic negotiation, he added, and asked how it was possible to improve our international position so rapidly. I could not take this diplomatic complacency and replied that since the conclusion of the armistice agreement we did not have an independent foreign policy because we lived under the guardianship of the ACC. If our international position improved it was to a large extent the result of Czechoslovak political mistakes, especially the persecution of Hungarians. Anti-Hungarian and anti-Jewish excesses in Slovakia had international repercussions, I said, and we were bound to reap benefits. This did not change the basic weaknesses of our international situation.

On our return trip to Budapest I pointed out to the foreign minister that the hastily drafted convention was a typical unequal treaty. It contained discrimination against Hungarians and unilateral benefits to Czechoslovakia because contrary to our preliminary condition to resume negotiations in Prague, only Czechoslovak authorities would select the Hungarians to be transferred from Slovakia. Prague's acceptance expressed in Budapest for establishment of a Hungaro Czechoslovak Commission for the selection of Hungarians to be transferred for Slovak volunteers in Hungary was only a trap to make possible our trip to Prague. I added that the economic and financial clauses of the draft treaty had been loosely formulated in the course of our speedy negotiations without participation of experts. On the basis of our agreement, Sebestyén could return to Prague with observation of the Hungarian government concerning clarification of financial treaty clauses and he should do so after consultation with experts in the Ministry of Finance. We could possibly continue negotiations until the peace conference settled all outstanding problems between

150

Hungary and Czechoslovakia. In any case, it seemed doubtful that we could complete the exchange before the peace conference.

Although Gyöngyösiagreed with my contention concerning the unequal nature and other flaws of the draft treaty, he replied that he wanted to sign the treaty as soon as possible because the population exchange would prove that Czechoslovak allegations of 450,000 Slovaks in Hungary were without foundation. Otherwise the Czechoslovak government with its propaganda facilities might convince the peace conference of the correctness of their allegations. He estimated the number of Slovaks in Hungary who would volunteer for transfer would be around 30,000 or 40,000. Gyöngyösiresided in Békéscsaba, the chief town of the Slovaks in Hungary, and his wife was of Slovak origin. He considered himself an expert on Slovaks in Hungary and would not accept much advice in this respect. His major argument was that in view of Western passivity, the conclusion of the treaty was the only available means to secure physical survival of Hungarians in Czechoslovakia until the peace conference. Although I recognized the validity of Gyöngyösis argument, I felt strongly about the flaws of the treaty and asked him to relieve me from further participation in the negotiation concerning the population exchange. He graciously respected my position and agreed. Gyöngyösis decision was probably unavoidable because of external pressure and persecution of Hungarians in Slovakia, but even in this difficult situation some financial and other technical provisions of the agreement should have been improved through further negotiation.

In Budapest I did not hide my opposition to the population exchange agreement as formulated in Prague. My argument was that Hungary should not enter into an agreement providing for unequal treatment of Hungarians. I considered the removal of Hungarians from Czechoslovakia without their consent as a dangeros precedent. The peace treaty could have imposed such an obligation, but this would be a different matter.

The population exchange agreement was strongly opposed also by the Ministry of Finance because of the unclear financial clauses that later caused many difficulties. The senior expert of Czechoslovak affairs in the Foreign Ministry, AlexanderVajlok, prepared a memorandum summarizing the arguments against the population exchange treaty and it was transmitted to the president of the republic, the prime minister, and the leaders of the coalition parties, but without effect. The Council of Ministers unanimously consented to the agreement. The firm attitude of the foreign minister prevailed. The agreement

151

was signed in Budapest on February 27, 1946, and ratified by the National Assembly on May 14, 1946. I did not attend the diplomatic events connected with signature of the treaty and did not participate in the post-signature negotiations.38

