Classifying Displacement: UNRRA, Political Authority and Refugee‑making in Greece, 1944‑1949
Résumés
Cet article examine l’évolution et la concurrence entre différentes manières de classer les personnes déplacées (PD) et les réfugiés en Grèce, de 1944 à 1949. À partir des archives de l’UNRRA, il montre que les critères imprécis de catégorisation des réfugiés de celle‑ci ont permis aux autorités grecques de mettre en œuvre une classification politique centrée sur la nation, qui a remodelé la nation grecque. Pendant la guerre civile grecque (1946‑1949), les autorités royalistes ont arbitrairement catégorisé 700 000 civils déplacés de réfugiés « frappés par des bandits » afin d’obtenir une aide internationale supplémentaire de l’OIR et du Conseil économique et social de l’ONU. Leurs efforts infructueux révèlent les limites des politiques de déplacement après 1945.
Entrées d’index
Mots-clés :
personne déplacée grecque, guerre civile grecque, réhabilitation de refugié, classification de refugiéPlan
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I would like to thank the editors of this special issue, the two anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions as well as Maria Cullen and Chloé Chbat for their assistance in linguistic revision.
- 1 “Lecture: Relief to Greece, 10 August 1944”, United Nations Archives [UNA], S‑1376‑0000‑0072.
1On the morning of 10 August 1944, a British colonel and member of the Allied Military Liaison to Greece, Marcel (Mois) Pougatch, gave a lecture to his fellow British officers and some United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) workers in Cairo. Ahead of the liberation of Greece from its Axis occupiers, the subject of the lecture was the relief action towards Greek displaced persons. Pougatch had first‑hand experience of displacement as he was a Jewish refugee who had left Ukraine for Britain after the 1905 Russian Revolution. Echoing the well‑known UNRRA mantra, he summarised the purpose of the plan: “help Greece to help themselves [sic]”. To do so, Pougatch continued, the military authorities had to restore the country to resemble its prewar “normality” by repatriating all displaced persons (DPs).1 Questions of normality and the categorisation of DPs were to haunt UNRRA policies for years to come. How did UNRRA and the Greek authorities envision “normality” after 1945? Did they see it merely as a return to prewar conditions, or as an opportunity to establish a new postwar order characterised by national homogeneity and immobility?
- 2 For a historiographical review, see the introduction of this special issue.
- 3 Violetta Hionidou, “‘If We Hadn’t Left … We Would Have All Died’: Escaping Famine on the Greek Isla (...)
- 4 Katerina Gardikas, “Relief Work and Malaria in Greece, 1943‑1947”, Journal of Contemporary History, (...)
2By focusing on the lesser‑known case study of Greece, this article highlights both the contingency of the post‑1945 “norms” and the political dimensions of UNRRA’s classification practices. Over the last two decades, pioneering scholarship has cast light on UNRRA’s responses to displacement during and after the Second World War.2 More recently, relevant scholarship about Greece has scrutinised the causes behind wartime displacement, especially the effects of the famine (1941‑1944) as well as the living conditions of dislocated Greek individuals in the Middle East.3 In these stories, the UNRRA Greece Mission is relegated to a footnote, or its political role is sidelined. Additionally, the available works on the UNRRA Greece Mission have little to say about displacement in the Greek context.4 During the Second World War, more than 70,000 Greek citizens sought shelter in the Middle East, while others, mostly Jews, were deported to Central Europe. Following Greece’s liberation in 1944 and until UNRRA’s withdrawal in 1947, the UNRRA Displaced Persons Division (DPD) aided the Greek government in repatriating these dispossessed individuals. At the same time, Greece was facing a civil conflict, which caused the displacement of approximately 700,000‑850,000 civilians. Little work has been done to connect these two instances of displacement. Yet in both cases, UNRRA officials and the Greek authorities implemented similar classifications in order to determine individuals’ status, rights and access to humanitarian aid.
- 5 Ian Hacking, Historical Ontology, 1st ed., Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 2002; Jayne Persian (...)
- 6 Diana Thomaz, “What’s in a Category? The Politics of Not Being a Refugee’, Social & Legal Studies, (...)
- 7 Peter Gatrell, “Refugeedom: Making Room in the Crowded Conceptual Terrain”, Social Research, vol. 9 (...)
- 8 Anne Schult, Counting the Countless: Statistics, Demography, and the Making of the Modern Refugee, (...)
- 9 On the historical evolution of this system, see Peter Gatrell, The Unsettling of Europe: The Great (...)
3This article examines how bureaucratic categorisations operated in seemingly distinct displacement contexts in Greece, contributing to ongoing scholarly debates about the power of labelling. Drawing on existing scholarship, this article thus focuses on the conceptual history of classifying practices and the political goals these practices enabled.5 Classification, which this article foregrounds through its analysis of the UNRRA Greece Mission, lies at the heart of refugee studies. The so‑called European migrant crisis of 2015 has prompted migration scholars to scrutinise the intensely politicised false binary between migrants and refugees, highlighting how this categorisation fundamentally shapes humanitarian responses.6 This process of labelling is embedded within a wide array of bureaucratic and legal activities that determine who counts as a refugee and qualifies for assistance—what Peter Gatrell has coined as “refugeedom”, an analytical framework that acknowledges both institutional power and the capacity for refugee agency.7 In her 2023 doctoral dissertation, Anne Schult explored how Western experts constructed the category of “refugee” according to statistical and demographical classifications.8 Yet internal displacement remains surprisingly underexplored in this area of scholarship. The field of refugee history has little to say about the history of “Internally Displaced Persons” (IDPs), pinpointing their origins to the 1980s.9 This article tells a more complicated story, bringing together UNRRA’s role in defining and distinguishing between DPs, refugees and IDPs—a term used by UNRRA officials themselves decades before its supposed emergence.
- 10 Alexandros Lamprou, Πόλεμος και Προσφυγιά…, op. cit.; Panagiotis Karagkounis, Hellenising Refugeedo (...)
4Drawing on the conceptual framework of refugeedom, this article makes extensive use of archival materials from the DPD. These rich primary sources include cables, notes, draft legislation, guidelines and memoranda that illuminate the complex dilemmas UNRRA personnel encountered in their day‑to‑day operations. Particularly valuable are the letters, individual inquiries and petitions from DPs and refugees who actively contested the discriminatory practices of the Greek state. While scholarly attention has predominantly focused on Greek official archives,10 the UNRRA perspective remains comparatively underexplored. Drawing on UNRRA sources enables me to offer a valuable counterbalance to Greek state‑centric accounts, challenging the conventional portrayal of Greek DP and refugee repatriation as a largely successful process.
- 11 The construction of these categories connects with the sociological investigation of poverty. A key (...)
