Befreit, aber nicht in FreiheitDisplaced Persons im Emsland 1945-1950 by Andreas Lembeck in co-operation with Klaus Wessels
Befreit, aber nicht in Freiheit
Displaced Persons im Emsland 1945-1950 by Andreas Lembeck in co-operation with
Klaus Wessels
At the end of World War II, there were more than seven million men and women living in Germany who had been deported to the German Reich as slave labourers or prisoners of war. The Allies used the term "Displaced Persons" (DPs) to describe people who, because of the war, were not resident in their own country and wanted to return or to find a new home but could not do so without help. Almost six million DPs were repatriated in the five months from May to September 1945. The vast majority of those who went home came from the Western European countries and the Soviet Union. Nearly all Western European DPs accepted voluntary repatriation, while the Soviet DPs were forced to return home. In accordance with two identical bilateral repatriation agreements (Soviet Union - Britain/United States) at the Yalta conference of February 1945 the overwhelming majority of the Soviet DPs had - regardless of individual wishes - been repatriated. This Allied policy neglected other large national groups, especially Polish and Baltic DPs. During the period from June to September 1945 only 75,000 Poles had been repatriated from the Western zones of Germany. Some 800,000 remained in Allied-occupied territory and refused repatriation in the autumn of 1945.
Around 40,000 mainly Polish DPs were living in the Emsland region in August 1945. The Emsland, situated in the north-western part of Germany at the Dutch-German border, was liberated by British, Canadian and Polish units of the 2nd Canadian Army and the 30th British Corps. About 1,700 women soldiers who had been captured at the Warsaw insurrection and taken prisoners of war at Oberlangen camp were liberated. On May 19th 1945, the 2nd Canadian Army decided to set up a Polish colony in the Emsland. The new national enclave was to be controlled by the 1st Polish Armoured Division. In June General Montgomery, the British Commander-in-Chief, gave his permission to continue with the project of evacuating the German population in order to create a Polish enclave. Within the context of this operation the British military government brought Polish DPs from other camps in the British zone to the Emsland region, amongst them, more than 1,000 Polish Jews from the concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen. The plan to set up a Polish enclave was cancelled in mid-June 1945. By then, seven German villages had already been evacuated, so that the thousands of Polish DPs were able to settle in the Emsland. This development plus the fact that the 1st Polish Armoured Division had taken up occupation duties in May 1945 exerted a magnetic appeal to thousands of Polish DPs and former prisoners of war from the outside. At the end of 1945 the proportion of foreigners accommodated in former concentration camps, POW camps and in requisitioned houses in the Emsland region was between 10 (Lingen district) and 28 percent (Aschendorf-Hümmling district). For the DPs the Emsland served as a transit and the DP camps became waiting rooms.
The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) took care of these people, as did the soldiers of the Polish Division helping their countrymen. While the DPs were being provided for by the Germans in the spring of 1945, nutrition statistics compiled from November 1945 showed that only 150 of about 2,150 calories were supplied by German resources. By January 1946 the British military government had set up 15 Polish DP camps, five ex-prisoner of war camps and one DP-camp for Baltic nationals in the Emsland region. Maczków, the former German town of Haren (Ems), was the most renowned with a population of around 3,500. In a situation which was often characterized by germinating hopes of self-determination, liberty aspirations were often destroyed by the overly pragmatic policies of the British military government. Displaced Persons tried frequently to cope with their often traumatic experiences. Therefore, education and cultural traditions, which were forbidden during the war, now became revitalized to help many of these homeless people. Professional and amateur actors founded theaters. Local grassroots newspapers sought to quench the near insatiable thirst for information that had been banned for so long during the years of isolation. The DP camps were like villages with a mayor, their own police and fire stations, and a church; a Catholic one naturally. Every DP camp had its own kindergarten and one or more primary schools; in Lingen and Maczków there were high schools. Nearly one-hundred teachers saw over about 2,000 pupils. In the spring of 1946, 23 out of a total of 34 Polish schools in the British zone were in the Emsland region. For the adults the UNRRA arranged driving schools, courses in tailoring and sewing as well as English lessons and an open university. A public health system was set up and organized by the DPs themselves and supported by the UNRRA. The majority of the doctors were DPs and former prisoners of war.
Before October 1946 the bulk of the Polish DPs in the Emsland region refused repatriation, yet the demobilization of the 1st Polish Armoured Division and their successive departure to Great Britain induced some of them to leave the Emsland. About 2,500 DPs, relatives of Polish soldiers left for England in the winter of 1946/47, thus having reduced the amount of Polish DPs in the Emsland region to 14,800 in April 1947. Many of them did not want to go back to Poland. They were frightened to have to return to a Communist country where they would run the risk of being persecuted.
The UNRRA was essentially a temporary organization which expired in June 1947. After that time, the International Refugee Organization (IRO) took care of Displaced Persons. Even though the repatriation was the main concern of the new refugee organization, in reality, its principal task was resettlement. From 1947 to 1950 thousands of DPs left the Emsland for resettlement, especially in the United States of America, Canada and Australia. In June 1950 when the IRO submitted responsibility for the DPs to the German government only about 1,000 DPs were living in Lingen, the largest and last DP camp in the Emsland region. These consisted of mainly old and sick DPs who were in no physical condition to pass the immigration selections. DP camp Lingen did not close until 1957, and some DPs are still living in Germany as so-called "stateless foreigners" (heimatlose Ausländer).
Am Ende des Zweiten Weltkrieges lebten in Deutschland mehr als 7 Millionen Menschen, die als Kriegsgefangene oder Zwangsarbeiter in das Deutsche Reich verschleppt worden waren. Die Alliierten bezeichneten diese Menschen als Displaced Persons (DPs).
Andreas Lembeck und Klaus Wessels haben unveröffentlichte Dokumente aus deutschen und internationalen Archiven ausgewertet. Ergänzt durch Fotos aus öffentlichen und privaten Sammlungen, entstand ein bislang nicht gekanntes Bild des Lebens von Displaced Persons im Emsland.
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Caveat emptor: Text of above is in German