80 years since the first transport of settlers from Prague left to revive the Czech borderlands
On October 19, 1945, the first organised transport of settlers to the Czech borderlands left from Prague. This marked the beginning of a large-scale post-war effort to resettle areas that had been left deserted after the expulsion of the German-speaking population.
The resettlement of the borderlands was not only a practical step towards rebuilding the country but also a strongly ideologically driven project. The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia presented it as a national revolution aimed at “cleansing” the republic’s borders and creating new Czech communities in the border regions. Speeches from the time called for a mass resettlement, for example: “Czech farmers, set out for the borders and help reclaim the land in the name of the nation and the republic.”
While the Prague transport was headed for various parts of the borderlands, a radio report from October 1945, preserved in the archives of the Czech Radio, captures a different wave of settlers — farmers from the Pojizeří region, specifically from villages around Turnov, who moved towards the Frýdlant výběžek, a region in northern Bohemia bordering to the west, north and east with Poland. At the time, hundreds of families gathered in the main square of Frýdlant to take over abandoned farms in the surrounding villages.
One of them, Břetislav Mendík, settled on a farm in the village of Schönwald. “I’m not afraid of hard work. When it’s your own, you put your heart into it,” he is recorded saying in an archival recording. Other settlers, like František Cvrček, describe how they started from scratch — with only a few hectares of land, a couple cows, and faith in a new beginning.
Nevertheless, the resettlement of the borderlands was far from smooth. Many areas remained sparsely populated, lacking infrastructure, doctors, schools, and job opportunities. Classified reports from the 1950s also point to child malnutrition, contaminated wells, and widespread alcoholism.
The challenges of resettlement left a lasting mark on the Czech border regions. By the late 1940s, hundreds of houses and factories in the borderlands stood empty or abandoned. Many were torn down, some to make way for the Iron Curtain. And to this day, parts of the former Sudetenland still bear the scars of the forced expulsion of its original population and the subsequent arrival of newcomers with no ties to the region — visible in weaker social cohesion, depopulation, and long-standing social and economic disadvantages.