5The article contends that refugee repatriation emerged not as a straightforward humanitarian process, but rather as the contested outcome of competing classificatory frameworks, each deployed to advance distinct institutional and political imperatives. The argument unfolds in two interconnected parts. The first examines how the Greek authorities effectively circumvented UNRRA’s mandate between 1944 and 1946 by implementing a distinctly ethno‑nationalist classification framework. I trace this framework’s evolution through the tumultuous post‑liberation period and subsequent civil conflict, revealing how it systematically marginalised Jewish and Muslim Greek citizens in the service of broader nationalist objectives. The second section delves into the distinct categorisation of refugees who remained within Greek borders—those labelled by UNRRA officials as “internally displaced persons” (IDPs). Here, I demonstrate how the Greek royalist government, following UNRRA’s withdrawal, strategically reclassified displaced populations from northern Greece as “bandit‑stricken” refugees to secure additional international assistance from the United Nations Economic and Social Council and the International Refugee Organization (IRO). Throughout, I illustrate how these evolving classification practices established hierarchies of “deserving” and “undeserving” relief recipients, ultimately serving political imperatives rather than humanitarian needs.11
The classification of DPs, 1944‑1946
- 12 Violetta Hionidou, “‘If We Hadn’t Left…’”, art. cit.
- 13 Giorgos Niarchos, “Η Έξοδος Των Μουσουλμάνων Της Δυτικής Θράκης Στη Δεκαετία Του 1940 [The Exodus o (...)
- 14 Iakovos D. Michailidis, Παιδιά…, op. cit., p. 74‑91.
- 15 Karina Lampsa, “Η Απόδραση Των Εβραίων Από Την Ελλάδα (1943‑1944)” [The Escape of the [Greek] Jews (...)
- 16 Giorgos Niarchos, Η Έξοδος…, op. cit., p. 166.
6During the tripartite Axis occupation of Greece (1941‑1944), more than 70,000 people were displaced as a result of war and occupation. From 1941 onwards, people from the Aegean islands sought shelter in Turkey because of famine.12 In Western Thrace, Christian and Muslim Greek citizens abandoned their homes due to the nationalist social engineering projects of the Bulgarian occupiers.13 Others from the Attica region were displaced by famine, fear of retaliation by the German occupying forces and their will to join the Greek Armed Forces, which were reorganised by the Greek government‑in‑exile in Cairo.14 From early 1943, many Greek Jews also attempted to escape from Nazi pogroms.15 Although the numbers are not exactly accurate, the available sources indicate that by early 1944, the refugee camps, under the auspices of UNRRA, in the Middle East, eastern Belgian Congo and Ruanda‑Urundi were hosting approximately 25,000 Greek DPs. To these displaced people, we need to add the 3,000 Greek Jews, who were rescued through multiple networks and travelled either to Palestine or Aleppo, and the 15,000 Greek Muslims who had resettled in Turkey.16 Upon arrival in the Middle East, DPs were resettled initially in hostels and hotels and, from mid‑1942, in camps controlled by the Middle East Relief and Refugee Agency (MERRA).
- 17 George Woodbridge, UNRRA…, op. cit., p. 50‑52.
- 18 Emphasis in the original: UNRRA DP Division: List of Definitions of Technical Terms, 1 September 19 (...)
- 19 This committee was founded in 1938 at Evian Conference and aimed at helping anti‑Nazi refugees from (...)
- 20 UNRRA Greece Mission: General Regulations Displaced Persons Division, 9 October 1944, UNA, S‑1371‑0 (...)
7UNRRA’s attempt to standardise displacement categories both revealed significant overlaps between internally displaced persons and refugees and established more precise criteria for defining DPs. As UNRRA personnel prepared to arrive in Greece, the director of the DPD circulated a list with the organisation’s definitions of technical terms that defined the organisation’s scope. This list summarised the legal definitions established by the first UNRRA Council in November 1943.17 This standardisation process included terms that could have an alternative meaning based on the professional field of those involved. For example, the term “refugee” had at least two main definitions. First, according to UNRRA, it meant “civilians [who were] not outside the national boundaries of their country” and desired to return to their homes.18 Such refugees were temporarily homeless because of military campaigns. Second, according to the Military Liaison’s definition, refugees were those “at some distance from their homes for reasons related to the war”. UNRRA Greece Mission staff were instructed to avoid a third definition of “refugee”, namely “persons who have been obliged to leave their homes for reasons of race, religion or political belief”. This latest definition was introduced in 1938 by the Inter‑Governmental Committee on Refugees, necessitating a clear distinction between this committee’s operational mandate and that of UNRRA.19 UNRRA’s operational approach reflected this definitional flexibility. Although the DPD director could advise the Greek authorities, he held no executive power.20 This administrative constraint led the DPD to adopt an inclusive approach, ultimately extending assistance to diverse groups affected by war conditions: widows, orphans, soldiers, and women of foreign nationality. A large category comprised civilians whose homes had been destroyed by occupying forces, forcing them to relocate within national boundaries. This group, initially categorised as refugees, would later be formally recognised by the DPD as IDPs.
- 21 Letter from A. Mayerson to C. Pierce, 19 September 1944, UNA, S‑1372‑0000‑0035.
8In Cairo, UNRRA personnel began to process the available data on Greek refugees and prepared their repatriation by grouping refugees of the same nationality. The then‑contemporary term for this practice was national grouping. This implied the movement of refugees and their concentration according to their shared nationality. Thus, the Greek authorities and UNRRA could avoid both a detailed screening in Cairo—which would have involved extensive identity verifications, medical examinations, political background checks, and repatriation eligibility assessments—and facilitate faster repatriation to Greece. This system was based on a centralised infrastructure. UNRRA personnel established the Central Index Office within the headquarters of the Greek Mission in Cairo. In the centre of the office, 30 female UNRRA workers processed DP cards. To be qualified as a worker there, these women had to know how to operate Powers‑Samas machines and punch 160 DP cards per hour. This system consisted of one big tabulating machine, which summarised crucial information about the Greek DPs. Using data collected in the Middle Eastern camps, UNRRA secretaries constructed a master index file that categorised dislocated people by nationality and included three main cross‑references: one index card filed according to the refugee’s desired destination, another by their current location, and a third by occupation. Each department could process approximately 30,000 cards per day.21 While registration procedures for repatriation appeared administratively straightforward, the reality proved far more complicated.
Confounded plans: Liberation, civil conflict and the struggles of repatriation, 1944‑1945
- 22 Athanasios Lykogiannis, Britain and the Greek Economic Crisis, 1944‑1947: From Liberation to the Tr (...)
- 23 This standard process was defined by Resolution 7, decided in UNRRA First Council. For other exampl (...)
