The Population Exchange in Swabian Turkey
The first phase was the settlement of the Seklers. Their homeland was in Bukovina which was awarded to Romania in the Second Vienna Accords. This an ancient Magyar ethnic group found its future less and less secure in the changing situation around them. It became harder and harder to make a living; in the schools the only language taught was Romanian and the adults were not allowed to speak Hungarian in their day to day activities. The younger people found this situation unbearable and became part of a large scale movement leaving for Hungary. This beginning of a spontaneous resettlement was not hindered by either the Romanian or Hungarian governments. In fact, the Romanians did what they could to encourage it while the difficulties and oppression that the Seklers had to endure were used by the Hungarian Nationalists to strengthen their cause. Many thought that the resettlement of the Seklers in Hungary was the solution to the problem of the Hungarian minority in Bukovina.
Their clergy feared that they would be scattered throughout the country. They wanted the Seklers to be resettled en mass in one area or in a series of neighbouring villages. But the idea of an organized and planned resettlement was an impossible dream. With the assistance of Nazi Germany the Batschka was returned to Hungary in 1941 and the possibility to settle the Seklers there presented itself. In the fall of 1944 as the front lines reached the Batschka the plans were abandoned by the Hungarian government. The Seklers who had settled there had to flee once more only now into the totally unknown. The Seklers spent the winter months in the villages of south western Hungary. George Bodor undertook the task of keeping them together and settling them. He thought of resettling the Hungarian refugees from Transylvania on the properties of the expelled Germans in Tolna County where they would find a new home.
In April 1945 the Sekler families finally had the opportunity to settle. Bodor was able to get the support of state organizations and key individuals for his plan. The Hungarian government planned the confiscation of the properties of the rich landowners and war criminals and the settlement of the Seklers from Romania in tandem with it. Bodor was sent to Tolna County to carry it out. It also needs to be said he also assisted with implementing the Land Reform Law. The actual membership lists of the Volksbund had managed to disappear and the commission to carry out the Land Reform had not yet been established. Bodor arrived in Bonyhád on April 25, 1945 and quickly assessed the situation. He took the initiative because he saw no official way to realize his objectives. Without informing or getting approval of local authorities he issued instructions and made announcements on his own. He took charge of the Political Section that were part of the local police forces and gave them the task of assembling lists of names of members of the Volksbund who with their families were being interned in the assembly camp at Lengyel. In May 1945 there were 20,000 Germans from twenty-five villages in the vicinity of Bonyhád who were interned there.
After several weeks the internees were allowed to return home. A portion of the internees took shelter with relatives while the others sought to live in their own homes that had been occupied by Seklers. This action was not sanctioned by any state officials or organization. It was only the special commissions set up to carry out the Land Reform that had such authority to confiscate property. Bodor should have worked with the commission and not acted on his own.
In May countless complaints were raised against him and the police. Quarrels broke out in the National Commission and the coalition parties because innocent people had suffered so much through this action on their part. On May 22, 1945 the National Commission ordered that the hygienic situation and the availability and distribution of food be improved immediately at Lengyel. The young incompetent sentries were to be dismissed. Bodor was ordered to appear in Budapest where he was punished for his actions. His settlement office in Bonyhád and the camp at Lengyel were closed down. The leadership of the settlement programme affecting the Seklers was placed in the hands of the Office of Social Services and the Land Reform Commission.
As a final word one can say that this Hungarian minority group that had suffered much had found a new home in Swabian Turkey in the vicinity of Bonyhád. But in order for that to happen the German population had to pay a heavy price. The introduction of the Seklers in the German villages led to many difficulties and conflicts with the resident inhabitants because at this time the expulsions had not yet begun.
The Hungarians from Slovakia
Since the local authorities in the German communities were impotent to do anything about changing either the economic or political situation a steady stream of new settlers entered the region. In May 1947 the first wave of Magyar deportees from Slovakia arrived in Tolna County. Their expulsion from their villages in southern Slovakia was made public as part of the decree of April 5, 1945 in Kaschau. It indicated that Czechoslovakian citizenship could only be retained by Magyar inhabitants of the country who had proven Anti-Fascist credentials and had been part of the liberation movement to free Czechoslovakia or had been persecuted because of their loyalty to the Republic. All other Magyars were stripped of their citizenship but they could be reinstated under special conditions. This decision was based on the principle of collective guilt. The vast majority of the Magyar population lost their right to citizenship. In hindsight we realize that these first steps taken by the new Czechoslovakian regime had no international support or validity. The authorities carried out the confiscation of property and deportation on their own volition. In several communities surprise deportations were carried out during the night in the Sudetenland. The major newspaper in Tolna reported on the activities taking place directed against the Magyar minority on December 15, 1945 which was also carried by the New York Times that reported:
“The American State Department repudiates the recent steps taken by the government of
Czechoslovakia in assembling inhabitants of Magyar ancestry in special camps and simply sent others across the frontier and out of their country.”
