By Vladimir Dubinsky. 45 Photos. By the time it concluded on the deck of an Between 1939 and 1941 objects of fine and decorative art deemed to be of exceptional artistic or historical value, which became known collectively as Polish National Treasures ( Polish: skarby narodowe, French: trésors polonais ), were evacuated out of Poland at the onset of World War II in September 1939 and transported via Romania, France Apr 14, 2010 · Wilhelm II (1859-1941) was the last German kaiser (emperor) and king of Prussia from 1888 to 1918, and one of the most recognizable public figures of World War I (1914-18). Germany's strategy was to defeat its opponents in a series of short campaigns. . Genocide of European Roma (Gypsies), 1939–1945. Germany 's invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 brought many countries into the war. 0. September 3, 1939 Honoring their guarantee of Poland’s borders, Great Britain and France declare war on Germany. The first attack of the war took place Apr 4, 2024 · NATO is marking 75 years since its founding after the end of World War II The alliance has grown from just a dozen members in 1949 to the current 32 — including Sweden, my country, Poland Aug 11, 2020 · World War II ended six years and one day after Germany’s invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, sparked the 20th century’s second global conflict. An interview with Anne Applebaum about her new book, The Crushing of Eastern Europe. This attempt led to some minor successes, such as the French-Czechoslovak treaty of 2 October 1939, which allowed for the reconstitution of the The entirety of Germany was occupied and administered by the Allies of World War II from the Berlin Declaration on 5 June 1945 to the establishment of West Germany on 23 May 1949. Unemployment, which had reached 25 percent during the Great Depression and hovered at 14. More information about this image. For events preceding September 1, 1939, see the timeline of events preceding World War II . At the 1945 Yalta Conference, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin pledged to hold free and fair democratic elections in eastern European countries that the Red Army had liberated. The name Prussia is. The heaviest proportionate human losses occurred in eastern Europe where Poland lost perhaps 20 percent of its prewar population, Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union around 10 percent. German military strategy involved invading the neutral Low Countries (Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg) in order to invade France. The war in the Pacific began on December 7/8 Jan 27, 2020 · The Auschwitz II gate, as seen in 1959 Bundesarchiv, Bild / Wilson / CC BY-SA 3. The brutality of the Soviet occupation of eastern Poland, including massacres and Feb 8, 2021 · The case has its roots in the Nazi occupation of Poland during World War II, when terrified Jews took shelter in the forest and, according to a survivor cited in a recent Polish study of the Key Facts. 5 million Jews lived in Europe, comprising 1. 0) The genocide that overtook Europe's Jews transformed Jewish identity throughout the world. e. In Focus. Much of the heavy fighting on the war's Eastern Front took place on the territory of the former Polish state. Japan occupied Korea and invaded Manchuria, exploiting China's civil war. 52 Pickup after IEG-Maps/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA At the Potsdam Oct 29, 2009 · World War I began in 1914, after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and lasted until 1918. Roosevelt addressed the American people on the radio. Oct 22, 2012 · How Communism Took Over Eastern Europe After World War II. The war between the U. The last operational Polish unit surrendered on October 6. This event, and the declaration of war by About 1. May 18, 2020 · Another myth is that the Soviet Union’s role in the Second World War began on 22 June 1941, when the Wehrmacht attacked the USSR. Hungary - War, Defeat, Renewal: When Germany attacked Poland (September 1, 1939), Hungary refused to allow German troops to cross Hungarian territory but permitted remnants of the Polish army, fleeing civilians, and Polish Jews to enter the country. Last Edited November 30, 2023. Over the next six years, the conflict took Nov 16, 2009 · On September 1, 1939, German forces under the control of Adolf Hitler bombard Poland on land and from the air. For example, approximately 200,000 Polish Jews fled the German occupation of Poland. Soviet-built World War II: In Depth. 