9The first difficulties appeared soon after the liberation of Athens in October 1944, as the returning government‑in‑exile and the Allied Military Liaison encountered political instability. Both Greek officials and the Military Liaison found conditions worse than expected: Athens had become a hub for thousands of refugees from throughout Greece, as discussed in the next section. Moreover, the returning authorities faced a problem of legitimacy, especially due to rampant hyperinflation.22 While they were retreating, the German occupying forces had destroyed crucial facilities that could be used for administrative work, leaving few buildings that could host the numerous repatriated refugees and DPs. The government attempted to restore order, but internal disagreements culminated in the resignation of the left‑wing ministers. In December 1944, the Military Liaison and Greek police forcibly dispersed a mass demonstration, resulting in disputed initial exchanges of fire that rapidly escalated into full‑blown civil conflict across Athens. During the hostilities (December 1944 to early February 1945), most UNRRA personnel returned to Cairo and the relief efforts were suspended until March 1945. In line with UNRRA’s standard practice of working through recipient countries, in March 1945 the Greek government organised refugee repatriation after signing a new agreement with UNRRA. According to this agreement, UNRRA aid had to be distributed through national governments.23
- 24 Letter from Emerson Holcomb to Augusta Mayerson, Disposition of DP1 Cards, 1 December 1944, UNA, S‑ (...)
- 25 Laird Archer, Balkan Tragedy, Kansas, Aerospace Historian Publications, “Military Affairs, Instant (...)
- 26 Flora Tsilaga, The UNRRA Mission…, op. cit., p. 81.
10The legacy of occupation, the December 1944 conflict, internal politics within the UNRRA Greece Mission and Greek DPs’ urgent demand to return home regardless of conditions combined to significantly complicate repatriation efforts. In the Middle East, UNRRA workers had intensified their repatriation efforts, though not without significant challenges. The political turmoil in Greece delayed the repatriation of Greek DPs, who began to exert increasing pressure on UNRRA personnel. At the same time, an administrative bottleneck compounded the situation: as of December 1944, UNRRA was still deliberating whether to distribute identity cards containing vital information—such as places of origin and eligibility status—needed to process returns to mainland Greece. According to internal correspondence, some UNRRA officials proposed keeping these cards with “responsible persons” rather than giving them to the DPs themselves. In the same document, however, an UNRRA worker challenged this position, arguing that “we [UNRRA workers] must at all times be aware of our own tendencies to be paternalistic towards other peoples, particularly of the agricultural and laboring groups, and that the suggestion, to have the DP1 [ID] kept by some responsible person, might be interpreted as such”.24 This worker’s explicit concern about UNRRA appearing paternalistic to the Greek population reflected broader tensions within the organisation. Around this same period, the chief of the UNRRA Greece Mission, Laird Archer, resigned from his position in protest at the intense British meddling in its affairs.25 His resignation illustrates the organisation’s internal struggle for operational autonomy in a highly polarised society. The mission’s American deputy chief, Buell Maben, had worked in the US Wartime Food Administration, and believed in UNRRA’s US‑led humanitarian vision.26
- 27 Resume of a Meeting with A Committee on Refugee Movements, 16 April 1945, UNA, S‑1371‑0000‑0011.
- 28 Memorandum on Measures Necessary for DPs in Greece, 11 June 1945, UNA, S‑1371‑0000‑0011.
- 29 Report No. 2 (Allied Force HQ) prepared by DP Branch G‑5, 7 July 1945, UNA, S‑1372‑0000‑0031.
11The February 1945 Treaty of Varkiza, which merely paused rather than resolved the civil conflict, ushered a discriminatory repatriation regime. In mid‑April, Greek DPs started to return. The problems in repatriation, however, remained. UNRRA camp workers had to provide DPs with a food stock to last them at least ten days. Many ship movements were delayed due to high demand, baggage allowances for each refugee were limited and central ports lacked nearby assembly centres. These issues provoked strong reactions from DPs, who had left the Middle Eastern camps only to find themselves once again crowded into small spaces.27 In June 1945, a Ministry of Repatriation was established within the Greek Ministry of Welfare, but there was no centralised oversight of repatriation. On the contrary, multiple governmental departments negotiated with different states, and individual refugees and DPs, for the return to Greece, sidelining the UNRRA Greece Mission. Furthermore, almost no refugee staying in the transit camps obtained the standard ratio of food, set at 2,000 calories per day.28 The government was also prioritising the return of Greek DPs from the Middle Eastern camps over those who were stationed in Central Europe and Italy. In July 1945, in Italy, there were 2,485 DPs, among whom were 1,527 Greek Jews.29 Although the available sources do not indicate the reasons behind this prioritisation, it seems that the ethnicity of DPs and refugees influenced Greek official decision‑making.
(Re)Hellenising refugees and DPs
- 30 Giorgos Margaritis, Ανεπιθύμητοι Συμπατριώτες. Στοιχεία για την καταστροφή των μειονοτήτων της Ελλά (...)
12This prioritisation of repatriation from the Middle East intersected with the quotidian discriminatory practices of the Greek state towards non‑ethnic Greek citizens, practices that had become thoroughly normalised in governmental operations. Between 1943 and 1949, the Greek authorities, republican and royalist paramilitary groups expelled populations that were deemed to be “Others”. Greek officials sought particularly to exclude two groups: the remaining Greek Jews, many of whom had aligned with the communist‑led resistance groups; and the Chams—a Muslim minority, many of whom self‑identified as Albanian. In Epirus, many Chams collaborated with the occupying forces, while others joined the ranks of leftist resistance groups. Both groups contested the dominant governance apparatus of the area, which was under the control of the National Republican Greek League (EDES), a republican and nationalist resistance group, under the leadership of General Napoleon Zervas.30
- 31 On the issue, see Rika Benveniste, Those Who Survived: The Resistance, Deportation, and Return of t (...)
- 32 Letter from Curtis to Barger, 20 November 1945, UNA, S‑1372‑0000‑0012.
- 33 Letter from G. Wood to P. Sanford, 9 November 1945, UNA, S‑1372‑0000‑0006.
- 34 Letter from H. White to Vlastaris, 31 December 1945, UNA, S‑1372‑0000‑0021.
- 35 Letter from Vlastaris to DPD, 16 January 1945, UNA, S‑1372‑0000‑0022.
- 36 Letter from General Director to UNRRA Repatriation, 2 July 1946, UNA, S‑1372‑0000‑0006.
13The treatment of Jewish returnees reveals the deeply embedded discriminatory practices within Greece’s postwar governance structures.31 The Greek Red Cross sent a mission with two nurses and one doctor, funded by UNRRA, to Central Europe in order to track down any displaced Greek Jews. The available data calculated that 55,000 Greek Jews from Thessaloniki alone were deported to Austria, Germany and Poland, and by late 1945, only 500 had returned.32 These returnees, however, remained in Pavlos Melas camp, as they found that others had occupied their homes.33 Greeks Jews and other ethnic minorities protested the Greek authorities’ handling of the repatriation process. For instance, in late December 1945, Harry B. White, the new director of the DPD, requested the input of the Greek Aliens Bureau regarding two Sephardic Greek Jews, who wanted to return to Greece from the El‑Shatt refugee camp in Egypt. Although the note indicated that these individuals were born and raised in Greece, UNRRA officers in Cairo, contrary to the standard procedures, sought the official acceptance of the Greek administration before issuing their repatriation documents.34 After two weeks, the Aliens’ Bureau responded that their indexed data could not prove that the two individuals were Greek nationals.35 A similar case of suspicion towards Greek Jewish returnees was submitted to UNRRA in summer 1946. The recently appointed royalist general director of the Greek Macedonia region responded to individual inquiries from UNRRA. According to his response, one Jewish family (anonymised here as G.) did not prove their “Jewess [sic]”. A female member of the same family (J. G.) was Austrian, despite the fact that she was married to a Greek man. Additionally, the record showed that she was considered Catholic due to her Austrian citizenship. The general director added that the G. family was suspected of collaborating with the enemy, because they bought a car and a house while “the Greek people were suffering and starving”. The same record said that another Greek Jewish DP, A. V., could not be accepted as his family owed a debt to the Greek state, and other members of his family were “subjects of enemy country [sic]”.36 Thus, the Greek authorities challenged UNRRA’s founding resolutions regarding the treatment of DPs by implementing a stricter interpretation of the clauses which allowed each Allied country to expel “enemy nationals”.