The goal of American foreign policy in this regard was quite clear. They worked for the establishment of an agreement between the two states involved for a population exchange involving the Slovaks in Hungary and the Magyars in Slovakia. This agreed upon set of regulations was to be placed on the table for discussion by the Allied Control Commission. The Magyars in Slovakia reacted to this proposed action by the Czechoslovakian authorities by a mass flight into Hungary. The organized resettlement was agreed upon by the Hungarian and Czechoslovakian representatives at a meeting in Budapest on February 27, 1946.
The Magyars awaiting resettlement were provided with deportation documents along with information on the expulsion. The deportations not only created great unrest among the prospective deportees but also created fear on the part of the Hungarian government. The difficulties with which the deportees contended became obvious during the population exchange. The Czechoslovakian regime did not believe that 650,000 Magyars living in their midst would claim they were of Slovak heritage. The Slovaks living in Hungary lived primarily in Bekés County and few of them were prepared or desired to be resettled in Slovakia. On that basis it was obvious that carrying out a population exchange as envisioned was not really tenable. The Czechoslovakian government undertook to link the resettlement of the Germans of Hungary with the expulsion of the Magyars from Slovakia and tried to make their case at international conferences.
At the peace conference in Paris in 1946 they attempted to get support from the Allies for the forced expulsion of 200,000 Magyars. Their proposal was denied. A government official in Hungary responsible for dealing with the issues around the resettlement wrote to the leaders of Tolna County on February 2, 1947: “The population exchange will begin on April 8, 1947. It is extremely important that you be involved in this undertaking with regard to the settlement of the Magyar deportees.”
Opportunities for employment and free houses for all of them were not available because the Seklers who had arrived first had already been given the houses of the German inhabitants. The second phase of the expulsion of the Germans was guaranteed to provide accommodations for the incoming Hungarians from Slovakia. The idea behind it all is quite clear in an article in a Tolna newspaper at the time, “Their desire was to have a house comparable to what they had known. But most importantly they wanted to finally find a sense of peace instead of living in fear and wanted a place to lay down their heads and sleep in peace.”
The Magyars of Slovakia were allowed to bring their furniture and goods with them. While the Germans of Hungary had to leave their homes in a moment’s notice so that the resettlement of the Magyars from Slovakia could take place. There were examples where the settlers allowed the former owners to live with them in a room of their former houses. The Interior Ministry opposed this and ordered the local community officials: “This matter of allowing the Swabians back into their houses must be hindered because they fall into the same category as those who have been expelled in terms of having any property rights. If the new owner takes in the former Swabian owner without permission official action will be taken against him.”
The Swabian issue continued to be an ongoing headache for the County authorities. Strife in the life of the various villages intensified. Prior to the expulsions many of the Swabians fled to neighbouring villages and were willing to work for half the wages paid to other agricultural workers on the large landholdings of rich farmers. This along with other issues created conflict between the Swabians and the other workers during harvest time. Since the American Zone of Occupation in Germany refused to accept any further deportees from Hungary, the Hungarian government requested that the Allied Control Commission allow further deportations to the Russian Zone of Occupation.
The Fateful Years for the Germans in Gyönk
The Time Prior to the Deportations to Russia
In order to understand the history of what would occur it is necessary to understand the developments that took place prior to the war and not lose sight of the situation in which the Germans of Hungary found themselves. The portion of the population that claimed German as their mother tongue formed the majority in the areas around Gyönk and Bonyhád. In the census conducted in 1941 in the Bonyhád District, 75% of the inhabitants reported that their mother tongue was German. This situation was an exception in terms of the rest of Hungary. The German population that had first settled here in the 18th century preserved and maintained their German language and culture well into the mid 20th Century. The disintegration of these communities was due to outside forces and is linked to the Second World War. But there were signs of tensions much earlier. The Germans of Hungary saw themselves as being under pressure from the forces of Hungarian nationalism following the First World War.
