1946–1947 forced repatriation of Hungarian, Soviet, and Yugoslav refugees by the Western Allies
Operation Keelhaul
Part of the aftermath of World War II
Date
14 August 1946 – 9 May 1947 (1946-08-14 – 1947-05-09)
Motive
Fulfillment of the conditions of the Yalta Conference
Repatriation of all Soviet and formerly-Russian refugees to the Soviet Union
Repatriation of Yugoslav and Hungarian refugees
Perpetrator
United Kingdom, United States
Operation Keelhaul was a forced repatriation of Soviet citizens and members of the Soviet Army in the West to the Soviet Union (although it often included former soldiers of Russian Empire or Russian Republic, who did not have Soviet citizenship) after World War II. While forced repatriation focused on Soviet Armed Forces POWs of Germany and Russian Liberation Army members, it included many other people under Allied control. Refoulement, the forced repatriation of people in danger of persecution, is a human rights violation and breach of international law.[1] Thus Operation Keelhaul would have been called a war crime under modern international humanitarian law, especially in regards to the many civilians forced into Soviet work camps, many of whom had never been Soviet citizens, having fled Russia before the end of the Russian Civil War.[2]
The operation was carried out in Northern Italy and Germany by British and American forces between 14 August 1946 and 9 May 1947.[3] Anti-communist Yugoslavs and Hungarians, including members of the fascist Ustaše regime that ran the Jasenovac concentration camp,[4] were also forcibly repatriated to their respective governments.[5]
Three volumes of records, entitled "Forcible Repatriation of Displaced Soviet Citizens-Operation Keelhaul," were classified Top Secret by the U.S. Army on September 18, 1948, and bear the secret file number 383.7-14.1.[5]
^TREVISANUT, SELINE (2014-07-24). "The Principle ofNon-RefoulementAnd the De-Territorialization of Border Control at Sea". Leiden Journal of International Law. 27 (3): 661–675. doi:10.1017/s0922156514000259. ISSN 0922-1565. S2CID 145445428.
^Epstein, Julius (1973). Operation Keelhaul; The Story of Forced Repatriation from 1944 to the Present. Devin-Adair Pub. pp. 82–90. ISBN 9780815964070.
^Nikolai Tolstoy (1977). The Secret Betrayal. Charles Scribner's Sons. p. 360. ISBN 0-684-15635-0.
^Goldstein, Ivo and Slavko (29 May 2019). "Ne, Jasenovac i Bleiburg nisu isto". Autograf.hr (in Croatian). Retrieved 15 June 2019.
^ abHummel, Jeffrey Rogers (1974). "Operation Keelhaul—Exposed". San Jose State University ScholarWorks: 4–9. Retrieved 28 January 2020.
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