- 37 Letter from Maben to C Regional Director, 15 January 1946, UNA, S‑1372‑0000‑0022.
- 38 The Greek royalist government requested the intervention of the United Nations in response to the c (...)
- 39 Letter from C. Cowell to Maben, 23 February 1946, UNA, S‑1372‑0000‑0022.
14The Greek authorities’ management of Cham Muslims further illustrates their discriminatory strategies. While some Chams self‑identified as Albanian, the Greek authorities applied this label broadly to the entire Muslim minority, using it as justification for exclusion In January 1946, the DPD in Greece had already received multiple requests from Muslim DPs, who were Greek subjects, after their application for repatriation was not accepted by the Greek Ministry of Repatriation. The chief of the UNRRA Greece Mission, Buell Maben, argued that UNRRA’s responsibility was to assist the repatriation of any “bona fide displaced person”. He was also aware, however, of Greek governmental practices, which ordered the delaying of the repatriation of Albanian DPs “for political reasons”, abandoning the “spirit of […] obligation towards DPs”.37 These practices reached a peak in February 1946, when relations between the People’s Republic of Albania and the Greek royalist state deteriorated.38 Greek gendarmes prevented four “Albanian” DPs from returning to their homes in the city of Ioannina. At each assembly centre, these four DPs were delayed by the Greek authorities and were eventually arrested upon approaching their homes. Ultimately, the DPs petitioned UNRRA, requesting both their release and an UNRRA‑led investigation of similar incidents within Greece.39 More broadly, the management of “Albanian” DPs demonstrates the norms underpinning the Greek citizenship framework. This bureaucratic mistrust towards religious and ethnic “Others” was compounded by UNRRA’s reluctance to challenge the actions of the Greek authorities.
- 40 Aide‑Memoir, 11 September 1945, UNA, S‑1376‑0000‑0072.
15How did the UNRRA Greece Mission respond to these discriminatory policies against Jews and Chams? The higher echelons of the mission criticised the Greek policies on two main grounds, but did not withdraw their assistance. Firstly, Glen Leet, the director of the Welfare Division, and Evertt Barger and Harry White, the directors of the DPD, wanted to enforce a holistic programme of rehabilitation that would include all displaced populations, regardless of ethnicity or religion. Although the term “rehabilitation” lacked a clear definition, UNRRA officials in Greece envisioned that repatriated refugees and DPs would return to their diverse prewar occupations and communities, with many needing to rebuild in areas devastated by the conflict. Consequently, beginning from mid‑1944, UNRRA personnel in Cairo had established 34 occupational categories and classified refugees accordingly. In an overview of the plan, submitted to the Greek government in September 1945, Maben noted that small communities, especially in the islands, could receive credits for public works, the repair of homes and agricultural assistance. These measures were intended to tackle the increasing levels of unemployment and social unrest. However, the government in Athens rejected these measures, jeopardising the whole repatriation project. In the same aide‑memoire, Maben observed that the standards of care and welfare for Greek refugees and DPs were below the levels deemed necessary and desirable, failing to meet the formal agreements between UNRRA and recipient countries.40 Secondly, the DPD reacted fiercely, blaming the hyper‑nationalist tone of the government, whose executive power contradicted the agreement with UNRRA. Ultimately, the Greek government did not change its stance and maintained the same policy in the years that followed.
- 41 Summary of DP Programme in the Athens‑Piraeus Area, August 1946, UNA, S‑1376‑0000‑0072.
- 42 Louise W. Holborn, The International Refugee Organization: A Specialized Agency of the United Natio (...)
16In June 1946, the DPD oversaw the last massive repatriation of Greek DPs from the Middle East, ostensibly bringing its mission to an end. Writing a summary in late August 1946, Eugene Venderpool, a DPD worker, sugar‑coated the turbulent relationships between UNRRA’s headquarters, the DPD and the Greek Ministry of Repatriation. His tone was positive, as he highlighted the various activities that Greek DPs undertook in the assembly centres while awaiting repatriation to their homes.41 On the other hand, Venderpool completely omitted the government’s refusal to repatriate some non‑Christian Greeks, and the delays encountered by Muslim Greeks—many of whom returned after late 1948.42 For Venderpool, as well as the Greek authorities, the “bona fide” DP was a projection of a socially and politically conservative mindset. On the one hand, the “good” DP had essential characteristics: he was a Greek‑speaking Orthodox Christian who was non‑communist. On the other hand, a “good” DP had to be patient and ready to be productive in order to reconstruct his destroyed home. In his positive retrospective appraisal, Venderpool highlighted another “success story” that UNRRA and the Greek authorities made happen, the question of internally displaced persons.
IDPs and the Greek Civil War, 1944‑1949
- 43 Phil Orchard, Protecting…, op. cit., p. 63‑87.
- 44 For the entangled trajectories between UNRRA Greece Mission and CNRRA, see UNA, S‑1121‑0000‑0119.
17While an international system to protect “internally displaced persons” (IDPs) emerged only in the late 1980s, UNRRA had been using the term from 1943. Drawing mainly on official publications, Phil Orchard has argued that Greece, alongside Indonesia and China, proposed a clause in the 1951 Refugee Convention that could protect IDPs. However, US representatives vetoed this initiative, and as a result, IDPs were excluded from the convention.43 UNRRA and the Chinese National Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (CNRRA) made extensive use of the term in order to provide relief to various displaced groups who were uprooted during wartime.44 However, they provided no coherent definition of the term. In most UNRRA records, IDPs were mainly classified as refugees, and hence were under the responsibility of UNRRA’s DP Division.
- 45 Letter from Barger to Archer, 29 November 1944, UNA, S‑1372‑0000‑0035.
- 46 Memo, 30 January 1945, UNA, S‑1372‑0000‑0035.