The misfortunes Hungary suffered as a result of the war and the territorial losses they incurred strengthened the Magyar nationalists’ aspirations resulting in strong pressures being applied to the German population to assimilate. The urban German population was more disposed to this assimilation process. It was of lesser importance in the villages but the gradual impoverishment of their German culture was beginning to be felt as well as its impact on the young. In a deeply disturbing article published in 1932 written by Jakob Bleyer he gave expression to what he saw as the consequences of the Magyarization process upon the Swabian population:
“The education in Kindergarten is Hungarian and that is practically the same in most of the local schools in our German communities and there are fewer and fewer of our schools where instruction is given in the most elementary aspects of reading and writing in German. Just add to that the fact that the religious education of children in many communities is not provided in our mother tongue so that the children as well as the youth are attending services on Sunday and festivals as well on week days where hymns and the sermon are not provided in their German mother tongue. Truly a gigantic steam roller is crushing our German youth.”
A year later in a speech given by Bleyer he indicated that 90% of the German students in the Middle and Upper High Schools in Hungary were incapable of writing a letter in German or write an error free sentence in German. In opposition to this trend local groups of the Germans of Hungary Educational Union (Ungarnländische Deutsche Volksbildungsverein) were formed but understandably they had to carry out promotion and publicity in order to establish themselves. It is reported that there was a Reading Circle and a farmer’s association in Gyönk at that time. Membership costs in the Reading Circle were paid for by the sale of eggs to neighbours according to what we have been told and that the people who often attended the meetings were better informed about things and better able to maintain their sense of being German. The sense of community they experienced strengthened their sense of having a German identity and the events that they held provided entertainment. Dancing contests, gymnastic demonstrations, hikes and outing were organized. These gatherings brought about an enlivened cultural life and were not political in any way. A political tone was first sounded following the return of some of Hungary’s lost territories through the assistance of Hitler’s Germany. During this time the southern portion of Slovakia was returned to Hungary (1938). In that year the Volksbund der Deutschen in Ungarn was also founded. The founding assembly took place in Budapest. The former Volksbildungverein was gradually replaced and superseded by it.
The ordinary villagers did not realize that the local Reading Circle developed into a Volksbund organization. With the growing power of the Third Reich there emerged both enthusiasm and a sense of unrest on the part of the German minorities through Europe. Heinrich Reitinger who originally came from Csikostöttös was studying in Germany when Hitler came to power. He was committed to the National Socialist (Nazi) ideology and along with his German wife he came to Gyönk as a family doctor and organized the local chapter of the Bund (the term used by the local inhabitants to describe the Volksbund) and his deputy was Hans Reidl one of the teachers in the school operated by the Reformed congregation until 1944. The headquarters of the Volksbund was the present day building that is now a sewing factory. A third of the total German population took part in their activities and took out membership. Many simply participated in events that interested them as well as their dances but were never paying members. In the governance of the Volksbund in addition to the active members they also included what they called sympathizers and friends of the movement who fully participated in their various activities. The youth who were members often marched in the streets singing German songs. For the most part it was poorer people who joined the Bund who were attracted to the social implications that were directed against the richer and more pro-Hungarian Germans. They were promised that they would get the houses and fields of the Hungarianized Germans after Germany won the war.
Reitinger demanded that the Germans of Hungary be given their guaranteed minority rights. Many of the prosperous farmers looked upon the actions of the Bund with scepticism and suspicion. The overheated, excessive, ill-advised, unfounded insults and scolding done by the non-members of the Bund led to a fracturing of the sense of community among the German population. (Translator’ Note: The same charges could be equally made of the Bund members.) The people who did not join the Volksbund said they loved their Homeland and always felt at home in Hungary. They did not feel a need to flout their German-ness. Rumours that the region of Swabian Turkey would be annexed to Germany did not arise within the Volksbund circles. But the Bund considered the possible expulsion of all those who were not members of the Volksbund. Sometimes very underhanded remarks were made against the Hungarians.
During the 1930s the Loyalty Movement was founded. They worked in open opposition against the Volksbund but without an organized plan or programme. The census that was carried out in 1941 was met with a great sense of uncertainty evoking all kinds of feelings of outrage in the village. Alongside of the question of a person’s mother tongue an even more remarkable question was asked about the person’s nationality. A virtual propaganda bombardment was unleashed upon the German villagers by Bund agitators and the simple villagers became confused about how to answer the difficult and troublesome question. The teachers in the schools of the village stressed they should acknowledge that they were part of the Hungarian nation or otherwise they could be expelled from the country. A new situation developed with the Second Vienna Accords on August 30, 1940 that dealt with the Germans of Hungary between the German and Hungarian governments which had been done without the participation of the Volksbund in the discussions that had led up to it. Hitler’s war effort and aspirations carried more weight than the goals of the Volksbund.
