One of the greatest population transfers in the history of Europe occurred in the aftermath of the second World War. Millions of Displaced Persons were repatriated to their homelands or moved to new homes after the war. The governments of Western Europe after the war looked at their own ravaged economies and then saw an opportunity in the bodies of these persons displaced by war: a new source of labor to rebuild their nations with. The Displaced Persons of Europe were a particularly appealing source for Western European governments for a few reasons.
First, they were white. The governments of Western Europe displaced a clear preference for importing white laborers over laborers from their colonies (and former colonies) that were of other races. In his article “”Dark Strangers” in Our Midst: Discourses of Race and Nation in Britain, 1947-1963,” Chris Waters argues that Britain faced an identity crisis after the war and sought to limit nonwhite immigration in due to a equating whiteness to Britishness.
Second, the governments of Western Europe could take their pick of workers to an extent. The above picture shows General Eisenhower and other members of his staff inspecting a DP camp, and I chose this image to represent the inspections conducted by Western labor recruiters. Gerald Cohen, in his book In War’s Wake: Europe’s Displaced Persons in the Postwar Order, quotes a volunteer for the Catholic Refugee Service who described the labor programs as, “cattle market deals.” (Cohen 105). Cohen describes how the main driver behind Western European refugee programs after the war were motivated more by a desire to rebuild their labor force with choice workers rather than provide humanitarian relief to suffering people.
I think it is interesting that the Europeans specifically wanted white immigrants to come and provide labor for them. This seems almost like the American slavery system, but in reverse. I feel like at this point, when the Europeans needed the labor so desperately to rebuild, they shouldn’t have been too picky regarding who provided the labor.
A point that you made in this post and in class that I think is really important is how England chose white, Eastern Europeans over people from their own colonies. I think this really shows the blatant racism that emerged as part of the English national identity after the war.
With the end of World War II, Britain’s view of the world and of itself changed. Do you think that before the war Britain had the ideal of this British Empire, but once the war ended Britain saw the reality of what they were and what they had been. In short, how did Britain seeing it colonials up close in large numbers change their view of themselves?
You emphasized this point in class today. I think that Britain’s viewpoint was interesting in the fact that they wanted only white immigrants to come and work for them. There was a lot of racism that was going on during the time period.
As has already mentioned in other comments, why in a time of rebuilding and wanting people to come to your country would you be so picky and only point to want one race to enter inside your borders?