18IDPs, however, did not follow the same thorough registration as DPs. The pre‑liberation predictions seriously underestimated the extent of the problem. In late November 1944, the DPD’s director, Barger, told Laird Archer that the registration of the Greek IDPs was a waste of time because neither the Military Liaison nor the Greek government could control the movement from the countryside to the urban centres. Although displacement resulted from a broad range of reasons—from collaboration with occupying forces in villages to fear of reprisals for involvement in resistance activities—Barger suggested somewhat naively that UNRRA could drop the screening procedure applied to non‑Greeks.45 The 1944 December conflict exacerbated the IDP issue and caused new movements, especially from Athens to the countryside. From the safe distance of Cairo, Mabel Geldard‑Brown, who had been hired as a special case consultant on DPs, proposed that IDPs be included under the scope of her UNRRA division. In addition, she suggested that indigent IDPs could temporarily reside in the transit camps for foreign DPs in Greece.46
- 47 In the original memo, the word “believe” has been deleted and replaced with “know”. Letter from Kam (...)
- 48 Polymeris Voglis, Η Αδύνατη Επανάσταση. Η Κοινωνική Δυναμική Του Εμφυλίου Πολέμου [The Impossible R (...)
- 49 Letter from Leet to White, 13 June 1945, UNA, S‑1372‑0000‑0031.
- 50 Letter from Linney to Barger, 3 July 1945, UNA, S‑1372‑0000‑0031.
- 51 Perhaps this number includes “indigent” Athenians, who had their houses destroyed during the latest (...)
- 52 Letter from EG Regional Director to Maben, 10 December 1945, UNA, S‑1371‑0000‑0011.
19The new ministers for repatriation continued a policy of indifference towards IDPs, despite their increasing number. The deputy minister of welfare, Konstantinos Kambas, in a memo to the Joint Policy Committee that comprised the Allied Military Liaison, UNRRA representatives from the Welfare and DP divisions and the Ministry of Repatriation, noted that he believed there were 14,000 IDPs from Thrace, Macedonia and Epirus residing in Thessaloniki and Athens.47 In the following months, as anticommunist paramilitaries began attacking leftist civilians, another mass movement was caused in the countryside.48 In late spring 1945, the higher echelons of the UNRRA Greece Mission advised the minister of repatriation to assume responsibility for IDPs. Within UNRRA, Glen Leet suggested that IDPs be classified as DPs and that his Welfare division could have an auxiliary position and provide aid on an ad hoc basis.49 Together with his colleagues in the DPD, Leet drafted a paper aimed at ensuring effective oversight by the Greek authorities. However, the Greek authorities were already irritated by the critical stance taken by DPD workers in response to the treatment of Chams in the Epirus region.50 In late July 1945, the number of IDPs had reached 360,000, who were expected to return home by late autumn.51 By late 1945, however, many were refusing to return to their homes. Furthermore, approximately 300 IDPs remained in overcrowded transit camps that were simultaneously tasked with accommodating Greek Jewish and ethnic Greek DPs. Many IDPs brought animals with them into the camps, further straining space and compromising sanitary conditions.52
- 53 Letter from Lubbock to Maben, 4 June 1946, UNA, S‑1371‑0000‑0011.
- 54 Displaced Farmers, n.d. [February 1946], UNA, S‑1372‑0000‑0006.
- 55 Letter from Harvey to Minton, 28 May 1946, UNA, S‑1372‑0000‑0006.
20In the aftermath of the March 1946 elections, the royalist and fiercely anticommunist regime enforced a more politicised management of IDPs. The Greek Left abstained from the elections, and some communist guerrillas attacked police stations in northern Greece. To deter local support for the guerrillas, the Greek authorities, in consultation with the DPD, formulated an economic plan to encourage the return of IDPs to their districts.53 The plan included carrot‑and‑stick measures, especially with regards to displaced farmers. Among others, it proposed free transportation for refugees, sufficient rations to enable them to settle in their villages, the allocation of free clothing and blankets and priority in rebuilding projects. The plan also highlighted that the Greek gendarmerie could return villagers to their communities by force, if necessary.54 Within a few months, however, disagreements between different ministries hindered the plan’s implementation. The minister of welfare contended that IDPs did not fall under the scope of his ministry and claimed that returns should occur under force majeure rather than through persuasion.55
- 56 Polymeris Voglis, Η Αδύνατη…, op. cit., p. 288‑327.
- 57 The Greek government refused to recognize the communist guerrillas as belligerents, instead labelli (...)
- 58 Ministry of Social Welfare‑Statistical Bulletin, The Refugee Problem in Greece, 1949.
- 59 Angeliki Laiou, “Population Movements in the Greek Countryside during the Civil War”, in Lars Baere (...)
- 60 Gonda A. Van Steen (ed.), The Battle for Bodies, Hearts and Minds in Postwar Greece: Social Worker (...)
21As the mobilisation of villagers continued and the threat of full‑scale civil war loomed, the Greek government initiated a forced relocation project. Beginning in late 1946, this large‑scale removal of civilians saw security forces evacuate a significant number of villages by autumn 1947. The strategy aimed to deprive guerrillas of vital resources such as reserves, supplies and intelligence, while reducing the need for troops to secure these evacuated areas. It also enabled the government to carry out bombardments of rebel positions with minimal risk of collateral damage.56 Additionally, the relocation served to transfer displaced populations into towns, where the government could more effectively “neutralise” communities suspected of sympathising with the insurgents. The royalist government labelled these displaced individuals as “bandit‑” or “guerrilla‑stricken”, thereby attributing their displacement to insurgent activity.57 The official statistics characterised 800,000‑1,000,000 people as “bandit‑stricken” refugees from 1947 to 1949.58 Historian Angeliki Laiou has estimated the number of refugees at approximately 850,000.59 Based on scattered statistical data, it appears that the majority of those refugees were women, children (who were treated as a distinct category) or elderly men.60
- 61 Letter from Gardner to Maben, 25 September 1946, UNA, S‑1360‑0056.
- 62 Gonda A. Van Steen, The Battle…, op. cit.
- 63 On the continuities, see Panagiotis Karagkounis, Hellenising Refugeedom…, op. cit.
22Before withdrawing from Greece in the summer of 1947, the regional offices of the UNRRA Greece Mission documented a significant new influx of refugees, caused by the civil war conditions. However, as there were indications that the UNRRA Greece Mission was to be wound down by the end of 1946, UNRRA personnel did not thoroughly investigate the causes behind the surge in refugee numbers. In late September 1946, UNRRA’s regional director in Thessaly raised the issue of refugees with local authorities, asking them if they could use UNRRA supplies to deal with this new emergency. Their response was affirmative.61 In the next few months, as the number of UNRRA personnel in Greece declined, the remaining field officers made references to these internal refugees, who has been displaced from their mountainous villages.62 Following UNRRA’s formal withdrawal from Greece, key datasets, including refugee demographic profiles, aid distribution records, and shelter allocation registers, were transferred to former UNRRA fieldworkers who remained in Greece. These datasets, essential for the continuity of humanitarian operations, supported the fieldworkers’ continued efforts under the auspices of the European Recovery Program (Marshall Plan). Consequently, UNRRA’s displacement management practices persisted well beyond the organisation’s official dissolution.63
- 64 Vasiliki Lazou, “Οι «εσωτερικοί πρόσφυγες» του εμφυλίου πολέμου. Ζητήματα χαρακτηρισμού και πρόνοια (...)