Debate in the National Assembly took place on May 10, 11, and 14, 1946, in the course of which some speakers attacked the agreement and exposed its weaknesses and its discriminatory provisions against Hungarians. Changes were proposed but none accepted and the agreement was ratified in its original form. In a closed session the foreign minister explained the circumstances that compelled the government against its better judgment to conclude the agreement. 39 In accordance with provisions of the protocol, in a letter of February 27, 1946, addressed to Gyöngyösi Clementis stated in the name of the Czechoslovak government that the agreement for the exchange of populations represented only a partial solution of the problem of the Hungarian minority in Slovakia because even after the restoration of Czechoslovak citizenship to persons of Slovak ancestry, the remainder of the Hungarian population there would still be 150,000 to 200,000 persons whom the Czechoslovak government wished to transfer to Hungary. The Czechoslovak government, while not unaware of the gravity of this problem for Hungary, considered the transfer absolutely necessary in order to be able to improve Czechoslovakia's relations with Hungary. 40

In reply the Hungarian foreign minister informed the Czechoslovak government that its proposals relating to partial reslovakization and transfer of Hungarians were unacceptable. The Hungarian government demanded that

the Hungarian population remaining on Czechoslovak territory should after the annulment of all the exceptional discriminatory measures . . . recover its Czechoslovak citizenship and its equality of rights with other Czechoslovak citizens, and that the Czechoslovak Government ought to assure the enjoyment of the human rights guaranteed by the Atlantic Charter and the Charter of the United Nations, in order that they may live without fear and without want.4'

The Hungarian government in a note of May 6, 1946, informed the representatives of the Great Powers in Budapest of the development of Hungaro-Czechoslovak relations and of the Czechoslovak proposals for the settlement of the Hungarian question in Slovakia. 42 The note requested the powers to ensure the rights laid down in the Charter of the United Nations calling for a special minority protection system under international guarantees and proposed that

152

1. The Czechoslovak Government should give back their Czechoslovak citizenship to those of Magyar nationality, and accord them equal treatment with citizens of Czechoslovak nationality. It should afford the Magyars also all the nationality rights which it has granted to its Ukrainian minority. The Hungarian Government asks in the first place for the positive guarantee of the following rights:

1. Freedom for the extension of the popular democratic administrative and cultural institutions accepted in Czechoslovakia;

2. Organisation of political parties and trades unions;

3. Freedom to employ and to be employed;

4. Freedom of economic organisation. 43

Aftermath of the Exchange Agreement

A volume would be necessary to tell of the execution of the population exchange, in the course of which both the Hungarian and Czechoslovak governments accused each other of violations of the agreement and bad faith.

A Czechoslovak commission of some two hundred members was sent to Hungary with headquarters in Budapest to promote and implement the exchange, and during three months every facility was put at its disposal to propagandize the Slovaks and register people of Czech and Slovak origin in Hungary who wished transfer to Czechoslovakia. Troubles soon began. General Francis Dastich, the newly appointed delegate of the Czechoslovak government to the ACC, on May 20, 1946, addressed a letter to the Hungarian foreign minister in which he charged that neither the Hungarian press nor radio adopted an affirmative attitude toward the transfer of population. He complained because of the alleged negative and hostile attitude toward the agreement of Hungarian political leaders, administrative authorities, and private individuals. He enumerated a series of concrete cases and quoted the speeches of the Communist leader Rakosi, Prime Minister Nagy, and Foreign Minister Gyöngyösi He demanded a more efficacious execution of the agreement.

In reply the Hungarian foreign minister emphasized that the authorities had loyally fulfilled all obligations agreed upon. He quoted statements from the Czech and Slovak press, according to which the attitude of Hungarian administrative organs had been found satisfactory even by members of the Czechoslovak commission sent to Hungary. The note charged that the Czechoslovak commission had not respected certain articles in the agreement, notably that the Czechoslovaks abstain from any activity or conduct incompatible

153

with the sovereignty of Hungary or hostile to the Hungarian people. To clarify the issues Gyöngyösiincluded the passage of his speech objected to by the Czechoslovak government:

The Hungarian Government opened negotiations in Prague, and as a result of these--in order to prove the endeavors of our country to find agreement and its peaceful intentions--we accepted the Agreement for the exchange of population on the basis that we are willing to take over from Slovakia the same number of Hungarians as there are Slovaks who voluntarily declare for removal in Hungary. We conducted these negotiations and also made this Agreement on the advice of the Great Powers, although the idea of an exchange of population is contrary to our conceptions, because we do not consider it democratic or humane to force people like the Hungarians of Slovakia to leave their ancestral homes. 44

In conclusion the note drew attention to the fact that, contrary to the letter and spirit of the agreement, the Czechoslovak government was continuing to take measures prejudicial to the interests of the Hungarians in Czechoslovakia.45

This exchange of notes was only the beginning of a long and bitter controversy over actions of the Czechoslovak government considered by the Hungarian government to be new methods of persecution. The agreement for population exchange made possible the expulsion of major war criminals of Hungarian nationality guilty of offenses under Article 1-4 of the Decree No. 33 of 1945 of the Slovak National Council, which expired on May 15, 1946. Such expulsions could take place in addition to the equal number of Slovaks, Czechs, and Hungarians to be exchanged. This provision was inserted into the population exchange agreement on the express wish of Czechoslovak negotiators who claimed that the number of persons involved was insignificant.

The issue of the war criminals was discussed again at the Paris Conference where the Hungarian delegate, Aladár Szegedy-Maszák stated in the Political and Territorial Commission for Hungary on September 18, 1946,46 that the Czechoslovak government intended to ''foist on Hungary not less that 23,192 Hungarians as major war criminals. These, together with their families will make some 80,000 persons and would arrive in Hungary with only a single suit of clothes, deprived of their property and of all their goods and chattels.'' Szegedy-Maszákmentioned that in Kosice (Kassa), 750 Hungarian cases were decided in eight days in July 1946, so that 40-50 people an hour were condemned as major war criminals. As Clementis questioned the accuracy of this statement,4' the Hungarian delegation

154

on September 30, 1946, in a communication to Sinisa Stankovic president of the Political and Territorial Commission for Hungary, gave details based on Slovak sources. 48 It quoted the organ of the Communist paty, Pravda, appearing in Bratislava, which on July 25 published on its front page an article headed: ''On Friday of this week the case was opened at the People's Court in Kosice against 750 Hungarians.'' According to this article they were accused of having been members of Hungarian political parties. The note addressed to Stankovicfurther explained:

On the 14^th of August the Vychodoslovenská Pravda of Kosice, in a special edition, gave an excerpt from the judgment in the case, which had finished on 2nd August. According to the judgment, the majority of the accused were sentenced because they were members of the National Hungarian Christian Socialist Party, or the Hungarian National Party, or the United Hungarian Party, the Hungarian Union for the League of Nations in Czechoslovakia, or the League of Nations Union. I must here stress that all these associations were formed with the permission of the Czechoslovak government and functioned perfectly legally in Czechoslovakia. Moreover, representatives of the parties concerned had sat, during the existence of Czechoslovakia, as deputies in the Czechoslovak Parliament.

Another important circumstance is that a large majority of the accused were indicted and sentenced not for their individual acts or crimes, but exclusively for having belonged to the above-mentioned legally authorized and legally functioning Parties or Associations. Thus this judgment is a glaring example of indictment of grounds of collective responsibility, and throws a characteristic light on the way in which tens of thousands of Hungarians are today being sentenced within a few days as war-criminals in Czechoslovakia. These sentences, besides imprisonment, also involve confiscation of all property and expulsion from the country.