6 Oct 26, 2020 · The most famous of the war crimes trials held after the war is the trial of 22 leading German officials before the IMT in Nuremberg. Tussle Over Germany. As German troops invaded and occupied more and more territory in Europe, the Soviet Union, and North Africa, the regime’s racial and antisemitic policies became more radical, moving from persecution to genocide. Hitler was determined to overturn the military and territorial provisions of the Versailles treaty. That same day, the British parliament passed a law introducing general conscription. Jan 5, 2020 · In a series of comments in late December, the Russian president appeared to blame Poland for the outbreak of the Second World War. The scale and speed of the conflict had been unprecedented: the war ended up killing at least 19 million non-combatant civilians in Europe. And in the decades since 1945, the Jewish population in Europe has continued to decline. Following World War I, the Treaty of Versailles (1918) declared Danzig to be a free city administered by Poland and the League of Nations. . World War II was a conflict that involved virtually every part of the world during 1939–45. May 6, 2024 · Treaty of Versailles, peace document signed at the end of World War I by the Allied and associated powers and by Germany in the Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles, France, on June 28, 1919; it took force on January 10, 1920. The term was first used by the English writer George Orwell in an article published Sep 27, 2012 · In Poland, Steinbach was accused of labeling Germans as the victims in the aftermath of World War II, without adequately emphasizing that the fate of the ethnic Germans living in eastern Europe They drew from hundreds and, in some areas, a thousand or more years of Jewish life on the continent. Germany resented the loss of this largely German city. Roosevelt of the United States, Prime Minister Winston Churchill of the United Kingdom, and Premier Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union—met to plan the final defeat and occupation of Nazi Germany. After World War II the city became again part of Poland and the city's German inhabitants, that had constituted the majority of the city's mixed population before the war, either fled or were expelled to Germany in accordance with the Potsdam Agreement. In total, over 116,000 refugees were relocated to Iran. Why did Germany invade Poland? Germany invaded Poland to World War II - Costs, Impact, Legacy: Estimates of total dead in World War II vary anywhere from 35,000,000 to 60,000,000. The immediate precipitating event was the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany on September 1, 1939, and the subsequent declarations of war on Germany made by Britain and France, but many other prior events have been suggested as ultimate causes. R. Sep 1, 2014 · On September 1, 1939, the German army under Adolf Hitler launched an invasion of Poland that triggered the start of World War II (though by 1939 Japan and China were already at war ). After the defeat of the Axis Powers, the Allies occupied Austria in four occupation zones set up at the end of World War II until 1955, when the country again became a fully independent republic under the condition that it remained neutral. During the course of the war, French military losses In addition to former German citizens, their descendants and family members (usually from the marriage of an autochthon and non- autochthon) and other Polish citizens also emigrated to Germany after World War II in numbers difficult to estimate. Great Britain and France responded by declaring war on Germany on September 3. Four empires collapsed due to the war, old countries were abolished, new ones were formed, boundaries were redrawn, international organizations were The Eastern bloc originated at the end of World War II. In the first months of World War II, none of the belligerents wanted the war to extend to southeastern Europe, so Teleki and Horthy were able to After World War II broke out, a Czechoslovak national committee was constituted in France, and under Beneš's presidency sought international recognition as the exiled government of Czechoslovakia. 0 Smoleń returned to Auschwitz after the war, drawn back to the camp by his desire to tell the world about the Feb 9, 2015 · Since then, the global Jewish population – estimated by Pew Research at 14 million as of 2010 – has risen, but it is still smaller than it was before the Holocaust. The IMT reached its verdict on October 1, 1946, convicting 19 of the defendants and acquitting 3. The Fighting Republic of Poland 1939-1945. Chamberlain spoke to the British people in a radio address: Oct 29, 2009 · On June 22, 1941, more than 3 million German and Axis troops invaded the Soviet Union along an 1,800-mile-long front, launching Operation Barbarossa. 7% of the total European population. One week later, Germany invaded Poland and World War II began. Top image: View of the conference table at Cecilienhof Palace, scene of the Potsdam Conference in Potsdam, Germany. October 22, 2012. The shooting started in the early morning, 4:45 AM, September 1, 1939, when the obsolete German battleship Schleswig-Holstein opened fire from its berth in the Free City of Danzig. On 17 September 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east, 16 days after Nazi Germany invaded Poland from the west. This trial began on November 20, 1945. The mass murder of Europe’s Jews took place in the context of World War II. Unlike occupied Japan, Germany was stripped of its sovereignty and former state: after Nazi Germany surrendered on 8 May 1945, four countries representing the Allies Oct 14, 2009 · Euthanasia Program. 