Levéltári Közlemények, 93. (2022)

Angol nyelvű összefoglalók

Abstracts

Csaba Káli

WITHOUT BORDERS Refugees, displaced persons, partisans on the Hungarian-Yugoslavian border in Zala after the Second World War

After the Second World War, the forcible expulsion of Germans from many countries in Eastern Europe began even before the peace treaties were signed, in many cases involving almost total dispossession. This was also the case in Yugoslavia, where in many parts of the country, including along the Austrian border in Slovenian territory, the German-speaking indigenous Styrian population, especially the elderly, women and children who had been unable to flee and who had remained in their homes, were expelled by the authorities of the South Slav state, ruled by the communist partisan army under Tito. For logistical reasons and because of the resistance of the British army occupying the Austrian side of the border, the operation was carried out by a circuitous route, using the railway lines of a defeated and unresisting Hungary, with the tacit consent of the occupying Soviet military authorities. Thus, the Styrians from Slovenia were transported by several trains on the Hungarian State Railways (MÁV) lines in western Hungary to Vienna in Austria. One of the trains, however, was not accepted by the Austrians and was diverted back, but the Yugoslavs did not want it back either, so a stalemate developed on the Hungarian side of the Hungarian-Yugoslavian railway border station at Murakeresztúr in Zala County, where the train was stalled for weeks in early 1946, and was forced to stand idle during the winter. The Hungarian authorities tried to persuade the Yugoslavs to take the train back, but they proved intransigent for a long time. The locals tried to help the unfortunate people trapped in the wagons, but they also shot at those who tried to load food into the wagons and shot those who ventured out of the wagons to get at least water. In the cold weather, an epidemic broke out among the weakened people suffering from lack of fuel and food, and more than 70 people died on the train. They were buried in the Hungarian village.

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