After the Allies ended the Second World War in Europe in 1945 with the victory over Nazi Germany, enormous challenges emerged: Millions of people who had been deported, imprisoned and fled during Nazi rule and the Second World War were scattered across Europe outside their countries of origin. These "refugees" and "displaced persons" (DPs) formed an extremely heterogeneous group consisting of victims of National Socialism, Eastern Europeans who had fled from the Red Army and, in some cases, collaborators. The International Refugee Organisation (IRO) was responsible for the care and distribution of these people from 1946 onwards. The lecture is thus dedicated to an important chapter of European post-war and migration history and shows the far-reaching consequences of National Socialist rule and the Second World War.
