Displaced persons camps in post-WWII Germany

Following the end of the war, the first collective destination for the majority of Latvian refugees who had fled the second Soviet occupation was displaced persons (DP) refugee camps set up in Germany. We have broken out materials produced in the DP camps.

Browse everything at Entire library by era

  = album/postcards    = includes full facsimile    = cultural item 

• Esslingen DP campAn UNRRA Assembly Centre, Esslingen o/Neckar, Feliks Krusa, Latvian News, Esslingen am Neckar, September, 1946—UNRRA sponsored booklet describing all aspects of DP camp life at Esslingen. Introduction by René Pinczon du Sel, Director UNRRA Assembly Centre Esslingen. Digitized and facsimile.
• 1947 Exiles' Calendar
  
  
  1947 Latvian Exile's Calendar (LATVIAN, Latviesu Trimdinieka Kalendars 1947), J. Grīnblats, Fürth, 1946—Complete facsimile with poetry translations. Published during the post-WWII Displaced Persons camps era.
• Summer Scenes
  
  Latvia II, Summer Scenes (LATVIAN, LATVIJA II, Vasaras Skati), A. Grapmanis, Jaunā Vārda Apgāds, 1946—Album of nine plates of photographs with captions in Latvian and English
• Junker's DP CampJunkers DP Camp Kassel-Bettenhausen, D. F. McGonigal, UNRRA, 1947—Original report, includes photographs and other exhibits; produced by the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration
• Skalbe's Collected Works
  
  Skalbe's Collected Works, Volume One (LATVIAN, Skalbe—Kopoti Raksti), Auseklis, Stuttgart, authorized by UNRRA, 1947—Excerpted and translated poetry.
• European Unification and LatviaThe European Unification Movement and Us (LATVIAN, Eiropas apvienošanas kustība un mēs), Modris Gulbis, Latvian Association for a "European Union", 1948—Gulbis makes the case that a European Union must be created to ensure the future welfare of the European continent and Latvia.
• Fischbach Song Day
  
  Fischbach Song Day, June 27, 1948 (LATVIAN, Pirmo Latvieši vispārejo Dziesmu svētku 75 gadu atceres Dziesmu diena, Fišbachā pie Nirnbergas, 1948. gada 27. jūnijā), Kārlis Puriņš, Viktors Puriņš, 1948—Latvians in the Displaced Persons camps of Fischbach and Märzfeld in Nuremberg and environs gather to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the very first Latvian Song Festival (in 1873, in Rīga, with over 1,000 singers participating). Photo album of 24 pictures, with foreword by composer and Fischbach DP camp elder Jēkabs Poruks.
• Anna Dārziņa Post Cards
  
  
  Latvian folk costumes, Anna Dāŗziņa, Esslingen DP Camp, Jānis Liepiņš, ca. 1949—Illustrations of Latvian folk costumes. Set of 18 postcards.
• Latvian Kitchen
  
  The Latvian and Modern Kitchen (LATVIAN, Latviskā un Modernā Virtuve), Fischbach Latvian Committee Literary Publisher, 1949—Traditional Latvian recipes, excerpts and translations for pīrāgi, galerts, and kotletes, published at the Fischbach DP Camp, Germany.

Junker’s Displaced Persons Camp, entrance gate.

• Camps in Germany (1944–1951) for refugees from Baltic countries, Latvia page↗, at the Latvian National Archive
• DP camps in Germany↗, at the Latvieši Pasaulē, Latvians Abroad, Museum
• Cultural Nationalism in Exile, The Case of Polish and Latvian Displaced Persons↗, Laura June Hilton, Muskingum University, 2009, at researchgate.com
• A personal DP camp research page↗ (not ours)
• “No Home To Go To”↗, about an exhibit at the Balzekas Museum telling the story of thousands of refugees from the Baltic countries who fled to the West as Russian Communists occupied their homelands in the waning days of the Second World War
• ‘Concerned not only with relief’: UNRRA’s work rehabilitating the Displaced Persons in the American zone of occupation in Germany, 1945-1947↗, Laura Megan Greaves, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Waterloo, Canada, 2013.