 Germans were looked down upon, their children were forceably educated in the Slovak language and a town which has been German for over 700 years has now been mostly obliterated.Although "official" records state that over 20% of the population speaks German, it's closer to 10% and the "Mantak" dialect of German the Merzenseifers spoke is only spoken now by a few dozen people.In the past ten years, the number of Germans has increased by approximately 0.75%.