In an exchange of letters between Clementis and Foreign Minister Gyöngyösiat the Paris Conference, Clementis agreed that persons subject to transfer as major war criminals should be fixed at 999 but demanded the exchange of 30,000 Magyars from Czechoslovakia by the end of 1946 without regard to discussion in the Hungaro-Czechoslovak Mixed Commission. 49

The Hungarian foreign minister refused to agree to the proposed accelerated informal exchange, and insisted upon the execution of the agreement signed in February 1946. He charged that

the Czechoslovak Government has modified the text of the Slovak decree No. 33 of 1945 and prolonged its validity, in order to employ

155

the Decree thus modified as a weapon to persecute tens of thousands of innocent Hungarians by having them declared, by methods so far unknown in criminal procedure, war-criminals or fascists, confiscating their goods and ordering their expulsion to Hungary. In the view of the Hungarian Government, these measures constitute such a breach of the Agreement as to render its execution impossible for it until the Czechoslovak Government decides to adopt the conception which constitutes the very basis of raison d'etre of the Agreement, by putting an end to the mass political trials directed against Hungarians with a view to their expulsion and annulling by appropriate measures the political penal and material effects of the sentences already imposed.

He reminded Clementis that

the Czechoslovak Government has not fulfilled the engagements which it assumed with a view to putting a stop to the persecution of the Hungarians in Slovakia and of giving social assistance to Hungarians who have been deprived of their employment or their pensions which also constitutes a breach of the Agreement. 50

During the Conference of Paris, Gyöngyösiand Clementis did not succeed in settling the differences blocking the execution of the population exchange agreement, and the Paris Conference did not insert in the peace treaty the Czechoslovak amendment that would have authorized Czechoslovakia ''to transfer 200,000 inhabitants of Magyar ethnic origin from its territory to that of Hungary." The peace treaty obligated Hungary to enter into bilateral negotiations with Czechoslovakia to solve the problems of Hungarians remaining in Czechoslovakia after the population exchange. This rebuff exasperated Clementis. On October 31, speaking on the removal of Hungarians in the Committee for Foreign Affairs in the Czechoslovak parliament, he threatened the Hungarian government with a unilateral action. He stated that the manner of solution of the question of Hungarians in Slovakia was in the hands of the Hungarian government, adding that for definitive solution ''we can, if the worst comes to the worst make arrangements according to our methods."51 On November 4, 1946, the Settlement Office for Slovakia issued a confidential order to Slovak authorities, No. 12, 771, concerning ''regrouping of the Hungarians in Slovakia" and their transfer from their home to Bohemia and Moravia. According to these instructions, the compulsory transfer was to be carried out in twenty-three Hungarian districts of Slovakia by application of Public Labor Decree No. 88. Clause 4 provided that property of the transferred persons was to be confiscated.

156

On November 13, 1946, the newspaper of the Slovak National Council used violent language: ''We have the right to assimilate the Hungarians, and to create a national state in Czechoslovakia by any means. As the Hungarians cannot lay claim to minority rights, our ultimate move will have to be to disperse the Hungarians in various parts of Czechoslovakia.''52 Shortly after the Czechoslovak minister of agriculture, Julius Duris, announced that a definitive solution of the questions of Hungarians in Slovakia would take the form of transfer of the Hungarians to Sudeten-German areas. 53

Although the Hungarian government in a note of November 16 1946, again expressed willingness to negotiate the problems of Hungarians remaining in Czechoslovakia, the Czechoslovak government was not satisfied and started an arbitrary unilateral solution. Deportation of Hungarians began on November 17, 1946. Slovak authorities used as a pretext Public Labor Law No.88 promulgated in 1945. Under it, men between ages of 16 to 55 and women from 18 to 45 could be obliged for urgent public work for a maximum period of one year. There was no urgent agricultural work in the depth of the winter when Hungarian peasants were forced to leave their homes. Entire families, comprising children, old people, expectant mothers and disabled men were indiscriminately deported from Hungarian districts designated for evacuation. 54 Hungarian villages were surrounded by the army or gendarmery and forceful removals took place amidst tragic scenes, similar to those of Jewish deportations by the Nazis. Removed people had to sell their belongings on short notice, or their properties were seized and confiscated. Slovak settlers moved into their houses without ado. Approximately 100,000 Hungarians were deported during the winter months of 1946-47, mostly into Sudeten German districts of Moravia and Bohemia, or sent as farmhands or servants to landowners and farmers. 55

