Displaced Persons Act (1948)

By the end of World War II, an estimated 17 million people had been forced to leave their homes. Some were murdered in German concentration camps, but others survived. Among the latter were people who had been taken from their homes against their will to serve as forced labor in German wartime industries, those who fled war zones as refugees seeking safety from the fighting, and still others who either could not or would not return home because of the takeover of their countries by postwar Communist regimes. Some seven million of these “displaced persons” resided in Germany and Austria in May 1945.

With the end of the war in Europe, the Western Allies and the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) established what were supposed to be temporary camps for people who were classified as refugees and displaced persons. Within about five months, some six million people were repatriated, but that left nearly a million people to be cared for in the “temporary” camps, some for several years. When the UNRRA ceased operations in 1947, its activities [Page 718]were taken over by the International Refugee Organization (IRO). It was estimated that there were then still 370 camps in operation in Germany, 120 in Austria, and 25 in Italy containing a total of more than 800,000 people. About 55 percent of these were Roman Catholics, 27 percent Protestants and various Eastern Orthodox denominations, and 18 percent Jewish.

According to research by Edward B. Rooney, estimates are that within a year England accepted 17,000 people from the displaced persons camps and another 250,000 former members of the Polish armed forces and their families. Belgium ranked second on the list of receiving nations with almost 20,000, followed by Brazil (7,000), Argentina (5,000), Venezuela (4,000), Canada (2,000), and the Netherlands (2,000). The United States, because of its restrictive immigration laws of 1921 and 1924, had accepted no one. In 1947, a bill proposed to allow refugees into the country in excess of the quota numbers, but it required each to have a U.S. sponsor. Largely because of this restriction, in June of the following year Congress enacted the Displaced Persons Act.

Under the new law, people who suffered persecution under the Nazi regime, those escaping persecution, and those who could not return to their home country because of the fear of persecution based on race, religion, or political views could apply for admission to the United States as a permanent resident. Spouses and children were also eligible for permanent resident status. However, the law distinguished between those who were “forcibly” displaced and those who “voluntarily” left their homelands. By definition, those who were displaced between the beginning of the European war on September 1, 1939, and December 22, 1945, were to be considered “forcibly” displaced and thus eligible for U.S. entry. Those designated as “voluntarily” displaced were not eligible for entry under this law. The date parameters excluded those who had migrated to Germany for higher wages before the beginning of the war and those who fled later Communist takeovers such as in Czechoslovakia.

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