- 65 Vasiliki Lazou, Οι εσωτερικοί…, op. cit., p. 113‑116.
- 66 Gonda A. Van Steen, The Battle…, op. cit., p. 152.
23From mid‑1947 to mid‑1949, the royalist administration implemented a seemingly rigorous classification process to designate “bandit‑stricken” refugees. This status of “bandit‑stricken” was not fixed and continued to evolve until 1950.64 By late 1947, this designation was conferred on villagers who possessed official documentation demonstrating either the destruction of their homes or the enrolment of family members in the auxiliary Home Guard, known as the Rural Security Units (Monades Asfaleias Ypaithrou, MAY). Category A included individuals whom authorities classified as “indigents”, allowing them to receive aid without charge. In contrast, Category B encompassed the remainder, who, despite receiving a nominal compensation, were obliged to pay for their food. In 1948, a third category was introduced—Category C—which existed purely for governmental statistical purposes and administrative control.65 By mid‑1948, 238,000 refugees in Macedonia were considered completely indigent.66
- 67 Glen Leet, “Community Welfare Centers in Operation”, Social Work Journal, vol. 33, no. 4, 1952, p. (...)
- 68 Gonda A. Van Steen, The Battle…, op. cit., p. 14‑23; Efi Avdela and Dimitra Lampropoulou, “Gender a (...)
- 69 R6046/10117/19, 16 June 1949, The National Archives, Foreign Office 371/78371; Memo: Displaced Gree (...)
- 70 Louise W. Holborn, The IRO…, op. cit., p. 138‑39; US Operations Mission in Greece, The American Aid (...)
24The Greek authorities drew not only on UNRRA’s management of DPs and refugees but also on the support of newly established international bodies. From 1947 to 1950, Glen Leet, the former director of UNRRA’s Welfare Division, remained in Greece and facilitated a small‑scale programme of community development for internal refugees. These refugees had to work in the areas where they were relocated by the Greek army.67 Furthermore, in northern Greece, the UN International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), along with the Relief Fund for the Northern Provinces under the auspices of Queen Frederica, fed refugee children and provided medical supplies.68 In late 1948, the Greek government attempted to internationalise the issue of internal displacement by drafting a memorandum requesting further international aid. The memorandum was sent to the UN Economic and Social Council and the IRO.69 However, in the eyes of IRO officials, the Greek government’s request lacked legal justification. The IRO’s constitution had redefined the terms “refugee” and “DPs”. According to the 1947 definition, refugee status required individuals to be outside their national borders and to fall into one of three categories: victims of Axis regimes, Spanish republicans, or those who were already classified as refugees before the war. Therefore, the IRO rejected the Greek appeal, and the Greek government managed the internal refugee question by channelling funds, received from the European Recovery Program/Marshall Plan to the relief of refugees.70
⁂
25This article has examined the complex and often contested classification practices deployed by UNRRA officials and the Greek authorities in managing displaced groups between 1944 and 1949. Returning to Colonel Pougatch’s lecture on the eve of Greece’s liberation in 1944, it becomes apparent that his vision to “help Greece to help themselves” proved more complicated to apply on the ground than planned. UNRRA officials arrived in Greece with incomplete data and preconceived notions, which proved inadequate faced with the intricate web of social, political and ethnic tensions that characterised newly liberated Greece.
26Overall, the article makes three significant contributions to refugee history. First, it challenges conventional narratives of UNRRA’s role in Greece, revealing how the organisation’s imprecise classification criteria enabled, rather than constrained, discriminatory practices. Second, it demonstrates the historical continuity between different episodes of displacement in Greece, connecting the repatriation of wartime DPs to the subsequent management of civil war refugees. Third, it reveals that the term “internally displaced persons” possessed operational significance within UNRRA’s administrative apparatus in the 1940s, illustrating how this contested classification was deployed decades before its formal codification in the 1980s. The Greek case illuminates how UNRRA officials navigated the practical challenges of defining their responsibilities towards populations displaced within national borders. From 1944 to 1949, the classification of DPs and refugees emerged not as a neutral administrative tool but as a deeply politicised process that served nationalist objectives. The evidence presented demonstrates how the Greek authorities circumvented UNRRA’s mandate by implementing their own classification framework—one that privileged ethnic Greek Christian Orthodox citizens while systematically marginalising Jewish and Muslim Greek citizens. This selective management of repatriation reflected a broader vision of national homogenisation that UNRRA, despite occasional objections, ultimately facilitated rather than actively challenged. Further research on Greek sources should be undertaken to investigate in depth the stance of the Greek authorities regarding the repatriation of ethnic minorities.
27The Greek case offers critical insights into the analytical framework of refugeedom—the complex matrix of institutional powers, bureaucratic practices and refugee experiences. By examining both external displacement (DPs) and internal displacement (IDPs), this study reveals how classificatory practices established hierarchies of “deserving” and “undeserving” recipients of humanitarian aid. These practices were fundamentally political determinations with profound consequences for individuals’ rights, mobility and access to resources. Furthermore, as the Greek Civil War intensified, the royalist government’s strategic reclassification of nearly 750,000 civilians as “bandit‑stricken” refugees—a designation that obscured the government’s own role in their displacement—highlights the enduring power of labelling in shaping practices of relief provision. The Greek government’s unsuccessful attempts at securing additional international aid from the IRO and UN Economic and Social Council revealed the limitations of post‑1945 displacement policies, particularly regarding internal displacement. The Greek case demonstrates that the seemingly technical act of classification is never politically neutral but rather constitutes a powerful mechanism through which states assert sovereignty, pursue nationalist agendas and define the boundaries of belonging.
Notes
1 “Lecture: Relief to Greece, 10 August 1944”, United Nations Archives [UNA], S‑1376‑0000‑0072.
2 For a historiographical review, see the introduction of this special issue.
3 Violetta Hionidou, “‘If We Hadn’t Left … We Would Have All Died’: Escaping Famine on the Greek Island of Chios, 1941‑44”, Journal of Refugee Studies, vol. 34, no. 1, 2021, p. 1101‑1120, Doi: 10.1093/jrs/fez041; Iakovos D. Michailidis, Παιδιά Του Οδυσσέα. Έλληνες Πρόσφυγες Στη Μέση Ανατολή Και Στην Αφρική (1941‑1946) [Odysseus’s Children: Greek Refugees in the Middle East and Africa (1941‑1946)], Athens, Metaixmio, 2018; Alexandros Lamprou (ed.), Πόλεμος Και Προσφυγιά. Πρόσφυγες Από Την Ελλάδα: Τουρκία, Μέση Ανατολή, Αφρική 1941‑1946 [War and Refugeehood: Refugees from Greece: Turkey, Middle East, Africa 1941‑1946], Thessaloniki, Epikentro, 2021.
4 Katerina Gardikas, “Relief Work and Malaria in Greece, 1943‑1947”, Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 43, no. 3, 2008, p. 493‑508, Doi: 10.1177/0022009408091837; Flora Tsilaga, The UNRRA Mission to Greece: The Politics of International Relief, October 1944‑June 1947, Doctoral Dissertation, King’s College, Department of Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, London, 2007.
