After the independence of Slovakia in March 1939, the government ignored the agreement and fired all Czech civil servants, except those deemed indispensable. Regulation 4003/1939 ordered the creation of a list of "Communists, Marxists, and Czechs" in the new country. Czechs suffered physical attacks and discrimination; many were fired from civil service. According to different estimates, 50,000 left Slovakia, or 60,000 were deported. In many cases, local Hlinka Guard units deported Czechs to the border out of their own initiative and robbed them. Due to the government's effort to secure an ethnic Slovak majority in the capital, the number of Czechs in Bratislava decreased by 16,000 between the censuses of December 1938 and December 1940, either due to emigration or manipulation. Persecution worsened after the Slovak National Uprising because Czechs were perceived as sympathetic to the partisans. The discrimination led to protests by the Czechoslovak government-in-exile.