List of World War II evacuations
Encyclopedia
Several instances of evacuations (including both emergency evacuation
s and forced migration
s) occurred during and after World War II
.
Emergency evacuation
Emergency evacuation is the immediate and rapid movement of people away from the threat or actual occurrence of a hazard. Examples range from the small scale evacuation of a building due to a bomb threat or fire to the large scale evacuation of a district because of a flood, bombardment or...
s and forced migration
Forced migration
Forced migration refers to the coerced movement of a person or persons away from their home or home region...
s) occurred during and after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
Forced Migrations
- World War II evacuation and expulsionWorld War II evacuation and expulsionForced deportation, mass evacuation and displacement of peoples took place in many of the countries involved in World War II. These were caused both by the direct hostilities between Axis and Allied powers, and the border changes enacted in the pre-war settlement...
, an overview of the major forced migrations- Forced migration of UkrainiansUkrainiansUkrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine, which is the sixth-largest nation in Europe. The Constitution of Ukraine applies the term 'Ukrainians' to all its citizens...
, Belorussians, and RussiansRussiansThe Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....
to Germany as forced labour - Forced migration of JewsJewsThe Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
to Nazi concentration camps in German occupied Poland - Expulsion of Germans after World War IIExpulsion of Germans after World War IIThe later stages of World War II, and the period after the end of that war, saw the forced migration of millions of German nationals and ethnic Germans from various European states and territories, mostly into the areas which would become post-war Germany and post-war Austria...
from areas occupied by the Soviet Army - Evacuation of East PrussiaEvacuation of East PrussiaThe evacuation of East Prussia refers to the evacuation of the German civilian population and military personnel in East Prussia and the Klaipėda region between 20 January, and March 1945, as part of the evacuation of German civilians towards the end of World War II...
, part of the expulsion of Germans after World War II - Japanese American internmentJapanese American internmentJapanese-American internment was the relocation and internment by the United States government in 1942 of approximately 110,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese who lived along the Pacific coast of the United States to camps called "War Relocation Camps," in the wake of Imperial Japan's attack on...
- Forced migration of Ukrainians
Civilian emergency evacuations
- Evacuations of civilians in Britain during World War IIEvacuations of civilians in Britain during World War IIEvacuation of civilians in Britain during the Second World War was designed to save the population of urban or military areas in the United Kingdom from aerial bombing of cities and military targets such as docks. Civilians, particularly children, were moved to areas thought to be less at risk....
, the emergency evacuation of children from British urban areas during the Battle of Britain - Evacuation of population in the Western USSR in the wake of Operation BarbarossaOperation BarbarossaOperation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...
- Evacuation of Finnish KareliaEvacuation of Finnish KareliaAs a result of the 1940 Moscow Peace Treaty that concluded the Winter War, Finland ceded the area of Finnish Karelia and other territories to the Soviet Union...
- Finnish war childrenFinnish war childrenDuring World War II some 70,000 Finnish children were evacuated from Finland, chiefly to Sweden and Denmark, but also to Norway. Most were evacuated during the Continuation War to ease the situation for their parents who set out to rebuild their homes in the re-conquered Karelia returning from...
- Evacuations of civilians in Japan during World War IIEvacuations of civilians in Japan during World War IIAbout 8.5 million Japanese civilians were displaced from their homes between 1943 and 1945 as a result of Air raids on Japan by the U.S. Air Force . These evacuations started in December 1943 as a voluntary government program to prepare the country's main cities for bombing raids by evacuating...
Military evacuations
- Operation DynamoOperation DynamoThe Dunkirk evacuation, commonly known as the Miracle of Dunkirk, code-named Operation Dynamo by the British, was the evacuation of Allied soldiers from the beaches and harbour of Dunkirk, France, between 26 May and the early hours of 3 June 1940, because the British, French and Belgian troops were...
, British evacuation of Dunkirk, France, 1940 - Operation AlphabetOperation AlphabetOperation Alphabet was an evacuation, authorized on May 24, 1940, of Allied troops from the harbour of Narvik in northern Norway marking the success of Nazi Germany's Operation Weserübung of April 9 and the end of the Allied campaign in Norway during World War II...
, British evacuation of Norway, 1940 - Evacuation for Odessa during the Siege of Odessa
- Evacuation from Crimea during the Crimea Campaign
- Evacuations during the Siege of LeningradSiege of LeningradThe Siege of Leningrad, also known as the Leningrad Blockade was a prolonged military operation resulting from the failure of the German Army Group North to capture Leningrad, now known as Saint Petersburg, in the Eastern Front theatre of World War II. It started on 8 September 1941, when the last...
- Operation HannibalOperation HannibalOperation Hannibal was a German military operation involving the evacuation by sea of German troops and civilians from Courland, East Prussia, and the Polish Corridor from mid-January to May, 1945 as the Red Army advanced during the East Prussian and East Pomeranian Offensives and subsidiary...
, German evacuation of East Prussia in advance of the Soviet Army, 1945 - Evacuation of Tallinn
Industrial evacuations
- Evacuation of industries from western USSR to the Urals
- Evacuation of industries from western USSR to Central AsiaCentral AsiaCentral Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...
- Evacuation of industries from western USSR to KazakhstanKazakhstanKazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...
- Evacuation of industries from western USSR to the CaucasusCaucasusThe Caucasus, also Caucas or Caucasia , is a geopolitical region at the border of Europe and Asia, and situated between the Black and the Caspian sea...