leave in 1945 to 1948. Others remained and were later forced to leave by local authorities. Census figures in 1950 place the total number of ethnic Germans still living in Central and Eastern Europe at approximately 2.6 million, about 12 percent of the pre-war total. The majority of the flights and expulsions occurred in Czechoslovakia, Poland and the European Soviet Union. Others occurred in territories of northern Yugoslavia (predominantly in the Vojvodina region), and other regions of Central and Eastern Europe. The total number of the Germans expelled after the war will remain unknown, but was estimated by various scientific approaches. Most of the past research provided a combined estimate of 13.5-16.5 million people, including those that were evacuated by German authorities, fled or were killed during the war. However, recent research places the number at above 12 million, including all those who fled during the war or migrated later, forcibly or otherwise, to both the Western and Eastern zones of Germany and to Austria. Recent analyses have led some historians to conclude that the actual number of deaths attributable to the flight and expulsions was in the range of 500,000 to 1.1 million. The earlier higher figures, up to 3.2 million, typically include all war-related deaths of ethnic Germans between 1939 and 1945, including those who served in the German armed forces. When Romania signed a peace treaty with the Soviets in 1944, the German military began withdrawing the Transylvanian Saxons from Transylvania; this operation was most thorough with the Saxons of the Nösnerland. Around 100,000 Germans fled before the Soviet Red Army, but Romania did not conduct the expulsion of Germans as did neighboring countries at war's end. However, more than 80,000 Saxons were arrested by the Soviet Army and sent to labour camps in Siberia for alleged cooperation with Germany. Most of those belonging to the Yugoslavian-German minority were interned at camps and eventually expelled from the country. The majority went to Austria and West Germany. However, there were a number of people who stayed, because they were married to local partners. These people and their descendants were no longer officially considered a part of the German population. Recent history Expelled Germans in postwar Germany After World War II, many expellees (German: Heimatvertriebene) from the land east of the Oder-Neisse found refuge in both West Germany and East Germany. Refugees who had fled voluntarily but were later