1. Subsequent military operations lasted for the following 20 days and ended on 6 October 1939 with the two-way Nov 9, 2009 · Their meeting lasted from July 17 to August 2, 1945, during what was a crucial moment in defining the post- World War II balance of power. Within five years, in an extraordinary burst of energy and imagination, statesmen endowed the world with almost all its existing network of global institutions: the United Nations (UN), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International The Potsdam Conference. The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, designed by architect Peter Eisenman and engineer Buro Happold, 2003–04, Berlin, Germany (photo: Wolfgang Staudt, CC BY 2. 4 days ago · Allied powers, coalition of countries that opposed the Axis powers (led by Germany, Italy, and Japan) during World War II. Truman is in left foreground. 5 million Jews lived in Poland, making up 10% of the population; in Warsaw the figure was estimated at about a third of the then 1 million population. November 2, 2020. By the end of the war in Europe in May 1945, France had 1,250,000 troops, 10 divisions of which were fighting in Germany. After the war, anti-Jewish riots broke out in several Polish cities. The aftermath of World War I saw far-reaching and wide-ranging cultural, economic, and social change across Europe, Asia, Africa, and even in areas outside those that were directly involved. An estimated 40,000,000 to 50,000,000 people died during World War II, including about 6,000,000 Jewish men, women, and children who died in the Holocaust. Poland was the first country in Europe to experience World War Two, which begun on 1 September 1939. The battle Aug 25, 2021 · 1. After invading Poland in September 1939 Joseph Stalin - WWII Leader, Soviet Union, Dictator: During World War II Stalin emerged, after an unpromising start, as the most successful of the supreme leaders thrown up by the belligerent nations. In May, the German armed forces attacked France, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Belgium. Sep 10, 2020 · Werner Kreusch/AP Photo. From bestselling author David Nasaw, a sweeping new history of the one million refugees left behind in Germany after WWII Bibliography. Its most immediate legacies were death, devastation, and misery. The presentation of the Polish language version took place on 28 August 2019. It was liberated in the summer of 1944 as Soviet forces advanced westward. Of those convicted, 12 were sentenced to death, among them Reich Marshall East Prussia, former German province bounded, between World Wars I and II, north by the Baltic Sea, east by Lithuania, and south and west by Poland and the free city of Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland). Poland was also the first country to engage in armed combat with the joined forces of Nazi Germany and the USSR in their attempt the change the world order. Nonetheless, by 1996 the country had become a member of the Council of Europe, established economic ties with the European Union (EU), and been admitted to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Print. “H. The Big three met at Potsdam, Germany, in the summer of 1945 to discuss the fate of the world after World War II. Propaganda signs, Danzig, February 1945: " Panic and rumours are the best allies of the Bolshevists! The flight and expulsion of Germans from Poland was the largest of a series of flights and expulsions of Germans in Europe during and after World War II. ” In Encyclopedia of Ukraine: Volume II: G-K, 108–293. An expeditionary corps was created to liberate French Indochina, then occupied by the Japanese. President Harry S. During World War II, the Nazis and their allies and collaborators perpetrated a genocide of European Roma. After World War II its territory was divided between the Soviet Union and Poland. Of those, 6 million were Jews, a full two-thirds of the pre-war Jewish Oct 30, 2011 · October 30, 2011. 