They were eating their lunch when they found our they must leave within two
hours – thus, the Sudeten Germans were expelled.
When World War II ended, seventy years ago, survivors from both the front lines and
the concentration camps returned to Czechoslovakia, their homeland. In return,
however, millions of others had to leave the country – such as the Sudeten Germans,
who were forced out of their homes. The following story recounts the tale of a
Sudeten German from the time:
(Photo: Ernst Czeloth organizes meetings of those who used to live in Vranov nad
Dyjí. Together with his friends, he also wrote the book Vranov – the Pearl of the
Thayatal. Photography by Hana Jakubcová, MF DNES)
“My name is Ernst Czeloth,” opens Czeloth. “I was born in 1943 in Vranov, at 14
Znojemská Street. My parents were farmers.”
Czeloth’s father worked as a carter, who drove his horses and cart to Znojmo and
Šumná; his mother was a housewife. “Soon after the wedding,” continues Czeloth,
“my mother had to take over the farm, as my father had gone to war. He served in the
air defence and, being German, was drafted into the Wehrmacht. He didn’t join any of
the political parties that were founded around that time.”
Czeloth’s mother came from a peasant family that lived in the nearby village of
Milíčovice. Today, the former residential building on the main street leading to
Znojmo houses a restaurant. Czeloth’s great grandfather, of the Czeloth clan, used to
be mayor of Vranov nad Dyjí.
“He really did a lot for Vranov,” says Czeloth, “For instance, he had the local winding
road expanded and paved, and built a bridge across the Thaya River. You can still see
his grave in the Vranov nad Dyjí cemetery; an unknown person takes care of it. My
aunt lived in Zadní Hamry, formerly part of Vranov nad Dyjí.”
Based on the 1930 census, 1023 of the 1676 inhabitants of Vranov nad Dyjí were
German.
They thought they would be back in two days. Instead, they didn’t get back until
47 year later… for a visit.
By the end of the war, Ernst Czeloth’s father was serving as a soldier at the air
defence base in Vranov. “When the Germans heard the war was lost, on May 7th,
1945, my father and a friend crossed the border and moved to Felling, the nearest
Austrian village, where they rented a farm. My mother, meanwhile, stayed in Vranov
with a helper and waited to see what would happen.”
(Photo: Wedding photo of Ernst Czeloth’s parents, February 1939)
At 11 am on May 23rd, 1945, all Germans were ordered to gather at the plague
column on the main square in Vranov nad Dyjí. Drummers announced that those who
stay at home will be shot. Then, the gathered Germans were told they had 24 hours to
leave the country. They were not allowed to take any valuables, gold or money with
them – only one small piece of hand luggage.
“There was a document nailed to the office door, listing the names of all the farmers
and those working at the Vranov Dam. These could stay for another month, as the
famers had to explain how to take care of the harvest. Both the farmers and the
engineers were promised better treatment; if the promise was ever fulfilled, however,
then only partially.”
The Czeloth family owned a farm. One day, just as they were having lunch, someone
came in and told them they must leave in two hours. “My mother didn’t take anything
with her, because she thought we would be back in two or three days. Instead, she
didn’t return until 1992 – for a visit.”
Young partisans looted the houses and disappeared
In Vranov nad Dyjí, Czech and German-speaking people from Moravia had been
living side by side and marrying each other for ages. The idea of Czechs and Germans
as two ethnically separated modern nations only came into being in the mid-19th
century, explains historian Jiří Kacetl from Znojmo.
“In May 1945, young men, partisans, came to Vranov – at least as far as I know,” says
Czeloth. “They were not the people who had driven the Germans away, they were not
involved in any of that. They were strangers, difficult to identify, who came to be
known as the ‘Gold Diggers’. They ransacked everything and disappeared.”
The Czeloth family stayed in Felling, Austria, for a year. Several other refugees from
Vranov nad Dyjí had settled there as well, around 800 people. The tiny village was
bursting in the seams. Sometimes 30 people slept in a single attic. There was no space
and there was no food. Some tried to sneak back across the border and bring food
from their former homes – if they were discovered, however, they usually got a
beating.
Austria was occupied by the Soviet army, whose commanders set up camp in the
castle of Riegersburg, a neighbouring village. The Czechs asked the Russians to drive
the Germans away from Felling, which they did, forcing them to leave for the
gathering camp at Melk. In these gathering camps, transports were organized to
various places in Germany, deporting, in the end, over three million people.
They were driven back from the German border three times. They only
managed to get into the country on the fourth try.
“One million Sudeten Germans went to Bavaria and 350 000 to Baden-Württemberg.
Germany had its own problems and the refugees were not welcome there; in addition,
in Austria there was a general distrust in the air with anything considering Sudeten
Germans. We were lucky to have relatives in Vienna, from my father’s side, so our
family didn’t have to go to Melk.”
Ernst Czeloth’s father died in Vienna in 1949, aged 35. His son believes it was due to
the consequences of war injuries and doesn’t wish to speak about the topic. “My
brother was born that same year,” says Czeloth. “We had relatives in BadenWürttemberg and my mother wanted to join them. But she couldn’t officially cross
the border. She was in the Soviet Zone.”
