 After World War I, the main focus of emigration shifted to Canada, where about 15,000 people settled before the onset of World War II.During World War II and in the period immediately following the war, there were further significant demographic changes as the German-speaking population, the Volksdeutsche, were either forced or otherwise compelled to leave—reducing their number from the prewar German population of Yugoslavia of 500,000, living in parts of present-day Croatia and Serbia, to the figure of 62,000 recorded in the 1953 census.A similar fate was suffered by the Italian population in Yugoslavia populating parts of present-day Croatia and Slovenia, as 350,000 left for Italy.