Beautiful Balts
Just finished reading a very interesting book about Displaced Persons in Australia.
”Displaced Persons” or DPs were people who became stranded in Germany at the end of World War Two and included concentration camp inmates , forced agricultural and factory workers , non -German soldiers in military units withdrawing westwards and civilian evacuees fleeing west from the overcoming Soviet Army. This definition is given in a book ”Beautiful Balts- From Displaced Persons to New Australians” by Jayne Persian.
There were about 12 million displaced persons at the end of war in Europe. 170,700 of them migrated to Australia between 1947 and 1952. The main national groups were Polish (63393), Baltic (34656), Yugoslav (23543), Ukrainians ( 14464), Russian (3256) and others.
The author did a great research into all aspects of Displace Persons experiences. She tells us stories of how these people ended up in DP camps in Germany, how the recruitment and selection for immigration process was carried out, how the immigrants came to Australia and in what conditions they lived during the compulsory 2 year contract period and later as New Australians.