This would eventually lead to the forced conscription of all German men between 17 and 45 years of age into the Waffen-SS in August 1944. Many of them died in the battle for Budapest and had received little military training before being sent to the front. Mrs. Gerth reported that her husband had been wounded in the street fighting in Belgium. On his arrival back home after the war he had to hide in a nearby cornfield because all other soldiers serving in the SS had already been interned. (Translator’s Note: The author does not differentiate between those who volunteered to serve in the SS and those who were forced into the Waffen-SS in the late stages of the war and served primarily on the Eastern Front.) But her husband was unable to escape the same fate as the others. He was interned for eleven months in Szekszárd. The Hungarian government had given the green light for the SS enlistment action. There were instances when Hungarian soldiers of German origin were discharged from the Hungarian Army and were transferred to the SS. The call up in August 1944 in local parlance was referred to as “Muss SS”. It means “must SS” or in other words they were forced to join.
In October and November (1944) the local Volksbund leader Dr. Heinrich Reitinger called upon the people to leave for Germany because the war was lost and hard times would be ahead of those who remained.
It was at this time that the Seklers had to flee from the Batschka and the German refugee treks moved across Swabian Turkey with some passing through Gyönk on their way to Germany. Johann Heidt, who was a Hungarian solider at the time, was in the Batschka from February to October 1944. He was on sentry duty at a hemp factory and industrial works because Partisan units were on the prowl throughout the area and had committed terribly cruel atrocities. He came in contact with German families who often supplied him with food. In the fall of 1944 they left on one of the treks that past through Gyönk. He sent greetings through them to his wife Susan and they told her that thing s were going well for him. Of course this was of great consolation to the Heidt family. When the evacuation order was issued by the Volksbund the majority of their members did not respond. But there were large numbers of women married to men in the SS who left. The fear of the coming Red Army was the impetus to join the evacuation but in Gyönk this did not have much an effect on the part of the general population.
The Deportation to the Soviet Union
(Based on the recollections of those Involved)
The Soviet troops entered our community on December 12, 1944. Before they arrived there had been a call up issued to all of the men who had done military service to report to the community officials. They were told to set up a home defence force to keep watch over the village. In this way they were also aware of who was at home. At that time the people did not think that anything bad was going to happen. Requisitioning supplies and especially horses was the order of the day. Many young girls and young married women living alone were raped. Following the entry of the Russians there were house searches, confiscation of food from the kitchen pantries and cellars that the people depended upon to meet their daily needs. In this instance there was no distinction made in terms of the nationality of the victims. We can also report about some killings such as the shooting of the prosperous farmer Konrad Reidl because his son’s Hungarian army uniform was found in the house. Heinrich Schneider was beaten to death because he refused to obey an “immoral” order of some Soviet soldiers. Following the death of Konrad Reidl his neighbours hid out in the fields because they were in fear of the plundering and brutality of the Russians. Adam Wolf acted as their interpreter. A group of so-called friends of communism soon put in an appearance. They would later become a plague in the lives of the local population. Among them were several Hungarian refugees from Romania who had taken up residence in our community.
The first major action taken by the Russians was the mobilization of the population for slave labour. In addition to this the use of the German language was forbidden at church services and in daily speech when in public. The total ban on the use of the German mother tongue was not implemented. A Russian field hospital was set up in the village where some of the villagers were ordered to work.
Jakob Daher reported, “My father met the notorious Kóvacs shortly before Christmas and told him something was about to happen that had never happened before.”
The deportation to Russia had an interesting prelude. The village council was presented with an order from the Russians just prior to Christmas to the effect that a specific number of labourers from the village were to be turned over to the Soviet Commander. The village council was unable to agree among themselves due to their concern about their own family members and no binding decision was made. The old village council was still in power and included members of the Volksbund or were sympathizers of the organization. When the Russians were apprised that nothing had been decided ordered that those members of the German civilian population that were 18 to 45 years of age were to report to the local Gasthaus Kalapa. (It meant men from 17 to 45 years and women 18 to 30 years.) In the neighbouring villages the members of the Volksbund were taken away and interned.
On December 20, 1944 an announcement was made throughout our village that all persons with a German family name between the ages of 18 and 45 years must report to the Nagykocsma Gasthaus. It was said that they would have to take part in the harvesting of corn in the Batschka. The work would take about two or three weeks. Fear and anxiety filled the hearts of the families involved and there was a sense of uncertainty about the future. Many people in retrospect began to wonder if Dr. Reitinger had been right when he had spoken about the times ahead for those who had remained behind and did not join the evacuation.
