IB History Role of Allied Governments and Non-governmental Organizations Notes

The Scale of the Crisis: 11 Million Displaced

1. The Second World War affected more civilians than combatants.
2. By 1945, there were 11 million DPs in Europe. Eight million of them were in Germany, including former forced labourers, 2 million POWs, and at least 700,000 concentration camp survivors.
   1. Thousands more anti-communists, former Nazi collaborators from Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, the Soviet Union, and Yugoslavia fled as the Red Army took control of Eastern Europe.
3. No single country or organization could handle this alone.
4. Allied forces and governments worked together to help people get back home or find new ones. This cooperation took several forms: military-led repatriation, government-to-government population transfers, emigration programmes, legal frameworks for refugee protection, and the work of non-governmental organizations.

The Role of SHAEF: Military-Led Repatriation

1. The Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) was set up in late 1943 under US General Dwight D. Eisenhower. It coordinated both military operations and the humanitarian response to displacement.
   1. SHAEF had both military and administrative tasks: coordinating the D-Day invasions, advancing into Germany, administering liberated areas, establishing DP camps, overseeing registration and repatriation, implementing denazification, and coordinating with agencies like UNRRA.
2. SHAEF's G-5 Office (Refugee Displaced Persons and Welfare Branch) issued plans for dealing with refugees during the Normandy invasion in June 1944. It had predicted 11.3 million refugees and DPs in Western-occupied countries, excluding German civilians.
3. Despite enormous logistical challenges, SHAEF repatriated people at remarkable speed. Between May and June 1945, it repatriated 5.25 million DPs at a rate of 80,000 a day. SHAEF set up processing points where DPs were identified, registered, given medical checks, and sorted by nationality or origin.
   1. It coordinated Allied transport (trains, trucks, ships), worked with UNRRA and the Red Cross to provide food and services in camps, enforced the Yalta agreement on repatriation, and maintained security and safety.
4. SHAEF was criticized for forcing people to return to their country of origin even when they faced danger there.
5. It was formally dissolved in July 1945 because Germany's surrender meant its primary military role was no longer needed. Its duties were taken over by other military and non-military bodies, including UNRRA.

Government Efforts to Aid Emigration

1. When it became clear that many people could not be safely repatriated, several governments changed their immigration policies. Previously, many countries had restrictive immigration quotas that were often racist and antisemitic, limiting the numbers of people of colour or Jewish people allowed each year.
2. The United States initially resisted accepting European refugees during the war. After the war, it changed course. The 1948 Displaced Persons Act established a major resettlement programme. A separate initiative, the US Escapee Program, launched in 1952, offered sanctuary to a limited number of refugees fleeing communist countries.
   1. Under this programme, nearly 400,000 Europeans, primarily from Eastern Europe, became legal residents of the United States.
3. Canada accepted thousands of DPs, which helped address its post-war labour shortage. Most came from Western Europe, along with political refugees from Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Poland, and Hungary.
4. Australia signed an agreement to accept 12,000 DPs per year, later increased on condition that immigrants did specific work. Over 170,000 DPs emigrated to Australia by 1954.
5. Britain also actively encouraged immigration, especially from Commonwealth countries (an international organization of the United Kingdom and countries previously part of its colonial empire), to address severe labour shortages. People from the Caribbean, India, and Pakistan emigrated to Britain.
   1. At the same time, over 2 million people emigrated from Britain itself in the years after the war, seeking better opportunities in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa.

Building an International Legal Framework

1. Helping DPs also meant developing a legal framework to protect them.
2. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in 1948. It guaranteed the right to seek asylum from persecution and forbade arbitrary deprivation of nationality. Although not a binding law, it was accepted by most countries as customary international law.
3. The Geneva Convention on Refugees of 1951 defined refugees, accorded them specific rights, and prohibited their refoulement (forcible return) from countries of refuge. Individual countries also passed their own refugee laws.
4. The US Refugee Relief Act of 1953 provided for the admission of 214,000 refugees over three years, of which 186,000 were to be from communist countries.
5. By 1959, about 984,000 European refugees had been accepted into European countries. Approximately 461,000 had been accepted by the United States, and 523,000 by other countries. But many refugees still remained in camps.
6. World Refugee Year (1959-1960), suggested by Britain and adopted by the UN, was designed as a "clear the camps" drive. By the end of 1960, all refugee camps in Europe were closed for the first time since the war.

The Nuremberg Trials: Accountability for War Crimes

1. After the war, the Allies set up military tribunals to try prominent Nazi leaders. The legal framework was established with the London Charter of the International Military Tribunal (IMT). Each of the Allies provided judges and prosecutors.
2. The trials opened in November 1945 and were held in Nuremberg, Germany. Over about a year, seven Nazi organizations and 22 senior Nazis were tried. Four organizations were found to be criminal. All except three individuals were found guilty and sentenced to death or imprisonment.
   1. There were 12 additional trials in the United States.
   2. In total, 199 people were tried, 161 convicted, and 37 sentenced to death.
3. The Nuremberg Trials held people accountable for acts committed in war and helped define new international legal terms such as "crimes against humanity" and "genocide," which had not been used before.
   1. They also documented what happened, providing detailed sources for historians.

