Memorial Day of Ethnic Germans Deported From Hungary Marked

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Imre Ritter, an ethnic German lawmaker, laid a wreath before a plaque at Budaörs railway station, near Budapest, to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the expulsion of ethnic Germans from Hungary.

On January 19, 2013, parliament declared this day an official state day of remembrance of the deportation and expulsion of ethnic Germans, which began on January 19, 1946. The first train left from Budaörs.

The anniversary was marked by the national self-government of Germans in Hungary in an online event. Chairwoman Ibolya Hock Englender said on Facebook that the commemorative event which is normally held annually in Bonyhád, a city in southern Hungary with a large ethnic German population, has been moved online as a result of the coronavirus epidemic. She said the first cattle cars deporting ethnic Germans from Hungary left on January 19, 1946, transporting “humiliated, dispossessed people robbed of their homes to the unknown”. Further trains of ethnic Germans followed, even when tens of thousands had already been taken to the Soviet Union for forced labour starting from 1944, she added. Zoltán Kovács, the state secretary for international communications and relations, said on Facebook that the deportation of Swabians had caused Hungary an “irreparable loss”.

hungarymatters.hu

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