Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II (98 page)

NATIONALIST VIOLENCE, SPARKED BY THE WAR, CONTINUED LONG AFTER 1945

20. May 1946: Poles flee the village of
after it has been set alight by Ukrainian partisans.

21. Ukrainian victims after an attack by Polish nationalist forces on the village of Wierzchowiny, June 1945.

THE HUMAN CONSEQUENCES OF POSTWAR BORDER CHANGES

22. When south-east Poland became part of Ukraine, this family from Rudky was forced to pack up all its possessions and relocate to the new ‘wild west’ of Poland. The train journey took twelve days.

23. Nine million Germans were expelled from Silesia and Pomerania to make room for such families. Here German refugees crowd onto trains in Berlin.

24. Two protestors are shot dead by Athens police during an anti-government demonstration in December 1944. These events would mark the beginning of another five years of bloody civil war in Greece.

25. Tens of thousands of Greek civilians were interned on suspicion of having Communist sympathies. This girl makes use of the barbed wire to hang up washing, 1948.

26. Romania, 1946: after a sham election, the Communist stooge Petru Groza stands shamelessly beneath a picture of King Michael to deliver his victory speech.

27. Hungary, June 1947: members of the Freedom Party arm themselves with chairs when Communist thugs try to break up their meeting in Szeged.

28. Top Lithuanian folk hero Juozas Luksa (
centre
), with fellow partisans Klemensas Sirvys (
left
) and Benediktas Trumpys (
right
) in 1950. Luksa would be betrayed and killed the following year.

29. Veterans of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, pictured at an anniversary march in Lviv in 2009. Today’s generation is unsure whether to remember them as heroes who resisted Soviet rule or villains who engaged in ethnic cleansing.