In the Wake of Devastation 1117Refugees waiting for food in a Displaced Persons Camp in Germany.
Eastern European ethnic groups faced resettlement. The result was a dra
matic decrease in the percentage of ethnic minorities living in Poland,
Czechoslovakia, and Romania, declining from 32 percent to 3 percent in
the first case. Churches, synagogues, and even a few mosques were razed,
depending on the location; towns and streets received new names to reflect
the brutal transfer of ethnic minorities.
The punishment of those who had collaborated with the Nazis began as
soon as the occupied territories were liberated (and, in some cases, had
begun during the war itself). In France, resistance forces summarily exe
cuted (sometimes after quick trials) about 10,000 accused collaborators.
Courts sentenced about 2,000 people to death (of whom about 800 were
executed) and more than 40,000 to prison. Vichy Prime Minister Pierre
Laval was executed. Marshal Philippe Petain was found guilty of treason,
but because of his age and stature as the “hero of Verdun” during the First
World War, he was imprisoned on a small island off the western coast of
France, where he died in 1951. Women who had slept with German soldiers
had their heads shaved and were paraded through their towns in shame.
In countries that had been occupied by Hitler s armies, people struggled
to determine degrees of guilt. In Belgium, courts prosecuted 634,000 peo
ple for their part in the German occupation—a staggering figure in a coun
try of only 8 million people. In Norway, 55,000 members of the Norwegian
Nazi Party were put on trial after the war, and although many drew' jail
terms, only 25 were executed. On the other hand, in Austria, where much