World War II evacuation and expulsion

Nowadays, World War II evacuation and expulsion is a topic on everyone's lips. With the advancement of technology and globalization, World War II evacuation and expulsion has become a constant concern for modern society. Whether in the political, economic, social or environmental sphere, World War II evacuation and expulsion has generated debate and sparked the interest of experts and citizens alike. In this article, we will explore the different facets of World War II evacuation and expulsion and analyze its impact on our lives. From its origin to its possible solutions, we will reflect on how World War II evacuation and expulsion influences our daily lives and what we can do about it.

Mass evacuation, forced displacement, expulsion, and deportation of millions of people took place across most countries involved in World War II. A number of these phenomena were categorised as violations of fundamental human values and norms by the Nuremberg Tribunal after the war ended. The mass movement of people – most of them refugees – had either been caused by the hostilities, or enforced by the former Axis and the Allied powers based on ideologies of race and ethnicity, culminating in the postwar border changes enacted by international settlements. The refugee crisis created across formerly occupied territories in World War II provided the context for much of the new international refugee and global human rights architecture existing today.

Belligerents on both sides engaged in forms of expulsion of people perceived as being associated with the enemy. The major location for the wartime displacements was East-Central and Eastern Europe, although Japanese people were expelled during and after the war by Allied powers from locations in Asia including India. The Holocaust also involved deportations and expulsions of Jews preliminary to the subsequent genocide perpetrated by Nazi Germany under the auspices of Aktion Reinhard.

World War II deportations, expulsions and displacements

Following the invasion of Poland in September 1939 which marked the beginning of World War II, the campaign of ethnic "cleansing" became the goal of military operations for the first time since the end of World War I. After the end of the war, between 13.5 and 16.5 million German-speakers lost their homes in formerly German lands and all over Eastern Europe.

Origin of German colonisers settled in annexed Polish territories in action "Heim ins Reich"
Expulsion of Poles from Reichsgau Wartheland following the German invasion of 1939
Germans leaving Silesia for Allied-occupied Germany in 1945. Courtesy of the German Federal Archives (Deutsches Bundesarchiv).

Aftermath of the invasion of Poland

  • 1939 to 1945: The Nazis planned to ethnically cleanse the whole Polish population according to a germanisation Master Plan called Generalplan Ost. Eventually in the course of Nazi occupation up to 1.6 to 2 million Poles were expelled, not counting millions of slave labourers deported from Poland to the Reich.
  • 1939 to 1940: Expulsions of 680,000 Poles from German-occupied Wielkopolska (German -Reichsgau Wartheland). From the city of Poznań Germans expelled to General Government 70,000 Poles. By 1945, half a million Volksdeutsche Germans from Soviet Union, Bessarabia, Romania, and the Baltic Germans had been resettled during action "Heim ins Reich" by German organisations like Hauptamt Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle and "Resettlement departament" of RKFDV (Stabshauptamt Reichkomissar für die Festigung deutsches Volkstums) from Eastern Europe.
  • 1939 to 1940: Expulsions of 121,765 Poles from German-occupied Pomerania. On Polish places 130,000 Volksdeutsche was settled including 57,000 Germans from East Europe countries: Soviet Union, Bessarabia, Romania and the Baltic states. Deportation was a part of German "Lebensraum" policy ordered by German organisations like Hauptamt Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle and "Resettlement departament" of RKFDV.
  • 1939 to 1940: The first evacuation of Finnish Karelia was the resettlement of the population of Finnish Karelia and other territories ceded by Finland to the Soviet Union after and during the Winter War into the remaining parts of Finland. Some of the territories were evacuated during the war or before it, as part of the course of the war. Most of the territory was evacuated after the Soviet Union gained it as a part of the Moscow peace treaty. In total, 410,000 people were transferred.
  • 1940 to 1941: 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.
  • 1940 to 1941: Expulsions of 17,000 Polish and Jewish residents from the western districts of city Oświęcim from places located directly adjacent to Auschwitz Concentration Camp, and also from the villages of Broszkowice, Babice, Brzezinka, Rajsko, Pławy, Harmęże, Bór, and Budy. The Expulsion of Polish civilians was a step towards establishing the Camp Interest Zone, which was set up in order to isolate the camp from the outside world and to carry out business activity to meet the needs of the SS. German and Volksdeutsche settlers move in. This was one of the numerous forced migrations associated with the Holocaust.

World War II

Defeat of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan

Establishment of refugee organisations

The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration was set up in 1943, to provide humanitarian relief to the huge 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.

See also

References

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External links

Further reading

  • Applebaum, A. (2004). GULAG A History, Penguin, ISBN 0-14-028310-2.
  • Cienciala, M. (2007). Katyn A Crime Without Punishment, Yale University, ISBN 978-0-300-10851-4.
  • Davies, N. (1986). God's Playground A History of Poland Volume II, Clarendon, ISBN 0-19-821944-X.
  • Douglas, R.M.: Orderly and Humane. The Expulsion of the Germans after the Second World War. Yale University Press, 2012. ISBN 978-0300166606.
  • Feferman Kiril, "A Soviet Humanitarian Action?: Centre, Periphery and the Evacuation of Refugees to the North Caucasus, 1941-1942." In Europe-Asia Studies 61, 5 (July 2009), 813–831.
  • Ferguson, N. (2006). The War of the World, Allen Lane, ISBN 0-7139-9708-7.
  • Gross, J. T. (2002). Revolution from Abroad, Princeton, ISBN 0-691-09603-1.
  • Hope, M. (2005). Polish Deportees in the Soviet Union, Veritas, ISBN 0-948202-76-9.
  • Jolluck, K. (2002). Exile & Identity, University of Pittsburgh, ISBN 0-8229-4185-6.
  • Krizman, Serge. Maps of Yugoslavia at War, Washington 1943.
  • Krupa, M. (2004). Shallow Graves in Siberia, Birlinn, ISBN 1-84341-012-5.
  • Malcher, G. C. (1993). Blank Pages, Pyrford, ISBN 1-897984-00-6.
  • Mikolajczyk, S. (1948). The Pattern of Soviet Domination, Sampsons, low, Marston & Co.
  • Naimark, Norman: Fires of Hatred. Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth - Century Europe. Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 2001.
  • Nikolić, Kosta; Žutić, Nikola; Pavlović, Momčilo; Špadijer, Zorica (2002): Историја за трећи разред гимназије природно-математичког смера и четврти разред гимназије општег и друштвено-језичког смера, Belgrade, ISBN 86-17-09287-4.
  • Piesakowski, T. (1990). The Fate of Poles in the USSR 1939~1989, Gryf, ISBN 0-901342-24-6.
  • Piotrowski, T. (2004). The Polish Deportees of World War II, McFarland, ISBN 978-0-7864-3258-5.
  • Polian, P. (2004). Against their Will, CEU Press, ISBN 963-9241-73-3.
  • Prauser, Steffen and Rees, Arfon: The Expulsion of the "German" Communities from Eastern Europe at the End of the Second World War. Florence, Italy, Europe, University Institute, 2004.
  • Rees, L. (2008). World War Two Behind Closed Doors, BBC Books, ISBN 978-0-563-49335-8.
  • Roudometof, Victor. Collective Memory, National Identity, and Ethnic Conflict Greece, Bulgaria, and the Macedonian Question.