Using a Slow Memory framework, which foregrounds sustained, reflective engagement with the past, this article examines the evolving institutional care provided to child refugees from the Greek Civil War (1946–1949) in socialist Czechoslovakia. Rather than interpreting their experiences primarily through trauma or rupture, the analysis focuses on the long-term everyday realities of life in childcare institutions, recalling both supportive and constraining aspects as remembered by the children and shaped by state authorities. Although these institutions were formally aligned with the post-1948 communist project of collectivist education, the study reveals considerable institutional inertia as traditional educational practices coexisted with emerging ideologized forms of socialization. Tracing how a temporary humanitarian intervention developed into a durable system of care and control, the article shows that the children’s lives were shaped not only by political agendas but also by improvisation, routine, resilience, and enduring peer solidarity.
Králová et al. (Wed,) studied this question.