Beyond the "Infamous Concentration Camps of the Old Monarchy": Refugee Policy from Wartime Austria-Hungary to Interwar Czechoslovakia

As refugees fleeing the Russo-Polish War arrived in Czechoslovakia in the summer of 1920, international Jewish organizations insisted that the newly established state organize the refugee camps with greater humanity than found in the "infamous concentration camps of the Old Monarchy". Anxious to fortify Czechoslovakia's standing in the international community, the Czechoslovak administration sought to distinguish the state from its predecessor in its own handling of refugee aid, accommodation, repatriation, and emigration. This paper draws on previously unstudied archival sources to examine developments in refugee policy from wartime Austria-Hungary to interwar Czechoslovakia against a backdrop of unprecedented civilian displacement and the institutionalization of international minority protections. With focus on the little-studied, yet crucial contested territory of Slovakia, formerly the northern counties of the Kingdom of Hungary, the paper assesses the extent of real policy change and the nature of its implementation where the post-World War One shift in geo-political conditions were most evident. In doing so, it highlights the relationship between refugee movement, state demise and its corollary, statebuilding.