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Camp for "Displaced Persons" from the Soviet Union (1945-46)
When the Allies marched into Germany in early 1945, they found some 6.5 to 7.5 million "Displaced Persons" (DPs) in the area that later became the three Western occupation zones. The term "DP," coined already in 1943 as UNRRA began postwar planning for those civilians displaced by Nazi persecution. It encompassed all "non-German" civilians who had fled, been expelled, or forcibly removed from their homeland in the course of the Second World War. Nearly 6 million DPs were repatriated by the end of September 1945. For people from the Soviet Union, this (forced) repatriation was problematic, especially for collaborators from Ukraine and the Baltic republics. This photograph shows a camp for Russians in Allach, near Munich (1945-46). Photo by Ernst Grossar.