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. " following the German
invasion of 1939 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 department" of
RKFDV (Stabshauptamt Reichkomissar für die Festigung deutsches Volkstums) from
Eastern Europe. • 1939 to 1940: Expulsions of 121,765 Poles 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 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 300,000. 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 • 1940: A
population exchange between Bulgaria and Romania is carried out. 103,711
Romanians,
Aromanians and
Megleno-Romanians are transferred to Romania and 62,278
Bulgarians are evacuated to
Bulgaria. • 1940 to 1941: The deportation of
Volga Germans by
Soviet Union to
Kazakhstan,
Altai Krai,
Siberia, and other remote areas. • 1941: The
deportation of
Estonians,
Latvians and
Lithuanians by
Soviet Union. • 1941: The
deportation and massacres of prisoners in Western Soviet Union. • 1941 to 1944: During the
Finnish occupation of East Karelia during
World War II the
Russian-speaking population was held in
East Karelian concentration camps. • 1941 to 1944:
Expulsion of Poles from the
Zamość region was performed in November 1941, and it was continued in June/July 1943, it was code named
Wehrwolf Action I and
II, and it was carried out in an attempt to make room for German (and to a lesser extent, to make room for Ukrainian) settlers as part of Nazi plans for the establishment of German colonies in the conquered territories. Around 110,000 people from 297 villages were expelled. Around 30,000 of the victims of the expulsion were children who, if they were racially "clean" (i.e. if they had physical characteristics which were deemed "Germanic") were prepared for
germanisation by German families in the
Third Reich. Most of the people who were expelled were sent to Germany and used as slave labourers or they were sent to concentration camps. • 1941 to 1944: in
Kosovo and Metohija, some 10,000 Serbs lost their lives, and about 80,000 or more • 1941 to 1949: During World War II,
Japanese-Americans and
Japanese-Canadians were interned in camps. • 1942:
Deportation of the Ingrian Finns from Soviet controlled territory of the
Leningrad Blockade. • 1943 to 1944: The
Deportation of
Crimean Tatars,
Kalmyks,
Chechens,
Ingush,
Balkars,
Karachays, and
Meskhetian Turks by
Soviet Union to
Central Asia and
Siberia. • 1943 to 1944: The ethnic cleansing and
Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia by the nationalist
UPA with the bulk of victims reported in summer and autumn 1944. • 1943 to 1960: The
Istrian–Dalmatian exodus involved the
diaspora of 350,000, mostly ethnic
Italians (
Istrian Italians and
Dalmatian Italians) together with
anti-communist Slovene and
Croat people, from
Istria,
Fiume and
Dalmatian lands (mainly from the city of
Zara), after the collapse of Italian
fascist regime. • 1944: The displacement of the majority ethnic
Estonian population from the Estonian city of
Narva by
Soviet occupation authorities. • 1944: The second
Evacuation of Finnish Karelia. Some 280,000
Finns had returned to areas ceded in 1940 to the
Soviet Union and subsequently re-conquered by Finland in 1941. During summer and autumn 1944, Finland re-ceded these areas back to the Soviet Union, and re-evacuated the Finnish population. • 1944: The evacuation of almost total civilian population of
Finnish Lapland, as a joint Finnish-German effort, before Finnish and German troops commenced hostilities. The evacuees, numbering 168,000 were able to return home within a year. • 1944 to 1945: The ethnic cleansing of
Hungarians, or the
massacres in Bačka by
Titoist partisans during the winter of 1944–45; about 40,000 were massacred. Afterwards, between 45 and 48, internment camps were set which led directly to the death of 70,000 more, of famine, frost, plagues, tortures and executions. • 1944 to 1945: Between 16,000 and 20,000
Cham Albanians fled from
Thesprotia Prefecture to Albania. Between 200 and 300 were killed.
Defeat of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan • 1944 to 1947 & 1951 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 Vistula. • 1944 to 1947 & 1951: 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. • 1944 to 1948:
Flight and expulsion of Germans after World War II. Between 13.5 and 16.5 million German-speakers fled, were
evacuated or later expelled from Central and Eastern Europe, making this event the largest single instance of ethnic cleansing in
recorded history. estimates of the number of those who died during the process are being debated by historians and they range from 500,000 to 3,000,000. • November and December 1944: more than 200,000
Danube Swabians in
Yugoslavia were expelled from their homes and interned in starvation and
Nazi concentration camps for the old, young and disabled. Some 30,000 workers were expelled to Russia as slave laborers for war reparations. • Tens of thousands of the refugees were repatriated to Yugoslavia and massacred in the
Yugoslav death march of Nazi collaborators. •
Repatriation of Cossacks after World War II • In 1945, American and
Republican Chinese forces returned Japanese colonizers from
northeast China in what was termed the
Japanese repatriation from Huludao. In those areas liberated by the Soviets and not the Americans, these Japanese became
Japanese prisoners of war in the Soviet Union. • After Japan surrendered, the Soviet Union occupied northern
Korea and southern
Sakhalin. These had been Japanese territories before the war and had millions of Japanese residents, who were now to be expelled. Roughly two-thirds of the
Korean residents of Sakhalin were also expelled to Japan, but the others remained stranded in Sakhalin. •
Taiwan was ceded to Japan in 1895 as a consequence of the
First Sino-Japanese War and by the beginning of World War II many Japanese civilians had settled there. Between the Japanese surrender of Taiwan in 1945 and 25 April 1946, the occupying
Republic of China forces expelled 90% of the Japanese living in Taiwan. • More than 30,000
Serb colonists were expelled from Bulgarian-occupied
Macedonia and south-eastern
Serbia •
Aliyah Bet was the code-name for illegal immigration of the
Jews of Europe to
Mandatory Palestine after the passing of the
1939 White Paper, while the
Holocaust was occurring, and the existence of numerous
displaced people of Jewish ethnicity, was a factor in the effective eventual establishment of the
State of Israel, starting from the passing of
United Nations General Assembly resolution 181 (II) . Those migrants were helped by an underground group called
Bricha. After Israel was born, European Jewish migration to Israel continued, contributing to Israel's population growth. The 1946
Kielce pogrom and other anti-Semitic incidents provided further push factors for
Aliyah. ==Establishment of refugee organisations==