Deportations aiming at dispersion of Hungarians violated the pledges of the Czechoslovak government given simultaneously with signature of the population exchange agreement. These and other violations of the agreement were repeatedly pointed out by Hungarian representatives in sessions of the Mixed Hungaro-Czechoslovak Commission. 56 They brought up, by way of example, the decision, dated September 25, 1946, of the National Council of Rimavská Sobota (Rimaszombat) which declared the Calvinist church a Fascist organization and therefore ordered the confiscation of its property. As no satisfactory answer came, the Hungarian government interrupted negotiation for the population exchange on December 16, 1946.

157

An exchange of notes between Budapest and Prague and a meeting between Gyöngyösiand Clementis in Bratislava, on January 27, 1947 failed to promote a solution. The Hungarian government asked for the immediate cessation of deportation, but the Czechoslovak government was unwilling to give such a pledge. Under these conditions the Hungarian government refused to negotiate and in a memorandum informed the Great Powers of the situation brought about the deportation of Hungarians.

In the middle of February 1947 the Yugoslav government intervened in Prague and asked for discontinuance of the dispersal of Hungarians living in Slovakia. Following this intervention, the Czechoslovak government suspended the removal of Hungarians on February 26. Conditions for intergovernmental negotiation were created and a Hungarian , headed again by Foreign Minister Gyöngyösi traveled to Prague.

At the Prague negotiation, March 2 - 7, No agreement was signed because the Czechoslovak delegation was unwilling to discuss the Hungarian proposal concerning restitution of property to Hungarians removed from Slovakia or damages caused by removals. The Hungarian regarded these deportations as violations of international obligation accepted by the Czechoslovak government at the conclusion of the population exchange agreement. The Czechoslovak delegation declared that removals were executed according to legal provisions concerning compulsory labor and remained within domestic jurisdiction of Czechoslovakia. This vital problem remained unsolved, but an agreement was concluded on controversial financial, economic and technical questions. 57

The population exchange began on April 11, 1947, with understanding that the Hungaro-Czechoslovak Mixed Commission would settle some pending questions. In following months simultaneous with sessions of the Mixed Commission, intergovernmental negotiations took place in Bratislava Piestiany (Pöstyén), and Budapest. Although the negotiation failed to solve fundamental problems, the population exchange continued. Economic and financial problems were not settled according to the exchange agreement and even some decisions of the Hungaro-Czechoslovak Mixed Commission disregarded for the sake of prompt execution of the transfer. There were Slovaks of all political persuasion in Hungary who took a stand against the population exchange. 58

As a result of the population exchange - according to Hungarian sources - 53,000 Hungarians were transferred from Czechoslovakia to Hungary, and 53,000 Slovaks left Hungary voluntarily for resettlement

158

in Czechoslovakia. 7,000 Slovaks--mainly miners--moved to Czechoslovakia before the exchange agreement was carried out. Outside the bilateral exchange 39,000 Hungarians left Czechoslovakia for Hungary. Some were expelled, others wanted to avoid persecution. Altogether, 60,000 Slovaks moved from Hungary to Czechoslovakia and the Hungarian population of Czechoslovakia was diminished by 92,000--almost twelve percent of the Hungarian minority. 59

On the basis of the archives of the Slovak Communist party, Juraj Zvara stated that 73,273 persons left Hungary for Slovakia, but only 59,774 persons were included in the exchange of population. From Slovakia, 68,407 persons were transferred to Hungary within the exchange of population, and approximately 6,000 persons left voluntarily. Zvara did not mention the number of Hungarians expelled. He estimated that the exchange of population affected approximately twelve percent of the Hungarians in Slovakia, 60 and so the Hungarian and Slovak data about the result of the population exchange seem comparable.

