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World War II evacuation and expulsion
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Forced deportation, mass evacuation and displacement of peoples took place in many of the countries involved in World War II. These were caused both by the direct hostilities between Axis and Allied powers, and the border changes enacted in the post-war settlement.
The crisis in former Axis-occupied territories after liberation provided the context for much of the new international refugee and human rights architecture that survives today.
Establishment of refugee organisations
The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration was set up in 1943, to provide humanitarian relief to the vast numbers of potential and existing refugees in areas facing Allied liberation.
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Encyclopedia
Forced deportation, mass evacuation and displacement of peoples took place in many of the countries involved in World War II. These were caused both by the direct hostilities between Axis and Allied powers, and the border changes enacted in the post-war settlement.
The crisis in former Axis-occupied territories after liberation provided the context for much of the new international refugee and human rights architecture that survives today.
World War II related deportations, expulsions and similar displacements
- '39 to '45 The Expulsion of Poles by Germany. During World War II, Nazis planned to ethnically cleanse the whole Polish population. Eventually during Nazi occupation up to 1.6 to 2 million Poles were expelled, not counting millions of slave labourers deported from Poland.
- '40 to '41 The Soviets deported hundreds of thousands of Polish citizens, most in four mass waves. The accepted figure was over 1.5 million. The most conservative figures use recently found NKVD documents showing 309,000 to 381,220. The Soviets didn’t recognise ethnic minorities as Polish citizens, some of the figures are based on those given an amnesty rather than deported and not everyone was eligible for the amnesty therefore the new figures are considered too low. The original figures were: February, 1940 over 220,000; April around 315,000; June-July between 240,000 to 400,000; June, 1941, 200,000 to 300,000.
- '40 to '41 The deportation of Volga Germans by Soviet Union to Kazakhstan, Altai Krai, Siberia, and other remote areas.
- '41 to '44 During the Finnish occupation of East Karelia during World War II the Russian speaking population of the city of Petrozavodsk was held in an concentration camp.
- '41 to '44 in Kosovo & Metohija, some 10,000 Serbs lost their lives, and about 80 to 100,000 or more were ethnically cleansed.
- '41 to '45 More than 250,000 Serbs were expelled from Croatia and Bosnia by the extreme nationalist Ustashe regime during the Serbian Genocide.
- '41 to '49 During WWII, Japanese-Americans and Japanese-Canadians were interned in camps due to fears that Japanese immigrants might be a fifth column supporting the enemy.
- '43 to '44 The Deportation of Crimean Tatars, Kalmyks, Chechens, Ingush, Balkars, Karachays, and Meskhetian Turks by Soviet Union to Central Asia and Siberia.
- '43 to '44 The ethnic cleansing and massacres of Poles in Volhynia by nationalist UPA with the bulk of victims reportly in summer and autumn 1944.
- '43 to '60 The Istrian exodus involved the diaspora of 350,000 ethnic Italians from Istria, Fiume and dalmatian Zara lands, after the collapse of Italian fascist regime.
- '44 The displacement of the majority ethnic Estonian population from the Estonian city of Narva by Soviet occupation authorites.
- '44 The Evacuation of Finnish Karelia was the resettlement of the population of Finnish Karelia and other territories ceded by Finland to the Soviet Union into the remaining parts of Finland.
- '44 to '45 The ethnic cleansing of Hungarians, or the massacres in Backa by titoist partisans during the winter of 1944-45, about 40.000 massacred. Afterwards, between 45-48, internation camps were set which led directly to the death of 70.000 more, of famine, frost, plagues, tortures and executions.
- '44 to '45 The ethnic cleansing of Cham Albanians from Southern Epirus by Greeks which took place, circa 18,000-35000 fled to Albania, and from several hundred to 2,800 killed.
- '44 to '47 & '51 The mass deportation of Ukrainian speaking ethnic minorities from the territory of Poland after World War II, culminating in 1947 with the start of Operation Wisla.
- '44 to '47 & '51 1.5 million Poles were deported from the eastern territories annexed by the Soviet Union into the western territories, which Soviets transferred from Germany to Poland. By 1950, 1.6 million Poles from the eastern territories annexed by the Soviet Union had been settled in what the government called the Regained Territories.
- '44 to '48 Expulsion of Germans after World War II. Between 13.5 and 16.5 million Germans were expelled, evacuated or fled from Central and Eastern Europe, making this the largest single instance of ethnic cleansing in recorded history. Estimated number of those who died in the process is being debated by historians and estimated between 500,000 and 3,000,000.
- After WWII in Manchuria under Soviet occupation soon become a battlefield between the Chinese communist forces and the Nationalist forces was home to hundreds of thousands of Japanese citizens. Korea and Taiwan, now free from Japanese rule, and Sakhalin, under Soviet military occupation, were Japanese territories before World War II and had millions of Japanese residents. All these were now to be expelled.
- After WWII the Communist regime in Romania begins evictions of the Greek community, approx. 75,000.
- Unknown but more than 30,000 Serbs were expelled from Bulgarian occupied Macedonia and south-eastern Serbia.
Establishment of refugee organisations
The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration was set up in 1943, to provide humanitarian relief to the vast numbers of potential and existing refugees in areas facing Allied liberation. UNRRA provided billions of US dollars of rehabilitation aid, and helped about 8 million refugees. It ceased operations in Europe in 1947, and in Asia in 1949, upon which it ceased to exist. It was replaced in 1947 by the International Refugee Organization (IRO), which in turn evolved into United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in 1950.
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