Czechoslovakia Takes its Revenge In retaliation for the 213,000 of its citizens murdered during the Nazi occupation, the Czechs lost no time in squaring the account. Eduard Benes returned from exile in London and in Prague set up a new government. Thousands of Sudeten Germans were rounded up and interned in camps without proper sanitation facilities. Soon, the camps were swarming with vermin. Hunger and disease were on a par with Belsen. In July, 1945, the Czech militia massacred some 1,000 Germans in a village near Aussig. In the town of Saaz, thousands of German women were herded into huge barracks. As night fell, hundreds of Czech militia entered the barracks and picked out their victims, mostly young women. For two whole weeks, night after night, this mass rape continued. Without decent food and medicines, babies were dying at a rate of up to fifteen per day. Eventually, when the survivors were transported to Germany, they left behind around 2,000 of their dead. In Troppau, in Silesia, 4,200 German women and children were expelled back to Germany, a journey by rail, in unheated freight cars, that lasted eighteen days. When the train arrived in Berlin, only 1,350 were still alive. Many of these Germans were totally innocent and in no way sympathetic to Hitler's regime. It is estimated that about 200,000 Germans, Austrians and Hungarians were murdered during the Czech reprisals. Source: George Duncan
There was actually just a recent article about this on the news here. I am unsure what specifically it was about. Possibly an anniversary? That I do not know but either way it is a shame that even after the war innocent loves continued to be lost. I would also be willing to bet that nobody really got in trouble for the massacres of these innocent Germans.
Thats terrible....once we get into a revenge and vendetta mentality no one ever wins. All that is left is a bitter legacy of pain and regret.
Wow, this is the kind of history that you never read about in the high school history books. If you live by the sword sooner or later you die by the sword. So much suffering on both sides:cry:.
yep, you dont always read about the flipside of things, I agree you cant justify equal actions as retaliation just because they did it to you, no matter how much it pains to think of the bad things they did. It breeds a vicious cycle, because it wouldnt be surprising if although we dont know much about these sorts of things, in germany history teaches of these incidents.