Childhood in the Maelstrom of Political Unrest: The Childtowns (Παιδοπόλεις/Paidopoleis) and the Experience of Displacement in Thrace during the Greek Civil War (1946-1949)

Abstract

Inscribed in the current historiography on World War II childhoods, this contribution, based on oral testimonies and written sources, explores the fortunes of Greek children from the region of Thrace in the aftermath of World War II. During the Greek Civil War (1946-1949), fought between the Communists and the anticommunists, children were forced to leave their native villages and be interned in the "Childtowns," special institutions developed to house them, so as to be protected from the dangerous "Other": the Greek Communists. The paper probes issues such as the conditions of the children's transportation from their native villages; the manner and the reasons that these relocations were organized; children's living conditions initially in their native villages and, later, in the "Childtowns"; the informants' feelings about their displacement, albeit interpreted through the lens of memory; and the children's ideological formation within the framework of modernization.