Overview
- On January 19, 1946, the first expulsions from Budaörs began a program that sent about 220,000 Hungarndeutsche to Germany in cattle wagons.
- Hungary held an official day of remembrance, with President Tamás Sulyok and German President Frank‑Walter Steinmeier commemorating the victims together.
- Angelika Erdélyi‑Pfiszterer called the remembrance a gesture of reconciliation and a warning that such expulsions must never recur, noting that survivors’ trauma endures.
- The expulsions were part of the population transfers endorsed at the Potsdam Conference, with about 7.5 million Germans losing their homes through expulsions and an estimated 12 to 14 million people affected when wartime flight is included.
- Historians and witnesses also recall that an estimated 30,000 to 60,000 Ungarndeutsche were deported to forced labor in the Soviet Union, where many died from disease, hunger, and harsh conditions.