Greeks in Czech Republic

There is a small Greek community in Czech Republic.  During the Greek Civil War more than 100,000 refugees fled Greece.  Around 12,000 of them went to Czechoslovakia from 1946 to 1949.  About 5,200 were actually unaccompanied children.

Resettlement Areas for Greek Refugees

Relocation to Czechoslovakia was facilitated by the Greek Communist Party who, during the war, urged people to send their children away to safety in socialist countries.  The original thought was that everyone would return to Greece once the Communists won the civil war but that never happened. 

Major resettlement camps were in Prague and Brno.  Most of the Greeks were finally settled in Brno, Ostrava, Opava and Krnov as these were areas where Greek farmers could help revive local agricultural production.  Some people eventually became citizens while the majority of the Greek population returned to Greece in the 1980s.  By 1991, only 3,443 still declared having Greek ethnicity.

Update 2025: Here's a short video I found on YouTube about why didn't Greece become part of the Eastern Bloc. 

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