Those in the effected age groups were allowed to take sufficient food to last for three weeks, along with appropriate underwear to take along on the journey. They actually thought that they were going to work harvesting corn. The Russians placed sentries around the village and the fields so that the Germans were unable to leave the village. Some still were able to find a hiding place. The drums were beaten on the street corners and the population was told that if any person fled to escape doing labour their family members would be put to death. In the neighbouring villages women with children between the ages of birth to three years were allowed to be exempted from the order. In our village that was not permitted. Mrs. Brückner presently living in Zwickau in Saxony, Germany was allowed to remain at home with her newborn son through the personal intervention of a Russian soldier. A Russian Commission carried out its work at the Gasthaus to which Dr. Keleman a local doctor was also appointed. The translator, Adam Wolf, was able to have a few people exempted form the deportation mostly members of his own extended family. In the meanwhile the community council had to provide thirty vehicles to the Russians to transport the labourers to Szekszárd. The transport column was accompanied and guarded by Russian troops. According to archival documents 202 persons from Gyönk were taken to Russia. The lists of names do not validate the exact number because some of the names are stroked out. There is one list with twenty-six names that are known to have been members of the Volksbund and were exempted and allowed to remain at home. They were released before the others were transported away.
An almost miraculous story is the one shared by Margaret Müller. A Russian soldier entered her house to conduct a house search just as the family was joining in their evening prayers. Her little son was praying with her. The soldier was a decent man and did not disturb the family any further. She was already on board one of the wagon with the other deportees when she caught a glimpse of the Russian soldier. He recognized her and winked at her and indicated that she could get down off of the wagon and he sent her home to her family.
What those who managed to escape on the way to Szekszárd and later on in Baja were spared we learn from the following descriptions of what the others experienced:
December 28, 1944 was the day that they were transported away from Gyönk and many of them had no idea that there were those among them who would never return and were seeing their families for the last time. They were kept in a prison facility in Szekzárd. All of those designated for deportation from Tolna and Baranya County were assembled there. They received eating utensils, uniforms and other gear from the prison. Their stay there last only a few days. From here they were driven towards Baja and the Danube bridges. A ferry brought ammunition across the river and the deportees unloaded it and then boarded the ferry and were taken to the other bank.
For a short time they were kept in a tavern and dance hall. They were boarded on trains at which time the men and women were separated. The condition of the boxcars of the train has been described by Heinrich Fausst who was tasked with looking after the stove. Many of them sought to escape at Baja but only a few were successful. A day after the train was set in motion they began to realize they were not going to the Batschka because they could distinctly hear Romanian being spoken when the train halted. They were already in the Banat in the vicinity of Temesvár and passing through Romania and no longer travelling across the Batschka. In another box-car close by an iron bar was found that was used to pry open the door and some people jumped from the moving train and were able to get away before the train crossed into Russia.
At Máramarossziget all of the deportees had to get out of the boxcars as the Russians proceeded with a roll call to determine their number. They were obviously aware that some of them had escaped. Those in the next car were beaten terribly because they had not reported on those who had escaped. There were fifty persons in each boxcar. Once the Russians determined the number of missing deportees they had lost in transit they took an equal number of the train station personnel along to replace the others. This case illustrates for us another example of the fact that the ability to work was more important than a person’s origin or nationality. In some of the neighbouring villages around Gyönk there were all kinds of people that had German family names but could not speak a word of German. Naturally they were also included and were deported. For example, Kölesd and Nagykoni were among these kinds of communities. During the deportation the lack of provisions and supplies was catastrophic for the deportees. There may have been a stove in some of the cattle cars but the cold they experienced was extreme. There was less and less to eat as they continued on into the Soviet Union. There they would find even less.
While on their journey they were given frozen cold meat that soon resulted in various sicknesses breaking out among the people. Many became victims to typhus during the journey. The hygienic conditions were inhumane. A hole was bored into the floor of each of the cattle cars to serve as toilets for the deportees. The question of modesty had to be ignored under the circumstances and it was just one more thing they had to endure. The journey lasted for three weeks in January. The train was often halted due to ongoing military activities in some regions they passed through. After the long journey the deportees from Gyönk arrived in the Donets Basin of Ukraine.
On the basis of the stories told by the surviving deportees from Gyönk most of them worked in the Dombas Shaft #1 in Dawidowka in Camp Number Four. Materials found in the village archives indicate others were at Stalino, Zistakowa, Iloweis Shaft #35. The names of the communities indicate the nearest city with a train depot and the name of the mine where they worked. The majority of the deportees from Gyönk (about one hundred to one hundred and twenty persons) spent many months in Camp #4 while there were others that spent years there. (To Continue)