ba Pole, or a European who had harbored a snake in his house
band been bitten for his pains. An inscription on the gate of the
bCzech Internment Center at Budweis read: “An eye for an eye
band a tooth for a tooth.” The same Time magazine article ad-
bmitted: “But the Poles and Czechs who expel them will be think-
bing of the past and of the future. The German minorities in
beastern Europe were not harmless, either as guests or, later, as
bmasters.”
bHungary, which also received “approval” at Potsdam, im-
bmediately expelled some 260,000 of its Germans. Rumania, Yu-
bgoslavia, and the Soviet Union did not bother even to raise the
bquestion—they simply acted. By 1950 the following number of
bGermans had been removed by their host countries:
| Oder-Neisse Territories | 6,817,000 |
| Sudetenland | 2,921,400 |
| Eastern Europe (Poland, Hungary, Rumania, | |
| Yugoslavia, Memel-Danzig) | 1,865,000 |
bThis total of 11,603,400 does not include the German ethnics
bwithin the Soviet Union whose fate was not fully clear.
bIn pre-World War II Europe, a huge German population
bhad brought misery to the countries in which they resided as a
bminority. They would never do so again.
bThe period between World War I and II in Eastern and
bCentral Europe had seen the curse of the national minority
bgroups. Each felt a far greater loyalty to its communal, ethnic
bpeople across the border than to its host country. Every area in
bwhich they lived in sizable numbers became a hotbed of irreden-
btist calls for “autonomy” and separation. At least in the case of
bthe Germans, the nations of the region determined to eliminate
bthe problem.
bIt is interesting to note, however, that in February 1946
bHungary and Czechoslovakia eliminated the mutual minority
bproblem that had plagued them for decades. They agreed on a
bvoluntary exchange of their respective minorities, transferring
b31,000 Magyars to Hungary and 33,000 Slovaks to Czechoslo-
bvakia.
bWhen two people are heirs to wide and fundamental differ-
bences—ethnic, religious, linguistic, and cultural—and when
bthose differences have led to decades of hate, hostility, and war,
bthe most drastic solution is sometimes the most obvious and
b