Departing from Krickerhau and Arriving in Handlová: Childhood Memories of Migration among German Expellees and Slovak Settlers

Handlová (German Krickerhau) was one of the main centres of Hauerland, a region in central Slovakia inhabited predominantly by a German-speaking population until the end of the Second World War. As a consequence of wartime events and post-war population transfers, German, and later Czechoslovak, authorities forced Slovak Germans to leave their homes. After 1945, Slovak settlers from neighbouring regions as well as from Hungary, France, Belgium, Romania, and Sub-Carpathian Ruthenia arrived in Handlová to take the place of the ousted German population. Drawing on oral history interviews, this article examines the childhood experiences of both the original German inhabitants of Handlová and the Slovak settlers who were relocated there after the Second World War. For both groups, German expellees and Slovak newcomers, childhood was profoundly shaped by (forced) migration. Yet while the Germans departed for a devastated Germany leaving most of their possessions behind, the Slovak settlers often arrived in what they perceived as their “home country,” bringing with them not only material belongings, but also distinct expectations and identities. By comparing the two sets of childhood recollections, the article explores how displacement was experienced and remembered across ethnic and national divides, revealing the shared emotional and sensory dimensions of migration and also the contrasting interpretative frameworks through which loss and new beginnings were understood. Ultimately, the study contributes to a more nuanced understanding of how memory, identity, and belonging were formed through post-war migration in Central Europe.