3 million. World War II. Jews in Poland, Romania, Hungary t. These declarations turned the German invasion of Poland into a broader war—known as World War II. The refugees were weakened by two years of maltreatment and starvation, and many suffered from malaria Yalta Conference (February 4–11, 1945), major World War II conference in which the chief Allied leaders—President Franklin D. After the 1941 German attack on the Soviet Union, a Poland’s reentry into western Europe, from which it had been forcibly separated since the end of World War II, was a slow process. Rather than carrying out this promise, occupying Soviet forces supported takeovers by local communist parties and the Jul 24, 2013 · This is not the beginning to a futuristic thriller, but a history of Europe in the years directly following World War II, when many European cities were in ruins, millions of people were displaced Feb 12, 2021 · Majdanek and Auschwitz. One-fifth of the Polish population perished during World War II; the 3,000,000 Polish Jews murdered in the Holocaust, who constituted 90% of Polish Jewry, made up half of all Poles killed during the war. In reality, the Soviet Union was a leading participant from the very start, colluding for nearly two years with Nazi Germany. On September 17, 1939, the Soviet Union invaded eastern Poland, sealing Poland’s fate. He said, in part: The course that Japan has followed for the past ten years in Asia has paralleled the course of Hitler and Mussolini in Europe and in Africa. May 7, 2020 · After World War II, the cream-colored areas east of Germany were allocated mostly to Poland, with a little for the Soviet Union. The Cold War was waged on political, economic, and propaganda fronts and had only limited recourse to weapons. Coming just one year after the end of World War II, the massacre shocked people around the world. At the end of World War II, huge swaths of Europe and Asia had been reduced to ruins. The summit also gave an early hint of the tensions that Sep 15, 2020 · The Last Million: Europe's Displaced Persons from World War to Cold War. Nov 5, 2009 · On September 3, 1939, in response to Hitler’s invasion of Poland, Britain and France, both allies of the overrun nation declare war on Germany. As the ship’s big guns hammered Polish fortifications on the Westerplatte peninsula, undercover agents of the Jan 27, 2020 · Before World War II, 3. Refugee trek, in Danzig and the surrounding area, February 1945. Survival in German-Controlled Europe World War II, the largest and bloodiest conflict in human history, started with Japan's increasing militarism and nationalism in the early 1900s. The Soviet invasion of Poland was a military conflict by the Soviet Union without a formal declaration of war. This number represented more than 60 percent of the world's Jewish population at that time, estimated at 15. The German camps in occupied Poland during World War II were built by the Nazis between 1939 and 1945 throughout the territory of the Polish Republic, both in the areas annexed in 1939, and in the General Government formed by Nazi Germany in the central part of the country (see map). Jul 15, 2013 · Published Online July 15, 2013. and Germany began on June 22, 1941, with the German invasion of the Soviet Union, known as Operation Barbarossa. The financial cost to the United States Oct 29, 2009 · The Treaty of Versailles was signed in 1919 and set harsh terms for Germany’s surrender to Allied powers after World War I, setting the stage for World War II. German police soon forced tens of thousands of Polish Jews from their homes and into Aug 4, 2023 · On September 3, the British and French governments each declared war on Germany. Throughout the entire course of the occupation, the territory of Poland was divided between Nazi Germany and the 2 days ago · World War II had begun. This is a timeline of events of World War II in 1939 from the start of the war on 1 September 1939. Building on the economic base left after the war, American society became more affluent in the postwar years than most Americans could have imagined in their wildest dreams before or during the war. Aug 30, 2019 · Poland is still coming to terms with what happened to its Jewish community during World War II Mr Mularczyk said the commission should present its report following Poland's parliamentary elections Pope Pius XII succeeded Pius XI in March 1939, on the eve of World War II. Jewish history—the post-war period. It was the bloodiest conflict, as well as the largest war, in human Apr 27, 2022 · U. The rationale was that by doing away with the state that had been at the center of German militarism and reaction, it would be easier to preserve the peace and for Germany Recruitment in liberated France led to an expansion of the French armies. On July 23, 1945, less than three months after Germany’s May 15, 2024 · A German soldier lying dead outside a pillbox above Utah Beach, Les Dunes de Madeleine, France, June 6, 1944. In 1914 Russian forces advanced very close to Kraków before being beaten back. The swift and unexpected victory over France avenged Germany’s defeat and humiliation in the First World War. Language English. 