Notice bibliographique
- Notice
Type(s) de contenu et mode(s) de consultation : Texte noté : sans médiation
Auteur(s) : Nasaw, David (1945-....)
Titre(s) : The last million [Texte imprimé] : Europe's displaced persons from World War to Cold War / David Nasaw
Publication : New York (N.Y.) : Penguin Press, 2021
Description matérielle : 1 vol. (XI-654 p.) : ill., cartes ; 25 cm
Note(s) : Notes bibliogr. p. [563]-615. Index
"In May of 1945, German forces surrendered to the Allied powers, effectively putting
an end to World War II in Europe. But the aftershocks of this global military conflict
did not cease with the signing of truces and peace treaties. Millions of lost and
homeless POWs, slave laborers, political prisoners, and concentration camp survivors
overwhelmed Germany, a country in complete disarray. British and American soldiers
gathered the malnourished and desperate foreigners, and attempted to repatriate them
to Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, and the USSR. But after exhaustive
efforts, there remained over a million displaced persons who either refused to go
home or, in the case of many, had no home to which to return. They would spend the
next three to five years in displaced persons camps, divided by nationalities, temporary
homelands in exile, with their own police forces, churches, schools, newspapers, and
medical facilities. The international community couldn't agree on the fate of the
Last Million, and after a year of fruitless debate and inaction, an International
Refugee Organization was created to resettle them in lands suffering from labor shortages.
But no nations were willing to accept the 200,000 to 250,000 Jewish men, women, and
children who remained trapped in Germany. In 1948, the United States, among the last
countries to accept anyone for resettlement, finally passed a Displaced Persons Bill
- but as Cold War fears supplanted memories of WWII atrocities, the bill only granted
visas to those who were reliably anti-communist, including thousands of former Nazi
collaborators, Waffen-SS members, and war criminals, while barring the Jews who were
suspected of being Communist sympathizers or agents because they had been recent residents
of Soviet-dominated Poland. Only after the passage of the controversial UN resolution
for the partition of Palestine and Israel's declaration of independence were the remaining
Jewish survivors finally able to leave their displaced persons camps in Germany"--Provided
by publisher ; May, 1945. After German forces surrendered to the Allied powers, the
aftershocks of this global military conflict did not cease with the signing of truces
and peace treaties. Millions of lost and homeless POWs, slave laborers, political
prisoners, and concentration camp survivors overwhelmed Germany, a country in complete
disarray. British and American soldiers gathered the malnourished and desperate foreigners,
and attempted to repatriate them to Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, and
the USSR. Over a million displaced persons either refused to go home or, in the case
of many, had no home to which to return. Nasaw tells the hidden story of postwar displacement,
the 1948 US Displaced Persons Bill, and the controversial 1947 UN resolution for the
partition of Palestine and Israel's declaration of independence. -- adapted from jacket
Sujet(s) : Guerre mondiale (1939-1945) -- Réfugiés -- Europe
Indice(s) Dewey :
940.531 45 (23e éd.) = Guerre mondiale, 1939-1945 - Mouvements de population
Identifiants, prix et caractéristiques : ISBN 9780143110996 (br.)
Identifiant de la notice : ark:/12148/cb47045013t
Notice n° :
FRBNF47045013
(notice reprise d'un réservoir extérieur)
Table des matières : Introduction: The war's "living wreckage" ; Into Germany : From Poland, the Baltic
Nations, and the Death Camps. From Poland and Ukraine : forced laborers, 1941-1945
; From Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Western Ukraine ; From the concentration and
death camps ; "The Plight of the Jews...is Strikingly Different". Alone, abandoned,
determined, the She'erit Hapletah organizes ; The Harrison report ; The Last Million
in Germany. The U.S., the UK, the USSR, and UNRRA ; Inside the DP camps ; "The war
department is very anxious" ; "U.S. begins purge in German camps : will weed out
Nazis, fascist sympathizers and criminals among displaced persons," The New York Times,
March 10, 1946 ; The Anglo-American committee of inquiry issues its report ; The
Polish Jews escape into Germany ; Fiorello La Guardia to the rescue ; Resettlement.
The death of UNRRA ; "Send them here," Life magazine, September 23, 1946 ; Fact-finding
in Europe ; "The best migrant types" ; "So difficult of solution" : Jewish displaced
persons ; "Jewish immigration is the central issue in Palestine today" ; America's
Fair Share. "A noxious mess which defies digestion" ; "A shameful victory for [the]
School of Bigotry" ; "Get these people moving" ; "The utilization of refugees from
the Soviet Union in the U.S. national interest" ; The Displaced Persons Act of 1950
; MCarran's Internal Security Act restricts the entry of communist subversives ;
The Last Act. "The Nazis come in" ; The gates open wide ; Aftermaths.