5 Ian Hacking, Historical Ontology, 1st ed., Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 2002; Jayne Persian, “Displaced Persons and the Politics of International Categorisation(s)”, Australian Journal of Politics & History, vol. 58, no. 4, 2012, p. 481‑496, Doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8497.2012.01648.x.
6 Diana Thomaz, “What’s in a Category? The Politics of Not Being a Refugee’, Social & Legal Studies, vol. 27, no. 2, p. 2018, 200‑218, Doi: 10.1177/0964663917746488; Rebecca E. Hamlin, Crossing: How We Label and React to People on the Move, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 2021; Shanthi Robertson, “Status‑Making: Rethinking Migrant Categorization”, Journal of Sociology, vol. 55, no. 2, 2019, p. 219‑233, Doi: 10.1177/1440783318791761; Tazreena Sajjad, “What’s in a Name? ‘Refugees’, ‘Migrants’ and the Politics of Labelling”, Race & Class, vol. 60, no. 2, 2018, p. 40‑62, Doi: 10.1177/0306396818793582.
7 Peter Gatrell, “Refugeedom: Making Room in the Crowded Conceptual Terrain”, Social Research, vol. 91, no. 2, 2024, p. 619‑641, p. 636, Doi: 10.1353/sor.2024.a930759.
8 Anne Schult, Counting the Countless: Statistics, Demography, and the Making of the Modern Refugee, 1920s‑1950s, Doctoral Dissertation, New York University, Department of History, New York, 2023.
9 On the historical evolution of this system, see Peter Gatrell, The Unsettling of Europe: The Great Migration, 1945 to the Present, London, Allen Lane, 2019; Phil Orchard, Protecting the Internally Displaced: Rhetoric and Reality, London, Routledge, “Routledge Global Institutions Series”, 2018.
10 Alexandros Lamprou, Πόλεμος και Προσφυγιά…, op. cit.; Panagiotis Karagkounis, Hellenising Refugeedom, Refuging Hellenisms: Humanitarianism, Refugees and the Making of Modern Greece, 1919‑1955, Doctoral Dissertation, University of Manchester, Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute, Manchester, 2025.
11 The construction of these categories connects with the sociological investigation of poverty. A key contribution is Michael B. Katz, The Undeserving Poor: America’s Enduring Confrontation with Poverty, 2nd ed. Fully Updated and Revised, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2013 [1989]. On refugees, Julia Morris, “The Value of Refugees: UNHCR and the Growth of the Global Refugee Industry”, Journal of Refugee Studies, vol. 34, no. 3, 2021, p. 2676‑2698, Doi: 10.1093/jrs/feaa135.
12 Violetta Hionidou, “‘If We Hadn’t Left…’”, art. cit.
13 Giorgos Niarchos, “Η Έξοδος Των Μουσουλμάνων Της Δυτικής Θράκης Στη Δεκαετία Του 1940 [The Exodus of Muslims from Western Thrace during the 1940s]”, in Alexandros Lamprou (ed.), Πόλεμος Και Προσφυγιά. Πρόσφυγες Από Την Ελλάδα: Τουρκία, Μέση Ανατολή, Αφρική 1941‑1946 [War and Refugeehood: Refugees from Greece: Turkey, Middle East, Africa 1941‑1946], Thessaloniki, Epikentro, 2021, p. 159‑183; Polymeris Voglis, “Controlling Space and People: War, Territoriality and Population Engineering in Greece during the 1940s”, in Xavier Bougarel, Hannes Grandits and Marija Vulesica (eds), Local Dimensions of the Second World War in Southeastern Europe, 1st ed., Abington/New York, Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group, 2019, p. 87‑105, Doi: 10.4324/9780429439032.
14 Iakovos D. Michailidis, Παιδιά…, op. cit., p. 74‑91.
15 Karina Lampsa, “Η Απόδραση Των Εβραίων Από Την Ελλάδα (1943‑1944)” [The Escape of the [Greek] Jews from Greece (1943‑1944)]”, in Alexandros Lamprou, Πόλεμος Και Προσφυγιά. Πρόσφυγες Από Την Ελλάδα: Τουρκία, Μέση Ανατολή, Αφρική 1941‑1946 [War and Refugeehood: Refugees from Greece: Turkey, Middle East, Africa 1941‑1946], Thessaloniki, Epikentro, 2021, p. 127‑158.
16 Giorgos Niarchos, Η Έξοδος…, op. cit., p. 166.
17 George Woodbridge, UNRRA…, op. cit., p. 50‑52.
18 Emphasis in the original: UNRRA DP Division: List of Definitions of Technical Terms, 1 September 1944, UNA, S‑1371‑0000‑0011.
19 This committee was founded in 1938 at Evian Conference and aimed at helping anti‑Nazi refugees from Germany. Greece did not participate in the Evian Conference but became a member of the IGCR in August 1944. In 1947, the IRO took over the DPs protected by UNRRA, and those under the mandate of the IGCR.
20 UNRRA Greece Mission: General Regulations Displaced Persons Division, 9 October 1944, UNA, S‑1371‑0000‑0011.
21 Letter from A. Mayerson to C. Pierce, 19 September 1944, UNA, S‑1372‑0000‑0035.
22 Athanasios Lykogiannis, Britain and the Greek Economic Crisis, 1944‑1947: From Liberation to the Truman Doctrine, Columbia/London, University of Missouri Press, 2002, p. 80‑111, <https://archive.org/details/britaingreekecon00lyko>.
23 This standard process was defined by Resolution 7, decided in UNRRA First Council. For other examples, Jessica Reinisch, “‘We Shall Rebuild Anew a Powerful Nation’: UNRRA, Internationalism and National Reconstruction in Poland”, Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 43, no. 3, 2008, p. 451‑476, Doi: 10.1177/0022009408091835.
24 Letter from Emerson Holcomb to Augusta Mayerson, Disposition of DP1 Cards, 1 December 1944, UNA, S‑1372‑0000‑0035.
25 Laird Archer, Balkan Tragedy, Kansas, Aerospace Historian Publications, “Military Affairs, Instant Publishing Series”,1977, p. iii, p. 323‑332.
26 Flora Tsilaga, The UNRRA Mission…, op. cit., p. 81.
27 Resume of a Meeting with A Committee on Refugee Movements, 16 April 1945, UNA, S‑1371‑0000‑0011.
28 Memorandum on Measures Necessary for DPs in Greece, 11 June 1945, UNA, S‑1371‑0000‑0011.
29 Report No. 2 (Allied Force HQ) prepared by DP Branch G‑5, 7 July 1945, UNA, S‑1372‑0000‑0031.
30 Giorgos Margaritis, Ανεπιθύμητοι Συμπατριώτες. Στοιχεία για την καταστροφή των μειονοτήτων της Ελλάδας [Undesirable Compatriots: Clues for the minority destruction in Greece], Athens, Vivliorama, 2005; Spyridon Tsoutsoumpis, “The Lords of War: Violence, Governance and Nation‑Building in North‑Western Greece”, European Review of History, vol. 28, no. 1, 2021, p. 50‑73, Doi: 10.1080/13507486.2020.1803218.