2 million; by 1991, it fell to 2 million, according to By the morning of September 1, 1939, Hitler was already using the Gleiwitz incident to justify his invasion of Poland. Today, it has become far more than a parallel. Gauge the moods of the European people and statesmen as Woodrow Wilson arrived to forge an end to World War I. Millions of Germans were homeless from Allied bombing campaigns that razed entire cities. The situation in Germany after World War II was dire. The new Pope faced the aggressive foreign policy of Nazism, and perceived a threat to Europe and the Church from Soviet Communism, which preached atheism – "each system attacked religion, both denied freedom and the victory of either would be a defeat for the Church Danzig. And millions May 5, 2021 · Adolf Hitler’s invasion of Poland in September 1939 drove Great Britain and France to declare war on Germany, marking the beginning of World War II. It was Germany’s largest invasion force of 4 days ago · Cold War, the open yet restricted rivalry that developed after World War II between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies. In September 1939, Germany invaded the western half of Poland, starting World War II. The largest anti-Jewish pogrom took place in July 1946 in Kielce, a city in southeastern Poland. Meanwhile, Hitler's Germany and Mussolini's Italy grew more militaristic, leading to Germany's invasion of Poland, marking the May 14, 2020 · On the home front, the massive mobilization effort during World War II had put Americans back to work. These Jews survived the war under harsh conditions after Soviet authorities deported them further east into the interior of the Soviet Union. It was the start of the Second World War. t. Nazi Germany possessed overwhelming military superiority over Poland. In August 1939, after first attempting to form an anti-Hitler alliance with the Western powers, he concluded a pact with Hitler, which encouraged the German dictator to attack Poland and begin Jun 26, 2011 · In Focus. Oct 1, 2018 · The years of 1944–1963 in Poland. The Nazis Take Poland and the Start of World War II. Share. The main combatants were the Axis powers (Germany, Italy, and Japan) and the Allies (France, Great Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union, and China). July 18, 2022. Poland, Parade for Adolf Hitler, September 1939 Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-S55480 / CC-BY-SA 3. During the later stages of World War II and the post-war period, Germans and Volksdeutsche fled and were expelled from various Eastern and Central European countries, including Czechoslovakia, and from the former German provinces of Lower and Upper Silesia, East Prussia, and the eastern parts of Brandenburg and Pomerania (Hinterpommern), which were annexed by General Anders evacuated 74,000 Polish troops, including approximately 41,000 civilians, many of them children, to Iran. He gained a reputation Cite. 2 million Austrians served in all branches of the German armed forces during World War II. History of Europe - Postwar Recovery, Cold War, Integration: International planning for peace after World War II took place on a world scale. In 1960, it was about 3. The assault on Poland demonstrated Germany’s ability to combine air power and armor in a new kind of mobile warfare. Oct 29, 2009 · World War II was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. Sparked by the 1939 Nazi invasion of Poland, the war dragged on for six bloody years until the Allies Nov 2, 2020 · By Amy Davidson Sorkin. Jewish refugees, rescued from Auschwitz, arriving in Haifa in July, 1945. Following the German–Soviet non-aggression pact, Poland was invaded by Nazi Germany on 1 September 1939 and by the Soviet Union on 17 September. The attack at Westerplatte followed shortly after, sealing Poland’s fate. The first major Nazi camp to be liberated was Majdanek, located in Lublin, Poland. Public policy, like the so-called GI Bill of Rights passed in 1944, provided money for veterans to attend college, to purchase homes, and to buy farms. Rising to power in an unstable Germany, Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist (Nazi Party) rearmed the nation and signed treaties The occupation of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union during World War II (1939–1945) began with the Invasion of Poland in September 1939, and it was formally concluded with the defeat of Germany by the Allies in May 1945. The causes of World War II have been given considerable attention by historians. Occupation of the Kingdom of Poland in World War I. During post-1945 era, the city was rebuilt from war damage, and vast shipyards were constructed. World War II began in Europe on September 1, 1939, when Germany invaded Poland. The first casualty of that declaration was not Dec 21, 2023 · For brief account of Ukraine during the Second World War, navigate to the section on "History of Ukraine," beginning on page 189 and ending on page 190, from: Kubijovyč, Volodymyr, ed. In their struggle to regain independence, Poles The history of Poland from 1939 to 1945 encompasses primarily the period from the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union to the end of World War II. Borders were redrawn and homecomings, expulsions, and burials were Nov 15, 2021 · September 1, 1939 Germany invades Poland, initiating World War II in Europe. Germany quickly overran much of Europe and was victorious for The abolition of Prussia took place on 25 February 1947 through a