A considerable number, if not the majority, of Hungarians deported to Bohemia, returned; but no restitution was made and they received no compensation. The number of major war criminals expelled to Hungary was limited to 184 61 at the Prague-Budapest negotiation in 1947; that is, it was limited to Hungarians sentenced before May 15, 1946, the expiration date of Decree No. 33 of 1945 referred to in the population exchange agreement. But the tens of thousands of Hungarians declared war criminals by Slovak courts were deprived of all their property and received no compensation, although they were allowed to remain in Czechoslovakia. Primarily those Hungarians were transferred who owned a house or landed property. In the latter case, properties were in most cases over 15-20 hectares. The purpose of this policy was to create gaps in Hungarian regions with Slovak settlements. Although there were teachers and other intellectuals among the transferred, many of them were expelled earlier or left because of persecution.

After the Communist seizure of power in Prague in February 1948 the persecution of Hungarians became worse. Many anti-Hungarian measures promulgated but not enforced were executed with utmost rigidity. This policy changed in October 1948 when the Czechoslovak parliament restored Czechoslovak citizenship to Hungarians who were resident in Slovakia on November 1, 1938, and who had not been convicted of crime. This latter provision excluded from restitution the Hungarian ''war criminals," a category that embraced a large number of Hungarians; members of Hungarian cultural or social

159

associations or of Hungarian political parties; people connected directly or indirectly with the Hungarian administration in the years 1938 to 1944; people who waved handkerchiefs when Hungarian troops moved into Slovakia after the first Vienna Award or those who wore Hungarian national costumes at any time. Practically all manifestations of Hungarian nationality were considered by Slovak judges as crimes. In all these cases property was confiscated and sentenced persons remained without citizenship and without property even after the so-called restitution of October 1948. Later it was announced that, Hungarians removed to Bohemia could return to their homes and receive the same or better property. But no provisions were made for removal of Slovak settlers who in 1946-47 had been installed in the property of the deported Hungarians.

Hungarian-language Communist newspapers have been published in Slovakia since 1949, and Hungarian teaching was authorized in 1949-50. But the great majority of Hungarian teachers had been expelled or otherwise dispersed in the previous years. One can hardly imagine orderly Hungarian teaching without trained Hungarian teachers.

In 1950 the Presidium of the Slovak Communist party condemned the anti-Hungarian measures, and in 1952 the equality of Hungarians was recognized. In 1963 the Central Committee of the Slovak Communist party exercised self-criticism and openly admitted that the anti-Hungarian measures taken in 1945-46 were not correct and that they committed the mistake of anti-Magyar nationalism.

Postwar conflict between Hungary and Czechoslovakia clearly showed that in Soviet-bloc countries political reliability was the decisive consideration for Moscow. As long as Hungary and Czechoslovakia were not ruled by Communist governments, persecution of Hungarians in Slovakia was an effective antidote against rapprochement between these Western-oriented countries. After the Communist coups in Budapest and Prague, both countries became ''democracies'' in the Soviet sense, and Hungarians no longer were considered a danger for Czechoslovakia. A treaty of alliance concluded in April 1949 between Budapest and Prague demonstrated the Soviet engineered new reality along the Danube.

In conclusion one may say that the population exchange and the many anti-Hungarian measures weakened considerably the Magyar population but did not change fundamentally the ethnic boundaries in southern Slovakia. Under duress many Hungarians declared themselves Slovaks. Forced declarations, however, have about the same moral value as Nazi or Soviet-style elections. The number of Slovaks

160

who volunteered for exchange put an end to the myth, claimed so emphatically by Clementis and other Slovak leaders, of 450,000 Slovaks in Hungary. The emergence of truth did not compensate for the economic spoliations and immense human suffering of hundreds of thousands of Hungarians in Czechoslovakia. The sad truth is that these Hungarians became second-class citizens. Through a combination of persecution, expulsion, and transfer many potential leaders of the Hungarian minority had been removed from Slovakia to Hungary and the remaining population reduced to poverty.

Notes

STEPHEN D. KERTESZ - Between Russia and the West