Dodecanese of Italianization, hoping to make Rhodes a modern transportation hub that would serve as a focal point for the spread of Italian culture in the Levant. The islands were overwhelmingly Greek-speaking, with a Turkish-speaking minority and an even smaller Ladino-speaking Jewish minority. Immigrant Italian speakers were a marginal language community. The Fascist program, in its many attempts to modernize the islands, eradicated malaria, and constructed hospitals, aqueducts, a power plant to provide Rhodes' capital with electric lighting, and established the Dodecanese Cadastre. The main castle of the Knights of St. John was also rebuilt. The concrete-dominated Fascist architectural style detracted
Refugees of the Greek Civil War up for the refugees, Buljkes. Most of these refugees were ELAS members and the so-called "Greek Commune" was established. Although many were Greeks, it is known that a large proportion of the "Greeks" were in fact Slav Macedonians. The first group of refugees to come to Buljkes was from Kumanovo on May 25, 1945. The group included 1454 refugees, mainly partisans. By June 1945 another group of 2,702 refugees had been transferred to Vojvodina. In the spring of 1946 a group of refugees from Greek Macedonia numbering around 250 people had left the camp. Many more had left the commune