I was doing research on french cities specifically, but if you can share anything at all about what it might have been like right after the war that would be great.
Hi!
I also research French cities during WWII (specifically Montélimar) and I can speak to the issue of civilian displacement at a moderate level of depth, at least in France. The process of taking civilians to and fro was a complicated process that varied by nation and by groups of people. For an excellent example, look at the issues that plagued the expulsion of ethnic Germans throughout Europe as a result of the revenge that other countries took against them in R.M. Douglas Orderly and Humane: The Expulsion of Germans after the Second World War. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014. If I were to speak to the expulsion of Germans after the war, I would essentially be copying and pasting from this seminal work. I’d recommend you check it. Also see William Hitchock’s The Bitter Road to Freedom which looks at several countries in the aftermath of liberation. See also Istvan Deak, Europe on Trial: The Story of Collaboration, Resistance, and Retribution during World War II. For the horrible, terrible experiences of civilians in the western Soviet Union look no further than Timothy Snyder’s Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin and their displacement (and often, murder).
There were different strategies for different parts of France in terms of dealing with civilian displacement. Some of it was deliberate. Citizens in Alsace-Lorraine were forced to evacuate in 1939 as war broke out because of the long and storied history of the territory between France and Germany (ceded to Germany after the Franco-Prussian War, ceded back to France after WW1). French strategists and planners anticipated a lot of fighting would occur along that sector and did not want civilians clogging the roads while French soldiers marched towards the front (it’s also where the Maginot Line was located). This would also prevent civilian occupation if the Germans were to somehow breach the Maginot Line. The French service secours nationale was responsible for looking after people who were displaced. French authorities designated two categories of displaced persons. Evacues indicated someone who was moved from their home based on planning of their national government. Refugies referred to people displaced as the result of a confluence of events that required their departure, and was unplanned. Depending on the size of the city, they had a quota for how many people would be received in their municipality. Montélimar for instance had a population in 1936 of 15,190. Initially Montélimar was not to receive any refugees because only some tens of thousands of people would be evacuated from the Alsace-Lorraine region.
Montélimar received 200 Spanish refugees from Spain as a result of the Republican defeat in the Spanish Civil War. We like to think about European refugees from Central and Eastern Europe, but we commonly forget the Spanish Civil War from 1936-1939 killed 600,000 Spaniards and displaced hundreds of thousands more, most of whom fled into southwestern France. This burden of caring for the fleeing Spanish compounded and broke the French refugee displacement system after the Battle of France. Montélimar now contended with 800 refugees in the city after the Battle of France, when some 2 million Frenchmen, women, and children were forced to take up residence in other parts of the country.
At the end of the war, people had to return to where they came from. In France, this involved the establishment of the Delegue refugies de la ville in many places. So for instance, the Delegue refugies de la ville de Montélimar was responsible for reuniting children with their families. Frequently, whether through military requisitions, destruction of homes and property, or loss of parents meant that children often stayed with the owners of businesses or with family elsewhere in the country. Fortunately for many of the displaced, their new homes were regionally located. For instance, Montélimar (located in the Drôme) received the most refugees from the French Riviera (Marseille, Toulon, etc).
The French purges (epuration) added to this mass of movement of people. Megan Koreman’s excellent work Expectations of Justice shows how during the purges operated at two levels, the local and national. Local purges tended to reflect a commune’s experiences during the war, while at the national level there was a systematized approach that did its best to reflect de Gaulle’s mythical construction of “all of France resisted” during the occupation. This often left the leaders of local purges frustrated at what they perceived as lenient punishments given to collaborators. In order to avoid violence against collaborators who had been found guilty, many of them were expelled from their department of origin. This meant that an additional tens of thousands of people were forced to move to different departments after liberation and into 1945 and 1946.
As you can tell, the national system in France for facilitating the movement and placement of refugees was adequate at best in 1939 but soon broke down to nonexistence. Therefore, the movement of refugees fell down to the departmental and local levels. Prefects issued dictates and marshaled resources to make this happen. Departments often communicated with one other not to arrange the transferring of civilians back to their original locales, but to locate them. France’s damaged transportation system (through resistance attacks, allied bombings, and battle) slowed the process even further. This was true of other European countries (Germany, Poland, the Soviet Union). The United States and other Allied nations occupied Germany and they too had to deal with the influx and flow of Germans to and fro throughout the continent and within Germany. The U.S. Army Green Book series has a couple good books on it, but I’d recommend looking at some more specialized military studies to dig deeper into that (like Civil Affairs and Military Governments ).
Someone with specific knowledge of other European countries can give their answer, and you may have found some of this information redundant based on your research you’ve done on France. I hope this has at least pointed you in the right direction for further research. Cheers!
Bibliography:
Alary, Eric. L’Exode: Un drame oublie. Paris: Perrin, 2013.
Alary, Eric, Benedicte Vergez-Chaignon, Gilles Gauvin. Les Francais au Quotidien 1939-1949. Paris: Perrin, 2006.
Deak, Istvan. Europe on Trial: The Story of Collaboration, Resistance, and Retribution during World War II. Philadelphia: Westview Press, 2015.
Douglas, R.M. Orderly and Humane: The Expulsion of Germans after the Second World War. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014.
Hitchcock: The Bitter Road to Freedom: A New History of the Liberation of Europe. New York: The Free Press, 2008.
Kiesling, Eugenia C. Arming against Hitler: The Limits of Military Planning. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1996.
Koreman, Megan. Expectations of Justice: France 1944-1946. Durham: Duke University Press, 1999.
Nord, Philip. France 1940: Defending the Republic. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015.
Risser, Nicole Dombrowski. France under Fire: German Invasion, Civilian Flight and Family Survival during World War II. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
Snyder, Timothy. Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin. New York: Basic Books, 2010.
Torrie, Julia S. “For Their own Good”: Civilian Evacuations in Germany and France, 1939-1945. New York: Bergahn Books, 2010.
Also research conducted in Archive Municipal de Montélimar and Archives Departmentale de la Drôme.
The FAQ has What was the rebuilding process like for the average citizen after the devastation of WWII? by a now-anonymous redditor.
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