Refugees of the Greek Civil War
During and after the Greek Civil War of 1946–1949, members and or supporters of the defeated Communist forces fled Greece as political refugees.
[1][2] The war wrought widespread devastation right across Greece and particularly in the regions of Macedonia and Epirus, causing many people to continue to leave the country even after it had ended.
After the invading Axis powers were defeated, fighting promptly broke out between the Democratic Army of Greece (DSE) and the Greek Government which had returned from exile.
After 1948 the Yugoslavian Government decided to close the Yugoslav-Greek border, this in turn led many pro-Tito forces in the National Liberation Front to flee to Yugoslavia.
One case is the village of Pimenikon (Babčor) in the Kastoria region which was allegedly eliminated by Greek bombers in 1948, displacing hundreds of people.
[9] By this time DSE effectively controlled parts of Northern Greece, along with areas of Macedonia where Macedonians represented a clear majority,[10] along with a large tract of Epirus.
[13] The KKE claims that the total number of political refugees was 55,881,[14] an estimated 28,000–32,000 children were evacuated during the Greek Civil War.
On March 4, 1948, the communist "Radio Free Greece" announced that all children under the age of 15 would be evacuated from areas under control of the Provisional Government.
A United Nations Special Committee on the Balkans (UNSCOB) report confirms that villages with an ethnic (Slavic speaking) Macedonian population were far more willing to let their children be evacuated.
[7] The ethnic Macedonians fought alongside the DSE under their own military wing, the National Liberation Front (Macedonia) (NOF).
After the Provisional Government in 1948 announced that all children were to leave the DSE controlled areas of Greece many Slav-Macedonians left the war zone.
The majority of the remaining partisans in the Democratic Army of Greece had been evacuated to Tashkent in the Soviet Union, while others were sent to Poland, Hungary and Romania.
Over 2,000 homes were prepared for the children in the Socialist Republic of Macedonia and many were placed into foster care rather than into orphanages and evacuation camps.
Soon the flow of people reversed and many ethnic Macedonians from Yugoslavia entered Greece with the hope of aiding the National Liberation Front.
Upon crossing the Yugoslav border many children were sent to villages such as Ljubojno and Brajčino before being relocated to larger urban centers such as Skopje and Bitola.
[citation needed] Another large group was to settle in Bitola and the surrounding areas, while refugee camps were established in Kumanovo and Strumica.
It was here that the Greek newspaper Foni tou Boulkes, was published alongside children's books and the paper of the Communist party of Greece.
Other camps were established in Bela Crkva, Plandište, Vršac, Ečka and Šid while the villages of Gakovo and Kruševlje were repopulated by refugees.
After the collapse of the Democratic Army of Greece thousands of partisans were evacuated to Tashkent and Alma Ata in Central Asia.
In the early 1990s a branch of the Association of Refugee Children from the Aegean part of Macedonia was founded in the Czech Republic and in Slovakia.
The "Slavic Committee" in Sofia (Bulgarian: Славянски Комитет) helped to attract refugees that had settled in other parts of the Eastern Bloc.
The removal of a large proportion of the population from Greek Macedonia dramatically changed the social and political landscape of the region.
However, the ministerial decree stated that those free to return were "all Greeks by genus who during the Civil War of 1946–1949 and because of it have fled abroad as political refugees".
This excluded many people who were not "Greeks by genus" such as the Bulgarians and ethnic Macedonians who had fled Greece following the Civil War.
This was most markedly felt in the Florina, Kastoria, Kozani and Edessa areas where the Communist party was popular and where the largest concentrations of Slav Macedonians could be found.
Many participants from Romania, Canada, Poland, the Czech Republic, Australia, the United States and Vojvodina attended the event.
[citation needed] The First International Reunion of Child Refugees of Aegean Macedonia took place in Skopje between 30 June and 3 July.
[50] The second world reunion was planned with the help of the Rainbow Party[25] which has been involved in coordinating the event and reuniting many people with relatives which are still living in Greece.
Although 30 people were barred entry from Greece despite having Canadian citizenship, allegedly due to their ethnic Macedonian identity and involvement in diaspora organizations.
Chapters of ARCAM were soon established in Toronto, Adelaide, Perth, Melbourne, Skopje, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
