Their only sin was being Hungarian

In 2012 the Hungarian Parliament unanimously voted to make April 12th the Memorial Day commemorating the ethnic Hungarians deported from (Czecho)Slovakia. 74 years ago, about 100 000 Hungarians, residing in territories that once belonged to the Kingdom of Hungary, were forced to leave the former Czechoslovakia. The Beneš Decrees, which provided the legal framework for this ethnic cleansing, are still part of the Czech and Slovak legal systems despite their EU membership.

Felvidéki magyarok kitelepítése, Galánta, 1947 Forrás: Fortepan / Kozma János

For a time, several thousand Hungarians were held in labor camps. Czech historians estimated their numbers between 30-40 thousand, while the Sudeten German allies estimated it at 250 thousand. Following the communist takeover in February 1948, alleviation ensued. The October 25, 1948 law restored citizenship for Hungarians after taking an oath of allegiance, but the forced reslovakization declarations were only invalidated in 1954.

Edvard Beneš Czech politican
Fotó: ma7.sk

Neither Czechoslovakia after the fall of communism, nor the independent Slovakia and Czech Republic after 1993, prioritized invalidating the Beneš Decrees and returning the confiscated properties on their agenda. A Slovakian resolution on September 20, 2007 stated that „the legal and property relations arising from the decrees are unquestionable, inviolable and unalterable”. In another resolution from December 3 2012, the Parliament stated that it considered it necessary to commemorate the Hungarians deported from the Czechoslovak Republic as a result of the Beneš Decrees.