Deportation in East Central Europe in the 20th Century

Recycling of Historical Traumas

Deportation is a broad concept that is encountered under a variety of scenarios, usually as a consequence, involving the application of geo-political hard power. It has different dimensions and refers to the forced removal of people from their homes – an involuntary displacement based on political, social or ethnic factors. This phenomenon can be encountered throughout the history of, but not limited to, the confluence of European & Eurasian ‘world island’.

Today’s turbulences have evolved from yesterday’s turmoil, and have shaped the image of Europe within the 20^th century. In this time-lapse, deportation was a pervasive phenomenon with socio-economic, demographic, and political implications that have structurally affected the shape and composition of the societies. Whether considering political repression, ideological clashes, social upheavals, territorial claims, ethnic cleansing, or conflicts within society and between societies, all facets pertaining to 20^th century East Central European history can identify deportation as a common destabilising factor that depicts and defines the complexity of the societies involved. Based on theoretical landscapes and analytical frameworks, the goal of this volume is to bridge the scholarships on what constituted deportation enforcement. Building on recent scholarly literature in this area, the volume seeks to explore the deportation consequences for both individuals and societies, revealing a previously unrecorded seam of comprehension to further examine the motivations and circumstances leading to mass deportations.

As an act of political repression, deportation represents the forced transfer of individuals, or a particular population segment, to satisfy a regime’s specific policy objective. One of the earliest recorded instances of deportation dates back to ancient times when the Assyrian Empire forcibly relocated conquered populations to prevent uprisings. In ancient Rome, deportation was used as a form of punishment for political dissidents, whilst in mediaeval, mainly Christian Europe, Jews were often expelled from countries due to religious persecution. During colonial times, European powers deported indigenous people from their homelands to make way for European settlers, using the deportees as slave labour in their colonies.

In the 20^th century, Mass Deportation, as a form of government oppression, was a ruthlessly used tool unleashed by totalitarian regimes, predominantly the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. Following periods of intense internecine conflict as a prelude to the two world wars, the Balkan region was divided by Axis powers, where forced deportations became the repressive policy of choice for the occupiers.

The region of Macedonia, intertwined with the broader historical context of the Balkans, experienced acute episodes of forced migration and deportations. As an ally of Nazi Germany, Hungary was involved in the deportation and extermination of Hungarian Jews, resulting in many thousands being deported to concentration camps. Adopting a communist ideology after the First World War, the regime led by Mátyás Rákosi, began a series of repressions against those labelled ‘enemies of the state’; moreover, the repression perpetrated by invading Soviet forces in the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, led to extensive deportations and imprisonments into the GULAG network of forced labour camps.

Based on the Treaty of Sèvres (1920) and the Treaty of Lausanne (1923), Greece and Turkey agreed to repopulate their sovereign territory with each other’s minorities; Greeks living in Turkey and Turks living in Greece were forcibly relocated to achieve the political objective. Under occupation and in collaboration with Axis allies, Greek authorities participated in the deportation of Greek Jews aligning with the Nazi’s goal of a ‘Final Solution’. Following The Greek Civil War (1943–1949), the Greek government relocated communist sympathisers to internment camps, including (and justifying) the exile or incarceration of Ethnic Macedonians, leading to Greece undergoing significant political changes and governmental upheavals.

During the Second World War, the Bulgarian authorities allied with Nazi Germany, participated in the deportation of Jews in 1943; commencing deportations from Bulgaria and the occupied territories of Thrace and Macedonia. In the 1980s, the communist regime in Bulgaria began a policy of forced assimilation, overseeing the deportation of ethnic minorities such as Pomaks and Turks. Albania also experienced periods of political repression throughout the 20^th century; being occupied during the Second World War by Italian Axis forces, the governing command focused mainly on deporting the country’s Jewish population, with the operation significantly ramped up when the Nazis established full control. Enver Hoxha and the Party of Labour became Albania’s post-war leader and, inspired by Stalin’s methods of exercising power, continued with his particular brand by carrying out religious, cultural and ethnic persecution of various ethnic groups, including Roma and Greeks.

Based on the Trianon Treaty (1920), Romania’s post-First World War borders were redrawn; thus, ethnic Romanians living in new countries formed from old empires, were either deported or exchanged for ethnic minorities living in Romania. Initially an ally of Nazi Germany, Romania deported thousands of Jews under Antonescu’s regime, where whole communities of Jews and Roma people were deported to Transnistria. The subsequent communist regime continued repressing ‘troublesome’ communities – ethnic Germans, who for centuries had lived upon the territory, were subjected to mass deportations, repressions, and confiscation of property. On 18^th June 1951, intellectuals, ‘kulaks’ (wealthier peasants), and the families of those accused of opposing the regime (particularly civilians from Banat region, close to the Yugoslav border) were deported in a wave of mass repression to the Bărăgan Plain. Romanian history is another East Central European history, marked by a complex interplay of political and social forces, and the legacy of these events has continued to shape the country’s historical memory and national identity.

In Soviet Ukraine, sandwiched between regional hegemons, borderland populations found themselves new citizens under various political regimes, leading to brutal episodes of deportation and repression. Due to the forced collectivization and the seizure of grain by Soviet authorities, millions of people perished during the enforced starvation or ‘Holodomor.’ The double occupation of Eastern European borderlands following the making and breaking of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact led to the mass deportation of non-combatant Poles, Ukrainians and Balts, massacring of the officer class and elites in advance of the mass imprisonment and murder of the territories’ Jewish population.

The extensive Soviet pogroms carried out during the Russian Civil War, the Bolshevik government, the 1930s purges, and the Second World War witnessed the collective deportation of both Russian & non-Russian minorities labelled enemies of the state. Under Joseph Stalin’s rule, the most notorious examples include the deportation of Crimean Tatars, Chechens, Ingush, Karachays and Balkars. On the grounds of being friends with the Nazis, Meskhetian Turks were deported too. Throughout the Soviet era, deportations were part of broader efforts to suppress dissent and maintain ideological control.

Whilst incidents of oppression against Jews have been recorded significantly earlier than this volume’s timeframe, the Holocaust elevated antisemitism to the most extreme level ever seen. It remains a symbol of the darkest events of human history, Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass), an act of extreme violence against the Jewish people, signified just the beginning of this terror. The invasion of Poland and Operation Reinhard involved the construction of extermination camps (Beezec, Treblinka), which were responsible for the deaths of Jews on an industrialised scale. After suffering appalling living conditions during the ‘ghettoisation’ process within Eastern Europe, most of those declared ‘Juden’ were deported to death camps where the Nazi German regime organised and oversaw the mass murder of 6 million Jews and other minority groups; megalomaniacal acts carried out in pursuance of ideologies for the reconstruction of a new world order.