(Photo: Birthplace of Ernst Czeloth’s mother in Milíčovice, to the left in 1943, to the
right today.)
Czeloth’s mother repeatedly tried to cross the border illegally. Three times, she and
her three children were sent back to Vienna; then, on the fourth attempt, they finally
managed to get across. Once in Germany, the family moved to Stuttgart, where
Czeloth’s grandmother lived with her two sisters. “Grandmother only had a little
room, and could only fit in my mother and my younger brother. I was sent to live with
my aunt, who was very nice to me.”
Czeloth’s mother worked in a foundry, about four kilometres from where her son
lived with her sister. He would always go and see her in the evenings, when her
workday ended. This went on for several years, as Czeloth’s mother tried to save up
money for a house of their own. Then, one day, a broker appeared and offered to build
her a house in exchange for a deposit in advance. The family paid the deposit, but
everything turned out to be a con, and the broker disappeared with Czeloth’s mother’s
hard-earned savings.
“Mother had to start all over again. In a few years, however, she finally managed to
save up enough to buy a home, and in 1958, we had a terraced house built in
Stuttgart.” After fifteen years, the family finally had a home again.
When they returned to Vranov nad Dyjí after many years, they met unfriendly
policemen
Ernst Czeloth and his mother, who never re-married, returned to Vranov nad Dyjí in
1992. “We were driving down the hill above Vranov,” says Czeloth, “My mother
wanted to stop somewhere in the serpentines to enjoy the view of the valley and the
chateau. She got out of the car and my brother drove on, because he wanted to park
somewhere in the shade – it was a very warm day. However, as soon as he stopped,
the police appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. They saw the foreign license plates
and said we couldn’t park there. They were very unpleasant.”
The police fined them in Czech crowns, but the family had no Czech money. Then the
police checked their passports. The family finally managed to get some crowns at a
stall near the chateau and paid the fine. “Mother was very upset. She repeated over
and over that she hopes the police won’t arrest us. My brother said that that was the
last time he had set foot in Vranov. My mother had been looking forward to coming
back, but all her expectations were shattered.”
Ernst Czeloth later started organizing meetings of all those who had formerly lived in
Vranov nad Dyjí. A former supermarket controller, he is now retired and this year
celebrated a golden wedding anniversary with his wife. He has one son. As a young
man, he had no interest in Czechoslovakia, but the older he gets, the more he searches
for his roots. “People are concerned Sudeten Germans will want their property back.
However, it is not so. We only want to see the places we were born and had lived in,
and to take photos as souvenirs. Incidentally, in the spring of this year, those
organized in the Sudetendeutsche Landsmannschaft have publicly declared they no
longer have any claims to their property. It was a very important decision.”
Ernst Czeloth frequently talks to the son of the man who had initiated the
building of the Vranov Dam
Whenever Ernst Czeloth is asked to explain who the Sudeten Germans really are, he
quotes from the Sudetendeutsche Landsmannschaft documents: “The Sudeten
Germans came to Bohemia and Moravia in the Middle Ages, settling down in the
border regions or working in mines. As time passed, a flourishing cultural landscape
developed in the places where they had settled – if these places were, at the same
time, linguistic islands (e.g. Jihlava or Prague).”
The man who initiated the building of the Vranov Dam, Ferdinand Schmidt, also
hailed from Vranov nad Dyjí. The dam became the primary energy source in the area
and now serves as a drinking water reservoir for the region of Znojmo and Třebíč, as
well as being a popular recreation area.
The son of Ferdinand Schmidt, who is already very old, lives in Germany. Ernst
Czeloth often talks to him. „His father died at the beginning of the war, in 1941. He is
grateful his dad did not have to live through it.”
One should be able to forgive, it was not our deeds but our fathers’
What does Czeloth himself think of the Germans and their reasons for starting World
War II? Did he ever visit a concentration camp? Czeloth’s response is calm; he says
that rather than using the word “we”, he would use “the Germans”. He was, after all,
only born in 1943 and was very young at the end of the war.
“The Germans have caused great suffering to the Russians, the Poles, the Czechs and
to many others,” he says. “Later, however, they assumed the responsibility for their
actions. In 1970, German Chancellor Willi Brandt visited Warsaw, knelt by the grave
of the Unknown Soldier and lay a wreath on it, straightening the ribbons. In this way,
he asked for forgiveness. The gesture was more than a thousand words.”
According to Czeloth, the spokesperson of the Sudetendeutsche Landsmannschaft
asked the Czech people for forgiveness in 1963. „The Czech government, however,
never made this declaration public,“ says Czeloth. “We shouldn’t forget the evil, the
pain. On the other hand, though, after all these years we should also be able to
forgive. None of us is guilty of what had happened during the war and shortly after it.
Those deeds were not ours, they were our fathers’.
Written by Hana Jakubcová
Source: http://jihlava.idnes.cz/pribeh-odsunuteho-sudetskeho-nemce-z-vranova-foc/jihlava-zpravy.aspx?c=A150813_2183997_jihlava-zpravy_mv