Abstract
This paper tries to provide a contribution to the issue of public health in relation to refugee communities in Cisleithania and subsequently in the first post-war years on the example of early period of Czechoslovakia. In the matter of sanitary measures, refugees and evacuees were confronted with the prevented health examines and procedures throughout WWI, since the beginning of their translocation in the checking and quarantine stations to the end of their exile in camps or municipalities.
Although the health surveillance strategy changed several times, also due to numerous discussions between representatives of the Central Directorate for Military Railway Operations and the Austrian Ministry of the Interior (Dr. Alfons Foramitti, Dr.
Simon Krüger and others), the main rules for ordering quarantine based on the ethnic or territorial affiliation of the refugees remained in force at least until December 1917. Strict hygiene measures, accompanied by chaotic transports, were aimed at refugees from risk areas, including the so-called cholerabezirke in (e. g. districts Turka, Lisko and Dobromyl in Autumn 1914), or against all forced migrants which were displaced from their transit locations in the insecure asylum of Hungarian counties.
Prevention, treatment and prophylaxis also addressed individual cases of spotted typhus, scarlet fever and other diseases whose incidence led to generalizations about the health status of entire communities. In the combination of macro and micro level analysis, this paper outlines the refugee experiences in a broader perspective and compares them in the sphere of health care and social assistance in the varied, but mostly inadequate living conditions in municipalities, camps or in the quarantine stations, such as in Liechtenstein large farm in Mährisch Trübau or in the school building in Kunowitz near Ungarisch-Hradisch.
Furthermore, the protection of public health often became a pretext for state and local authorities to declare a ban on refugees from entering cities on one hand, or to deport refugees to the camps on the other hand. In this context, it is useful to analyse the impact of the health- and cultural-related stereotypes on the social segregation of refugees as well as the putting pressure on their re-emigration during the war and post-war repatriation.