The Second World War left much of the world in ruins. In Europe there were millions of people without homes or hope. These displaced persons were forced out of their homes by destruction, persecution and the search for a better life. The massive numbers of refugees were both a large problem and solution for the European nations. The International Refugee Organization was founded in 1947 with the goal of rehabilitating or relocating the displaced persons in Europe and make them into productive workers to rebuild Europe.
The European nations sought to revitalize their economies and infrastructures by accepting large numbers of refugee workers into their countries. Out of this desire Belgium, Great Britain, and France created action plans to draw in prospective workers. These plans were respectfully called Operation Black Diamond, Westward Ho!, and the French Metropolitan Scheme. However beneficial these plans were to the displaced persons throughout Europe their primary purposes were reconstruction and economic growth. This became quite clear soon after the plans were put into effect. The nations accepting refugees screened for prior work experience, physical strength, and ethnicity. The European nations preferred white refugees to those of other ethnicities. But even among the white displaced persons certain sub groups were preferable. People of Baltic origin were desirable above Slavs and Poles for example. They were thought to have been of “better stock and breeding” and described as more intelligent and harder workers.
The massive influx of immigrants led to interracial families. This mixing roused a great deal of fear in the white community, many believed their sense of “family” was under attack. In Britain for instance the notion of “Britishness” becomes a very caucasian centric idea. The number of non-white immigrants into Britain per year rose drastically during the mid 1950’s and in 1962 the Commonwealth Immigrants Act was passed in response in 1962. This Act limited the number of immigrants permitted into the country and restricted the selection to those with special work permits. Anti color sentiment was sad but all too common.
I saw this documentary several years ago and the topic of race relations between whites and immigrants brought it back to my attention. The video follows the Sikh people of India and starting halfway through the video (14:35) it talks about their post World War II migrations and struggle integrating into Britain.
I agree that primary purpose behind the movement was for reconstruction and economic growth. After all of the reading that we have done this semester its beginning to feel like post-World War II was engulfed by political agendas masquerading as humanitarianism.
I thought it was interesting to note that Displaced Persons in this context were seen as an asset rather than a burden. Earlier in the semester when we first discussed the DP problem we talked about how often countries did not want certain ethnic groups with in their borders. In this case, countries viewed Displaced Persons as vessels for economic growth and rehabilitation.
I like how you brought up how the immigrants changed ways of thought on culture. With the mass influx of obviously foreign immigrants, this let scholars juxtapose different cultures and better put into words what, at the time, it meant to be British.