Following the Italian occupation of Albania in 1939, the Chams became a prominent propaganda tool for the Italians. As a result, on the eve of the Greco-Italian War, the adult male Cham population was deported by the Greek authorities to internment camps. After the occupation of Greece, some Cham Albanians collaborated with Italian and German forces, while approximately the same number participated in the Albanian and Greek resistance movements; the majority however remained uninvolved in the war. Nevertheless, in 1944, the entire Muslim Cham population was expelled from Greece, by a republican resistance group, as a result of the participation of Chams in the communist resistance group of Greece, and the collaboration with the Axis of some members of the minority. This expulsion intended to create a pure ethnic border and to facilitate the anti-communist movement in the aftermath of the war. Most of the Chams crossed the border into Albania, while others formed émigré communities in Turkey and the United States. Today, their descendants continue to live in these countries, although their religious affiliation has changed considerably in the past decades. At the same time, the Orthodox minority that remained in Greece has suffered from decades of suppression of their heritage and language.