FENOMENUL MIGRAŢIEI ÎN BANAT ÎN SECOLUL XX. EFECTE ÎN SFERA ASISTENŢEI SOCIALE
The phenomenon of migration in Banat in the xx century. Effects in the area of social assistance

Summary/Abstract: The later Banat emigrants, for the most part, settled in major American cities and followed industrial rather than agricultural employmen .Chain migration is characterized by the linking of specific towns, neighborhoods as well as families on both sides of the Atlantic. The majority of these immigrants - particularly those from Transylvania and Banat - were unskilled laborers who left their native regions because of economic depression and forced assimilation, a policy practiced by Hungarian rulers. They were attracted to the economic stability of the United States which promised better wages and improved working conditions. Many did not plan to establish permanent residency in America, intending instead to save enough money to return to Romania and purchase land. Consequently, tens of thousands of Romanians immigrants who achieved this goal left the United States within a few years and by 1920 the Romanian American population was approximately 85,000. In addition 27,000 Transylvanian Saxons, 50,000 Swabians from the Banat and another 18,000 individuals from different parts of Romania were deported to the Soviet Union in January 1945. The sources vary on the exact number taken, but findings so far indicate that approximately 90,000 to 100,000 people were involved, about 15 to 20 percent of whom never came back. Approximately half of those who did return settled in either the German Federal Republic or Austria. The German population in Romania suffered another blow in the forced resettlement carried out in June 1951: 40,000 Swabians from the Banat were sent to the area of the Baragan Steppes in the Regat and made to perform forced labor amid horrifying circumstances. Some of those thus deported were permitted to return in 1955, but in their absence their homes and property were taken by new settlers (Romanians and Gypsies). Nonetheless, emigration has continued; in both 1975 and 1976 more than 2,300 Romanian Jews were given permits to emigrate to Israel.

• Details
• Contents