decree of the Allied Control Council, the governing body of post-World War II occupied Germany and Austria. In 1939, at the start of World War II, Poland was partitioned between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union (see Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact). The Polish government-in-exile, officially known as the Government of the Republic of Poland in exile (Polish: Rząd Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej na uchodźstwie), was the government in exile of Poland formed in the aftermath of the Invasion of Poland of September 1939, and the subsequent occupation of Poland by Germany, the Soviet Union, and the Slovak Republic, which brought to an end the Apr 9, 2024 · Even after World War II began, some Jews managed to escape German-controlled Europe. World War II had begun. The Polish government flees into exile via Romania, first to France and then later to World War II was the biggest and deadliest war in history, involving more than 30 countries. When Allied troops entered Germany at the end of World War II, they were astounded to learn that more than 6 million people had been stranded in the fallen Reich after the Jan 8, 2018 · That wouldn’t be unusual, except this wasn’t the Middle Ages or even Nazi Germany—it was 1946, a year after the end of World War II. They shot tens of thousands of Romani people in occupied eastern Poland, the Soviet Union, and Serbia. In June, Paris fell and France surrendered. In August of 1939, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression treaty. The U. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, and Japan’s formal surrender on September 2 ended the war. 3. The next spring, heavy fighting occurred around Gorlice and Przemyśl, to the east of Kraków in Galicia. "Blitzkrieg," a German word meaning “Lightning War,” was Germany ’s strategy to avoid a long war in the first phase of World War II in Europe . The Nazis viewed Romani peoples as racially inferior and as social outsiders. In 1933, approximately 9. World War II, the deadliest and most destructive war in human history, claimed between 40 and 50 million lives, displaced tens of millions of people, and cost more than $1 trillion to prosecute. Aug 2, 2016 · After the German surrender in May 1945, World War II ended in Europe. 2. A few days earlier, an 8-year-old Polish boy named Henryk v. University of Toronto Press, 1988. During the 1980s, about 300,000 Poles left Poland (usually illegally) and settled in Western Germany. In the opening scene of the most famous Polish movie of the past Jul 4, 2011 · While the pogrom was not an isolated instance of anti-Jewish violence in postwar Poland, the Kielce massacre convinced many Polish Jews that they had no future in Poland after the Holocaust and spurred them to flee the country. The publication, addressed to young people and foreigners, provides the reader with the most important information on the fate of the Polish state during World War II in an accessible and concise manner. The evacuated prisoners were sent to concentration camps further west The Yalta Conference ( Russian: Ялтинская конференция, romanized : Yaltinskaya konferentsiya ), held 4–11 February 1945, was the World War II meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union to discuss the postwar reorganization of Germany and Europe. The principal members of the Allies were the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, the United States, and China (the “Big Four”), as well as France while it was unoccupied. When 150 Jews returned to the city, people living there feared that hundreds more would come back to reclaim their houses and belongings. The. September 17, 1939 The Soviet Union invades Poland from the east. S. World War I, setting the stage Aug 2, 2016 · On December 9, 1941—two days after the attack—US President Franklin D. Approximately 5,000–6,000 of the Polish refugees were Jewish. The Second World War was a defining event in Canadian history, transforming a quiet country on the fringes of global affairs into a critical player in the 20th century's most important struggle. and U. The previous spring, the SS had evacuated most of the Majdanek prisoners and camp personnel. In April 1940, Germany occupied Denmark and Norway. Photograph from AKG. Nazi Germany had been at war with Great Britain and France since September 3, 1939, but little fighting took place on the western front until May 1940. Research Starters: The Draft and World… Research Starters: The GI Bill; Research Starters: Higgins Boats; Research Starters: The Battle of Midway; Research Starters: Women in World War II; Take A Closer Look: Ration Books; Take A Closer Look: America Goes to War; History At a Glance: Women in World War… / Research Starters: Worldwide Deaths Returning home was also dangerous. During the conflict, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire (the Central Refugees moving westwards in 1945. v. ot xz ct nq pf bg ld rc vu zf