31 On the issue, see Rika Benveniste, Those Who Survived: The Resistance, Deportation, and Return of the Jews from Salonika in the 1940s, Jerusalem, Yad Vashem Pub., 2023.
32 Letter from Curtis to Barger, 20 November 1945, UNA, S‑1372‑0000‑0012.
33 Letter from G. Wood to P. Sanford, 9 November 1945, UNA, S‑1372‑0000‑0006.
34 Letter from H. White to Vlastaris, 31 December 1945, UNA, S‑1372‑0000‑0021.
35 Letter from Vlastaris to DPD, 16 January 1945, UNA, S‑1372‑0000‑0022.
36 Letter from General Director to UNRRA Repatriation, 2 July 1946, UNA, S‑1372‑0000‑0006.
37 Letter from Maben to C Regional Director, 15 January 1946, UNA, S‑1372‑0000‑0022.
38 The Greek royalist government requested the intervention of the United Nations in response to the collaboration of the Greek communist guerrillas with the Albanian socialist regime, viewing it as a threat to Greek sovereignty. In late 1947, the United Nations Special Committee in the Balkans investigated the northern frontiers of Greece. See Amikam Nachmani, International Intervention in the Greek Civil War: The United Nations Special Committee on the Balkans, 1947‑1952, New York, Greenwood, 1990.
39 Letter from C. Cowell to Maben, 23 February 1946, UNA, S‑1372‑0000‑0022.
40 Aide‑Memoir, 11 September 1945, UNA, S‑1376‑0000‑0072.
41 Summary of DP Programme in the Athens‑Piraeus Area, August 1946, UNA, S‑1376‑0000‑0072.
42 Louise W. Holborn, The International Refugee Organization: A Specialized Agency of the United Nations: Its History and Work, 1946‑1952, London/New York, Oxford University Press, 1956, p. 139.
43 Phil Orchard, Protecting…, op. cit., p. 63‑87.
44 For the entangled trajectories between UNRRA Greece Mission and CNRRA, see UNA, S‑1121‑0000‑0119.
45 Letter from Barger to Archer, 29 November 1944, UNA, S‑1372‑0000‑0035.
46 Memo, 30 January 1945, UNA, S‑1372‑0000‑0035.
47 In the original memo, the word “believe” has been deleted and replaced with “know”. Letter from Kambas to Joint Policy Committee, 23 May 1945, UNA, S‑1372‑0000‑0031.
48 Polymeris Voglis, Η Αδύνατη Επανάσταση. Η Κοινωνική Δυναμική Του Εμφυλίου Πολέμου [The Impossible Revolution: The Social Dynamics of the Civil War], Athens, Alexandria, 2014, p. 85‑92, p. 102‑135.
49 Letter from Leet to White, 13 June 1945, UNA, S‑1372‑0000‑0031.
50 Letter from Linney to Barger, 3 July 1945, UNA, S‑1372‑0000‑0031.
51 Perhaps this number includes “indigent” Athenians, who had their houses destroyed during the latest conflict. Supplementary Information on DP and Refugee Moves, 25 July 1945, UNA, S‑1372‑0000‑00031.
52 Letter from EG Regional Director to Maben, 10 December 1945, UNA, S‑1371‑0000‑0011.
53 Letter from Lubbock to Maben, 4 June 1946, UNA, S‑1371‑0000‑0011.
54 Displaced Farmers, n.d. [February 1946], UNA, S‑1372‑0000‑0006.
55 Letter from Harvey to Minton, 28 May 1946, UNA, S‑1372‑0000‑0006.
56 Polymeris Voglis, Η Αδύνατη…, op. cit., p. 288‑327.
57 The Greek government refused to recognize the communist guerrillas as belligerents, instead labelling them as “bandits” to highlight their associations with pillage and lawlessness. Since its establishment, the Greek state struggled to control banditry in the countryside.
58 Ministry of Social Welfare‑Statistical Bulletin, The Refugee Problem in Greece, 1949.
59 Angeliki Laiou, “Population Movements in the Greek Countryside during the Civil War”, in Lars Baerentzen, John O. Iatrides and Ole L. Smith (eds), Studies in the History of the Greek Civil War, 1945‑1949, Copenhagen, Museum Tusculanum Press, “Modern Greek and Balkan Studies, 2”, 1987, p. 84.
60 Gonda A. Van Steen (ed.), The Battle for Bodies, Hearts and Minds in Postwar Greece: Social Worker Charles Schermerhorn in Thessaloniki, 1946‑1951, Abington/New York, Routledge, “Publications of the Centre for Hellenic Studies, 23”, 2024 [2023], p. 144.
61 Letter from Gardner to Maben, 25 September 1946, UNA, S‑1360‑0056.
62 Gonda A. Van Steen, The Battle…, op. cit.
63 On the continuities, see Panagiotis Karagkounis, Hellenising Refugeedom…, op. cit.
64 Vasiliki Lazou, “Οι «εσωτερικοί πρόσφυγες» του εμφυλίου πολέμου. Ζητήματα χαρακτηρισμού και πρόνοιας [“The ‘internal refugees’ of the Greek civil war. Questions of Definition and Welfare”]”, in Polymeris Voglis, Flora Tsilaga, Iasonas Chandrinos and Menelaos Charalampidis (eds), Η Εποχή των Ρήξεων. Η Ελληνική Κοινωνία στη Δεκαετία 1940 [The Era of Ruptures: Greek Society in the Decade of 1940], Thessaloniki, Epikentro, 2012, p. 113‑115.
65 Vasiliki Lazou, Οι εσωτερικοί…, op. cit., p. 113‑116.
66 Gonda A. Van Steen, The Battle…, op. cit., p. 152.
67 Glen Leet, “Community Welfare Centers in Operation”, Social Work Journal, vol. 33, no. 4, 1952, p. 196‑200, <http://www.jstor.org/stable/23706458>.
68 Gonda A. Van Steen, The Battle…, op. cit., p. 14‑23; Efi Avdela and Dimitra Lampropoulou, “Gender and Anticommunism in Children’s Social Protection in Postwar Greece: The Role of Royal Foundations,” Historein, vol. 21, no. 2‑(Gendering the Mixed Economies of Welfare: Ruptures and Trajectories in Postwar Europe), 2024, <https://www.historein.gr/HTML/1509A2/main1509A2.html?1=1509&2=32281>.
69 R6046/10117/19, 16 June 1949, The National Archives, Foreign Office 371/78371; Memo: Displaced Greek populations, 17 June 1949, UN, Economic and Social Council, E/1367.
70 Louise W. Holborn, The IRO…, op. cit., p. 138‑39; US Operations Mission in Greece, The American Aid Programs in Greece. A Summary Account of the American Economic Aid Programs to Greece from 1947 to the Spring of 1954, 1956, p. 8.
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