World War II-era population transfers

Central Europe
After the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact divided Poland during World War II, Germans deported Poles and Jews from Polish territories annexed by Nazi Germany, while the Soviet Union deported Germans and Poles from areas of Eastern Poland, Kresy. Poles from General Government were expelled to concentration camps and to Germany for forced labour. Later on Jews and Gypsies were transferred by Nazis to ghettoes and eventually to death camps where they were murdered.

After World War II, when the Curzon line was implemented, members of all ethnic groups were transferred to their respective new territories (Poles to Poland, Ukrainians to Ukraine). The same applied to the Oder-Neisse line, where German citizens were transferred to Germany (see Expulsion of Germans after World War II). Germans were expelled from areas annexed by the Soviet Union as well as the territories of Czechoslovakia and Hungary. At the same time, hundreds of thousands Poles who fought against Nazi Germany in Western Europe were considered enemies of the state and could not safely return to now Soviet-controlled Poland.

Ukrainians and Lemkos from south-eastern Poland were resettled to other areas of the country in 1947 (see Operation Wisła).

Soviet Union

 * Main article: Population transfer in the Soviet Union.

Shortly before, during and immediately after World War II, Stalin conducted a series of deportations on a huge scale which profoundly affected the ethnic map of the Soviet Union. Over 1.5 million people were deported to Siberia and the Central Asian republics. Separatism, resistance to Soviet rule and collaboration with the invading Germans were cited as the main official reasons for the deportations, although an ambition to ethnically cleanse the regions may have also been a factor. After the war, the population of East Prussia was replaced by the Soviet one, mainly by Russians.

Southeastern Europe
In September 1940 with the return of Southern Dobruja (the Cadrilater) by Romania to Bulgaria under the Treaty of Craiova, 80,000 Romanians were compelled to move north of the border, while 65,000 Bulgarians living in Northern Dobruja moved into Bulgaria.

Other sources

 * De Zayas, Alfred-Maurice. International Law and Mass Population Transfers, Harvard International Law Journal 207 (1975).

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