Abstract
A group of Polish displaced persons (DPs) was stranded in the British zone of occupation in 1945, a smaller part of a much broader population upheaval in Europe in the 1940s that included Nazi forced labour and resettlement plans, as well as the expulsion of Germans from Eastern Europe. The relationship between British military officials, welfare workers and the Polish DPs within the British zone deteriorated quickly after German surrender. Using the issue of repatriation as a focal point, this article will explore the growing tensions between the British and Polish who had fought alongside one another and place these within the wider context of increasing East-West tensions in the immediate post-war world. As the British tendency to look upon the Polish DPs as a troublesome ‘nuisance’ can be viewed as a by-product of pressure on an economically weakened Britain straining to live up to its pre-war stature, in this context the need to help the very people who embodied the provocation for going to war became irrelevant.
Highlights
A group of Polish displaced persons (DPs) was stranded in the British zone of occupation in 1945, a smaller part of a much broader population upheaval in Europe in the 1940s that included Nazi forced labour and resettlement plans, as well as the expulsion of Germans from Eastern Europe
This article determines the Polish DPs in the British zone of occupation in Germany to be a group bound by cultural and linguistic ties, placed by its leaders and the Allies in camps organized along national lines, and as a community fighting to self-define according to ethnic and religious borders, often drawing on concepts of nationhood and race.[8]
According to George Woodbridge, United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA)’s official historian, in total 74,005 Poles had been repatriated from the British zone between September and November 1945 and, at a time when repatriation was meant to be increasing, only a further 79,932 had been repatriated between December 1945 and March 1946.34 Even if these numbers are slightly skewed due to lack of understanding at the time of who was Polish, the estimated figures show that the repatriation of Polish DPs had slowed significantly
Summary
In 1944, as the Allies made their way through Germany and towards Berlin, the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces (SHAEF) encountered a seemingly limitless number of DPs on the roads throughout Germany. British military officials still working in DP camps by 1946–47 were unconcerned with the DPs, often explained away by UNRRA workers as a symptom of being detached from interacting with DPs on a daily basis It was part of the British military’s propensity to regard Poles as inferior, which is frequently displayed in inter-office correspondence and within personal memoirs, most notably those of Lt. Gen. The Poles had misconstrued British reasoning in declaring war on Germany as an act of loyalty, solidarity and empathy, in reality Britain was thinking practically about the territorial integrity of Poland and the wider repercussions of another partitioning Alongside these issues, there was a consistent subordination of UNRRA to the military government authorities due to lack of personnel, which impacted on how the DPs were handled in the camps.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