The Marshall Plan: Economic Recovery as a Response to Displacement

1. By 1946, it was clear that Western Europe needed substantial financial aid.
   1. Soviet influence in Eastern Europe was growing, and Western leaders believed economically unstable countries were more likely to fall under Soviet control.
2. US Secretary of State George C. Marshall proposed that the United States provide economic aid to Europe in 1947.
3. The United States passed the Economic Recovery Act 1948, known as the Marshall Plan.
   1. Over four years (up to 1952), the US provided USD 13 billion in loans to 16 European countries including West Germany.
   2. The plan was highly successful: Western European countries experienced a rise in GDP (gross domestic product, the value of products and services made by a country's people) of 15-25% during this period.
   3. The plan contributed to the rapid renewal of chemical, engineering, and steel industries, creating job opportunities that helped the last DPs find employment.

Non-Governmental Organizations: The IRC, ORT, and HIAS

1. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) were vital in dealing with the DP crisis.
   1. NGOs are organizations not operated by governments, though they may receive government funding.
   2. They usually focus on social or humanitarian issues.
   3. Three NGOs were particularly significant in the post-war period.

The International Red Cross (IRC)

1. The IRC was founded in 1863 by Henri Dunant, a Swiss national.
   1. During the war, it was best known for its work in POW and internment camps: monitoring conditions, sending food parcels, delivering letters and medicine, and inspecting camps for Geneva Convention violations.
   2. It made 12,750 official visits to POW camps between 1939 and 1945.
2. The IRC has been criticized for not denouncing the Holocaust during the war, although it had some knowledge of mass deportations to concentration camps.
   1. It chose to focus on maintaining access to POW camps, which it would have lost if it had challenged the Nazis publicly.
3. In the closing days of the war, IRC delegates entered the camps at Turckheim, Dachau, and Mauthausen for the first time, preventing last-minute executions and negotiating the surrender of camps.
   1. Louis Haefliger, an IRC delegate, prevented the evacuation of Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp by alerting American troops, saving at least 60,000 inmates.
4. After the war, the IRC's Central Information Agency on Prisoners of War, based in Geneva, employed a staff of 3,000 who managed a card index of 45 million entries.
   1. The Agency exchanged more than 120 million messages between prisoners in 41 countries.
   2. The IRC continued working in POW and DP camps, providing food, clothing, medical care, and shelter to millions, and establishing hospitals and children's centres.
5. The IRC also helped revise and expand the four Geneva Conventions of 1949, which cover the wounded on the battlefield (Convention I), victims of war at sea (Convention II), prisoners of war (Convention III), and civilians living under enemy control (Convention IV).
   1. All countries are parties to these conventions, making them international law.

Organization for Rehabilitation through Training (ORT)

1. ORT was established in 1880 by three prominent Jewish people in Russia to protect their community.
   1. The name derives from the Russian Obshchestvo Remeslenava Truda (Society for Trades and Agricultural Work).
   2. Its original functions were to organize vocational education for Jewish people, aid artisans, and help resettle them where their labour was in demand.
   3. By 1921, it had become an international organization.
2. After the war, ORT's main function was providing short-term vocational training to Jewish DPs to improve their chances of emigration.
   1. It offered training in carpentry, metalwork, tailoring, shoemaking, mechanics, electronics, and nursing.
   2. Training also helped people gain a sense of purpose and dignity after surviving labour and concentration camps.
3. By mid-1947, the Jewish DP population reached about 250,000 people housed in hundreds of centres: 185,000 in Germany, 45,000 in Austria, and 20,000 in Italy.
   1. ORT faced challenges including overcrowding, lack of food, poor sanitation, and difficulty finding qualified teachers.
   2. Courses ran five days a week, from 8am to 2pm, lasting three months to one year.
   3. Three quarters of school time was devoted to practical work.

Hebrew Immigration Aid Society (HIAS)

1. HIAS was founded in 1902 in New York City by the Jewish community to support Jewish people fleeing persecution in Russia and Eastern Europe.
   1. It began as a volunteer group helping Jewish immigrants with food, shelter, clothing, paperwork, and employment.
2. During the war, HIAS helped Jewish families flee Europe through legal channels and, when those closed, through clandestine routes.
   1. After the war, it supported the emigration of approximately 300,000 Jewish displaced persons across war-torn Europe.
   2. HIAS set up operations in Germany and Austria in 1945, with offices in Stuttgart, Föhrenwald, Frankfurt, Berlin, Vienna, and Linz.
3. HIAS worked to reunite Jewish people who had been separated from their families, a challenging task because documents had been lost or stolen, and many had fled using assumed names or aliases.
   1. It helped people deal with missing IDs and forged documents.

European Unity: A Long-Term Response to the Crisis

1. European nations were determined not to allow such widespread destruction again.
   1. This led to a growing commitment to develop shared economic, social, and political policies, which eventually produced the European Union.
2. 1951: The European Coal and Steel Community was formed (France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg).
3. 1957: The Treaty of Rome established the European Economic Community (EEC).
4. 1973: The UK, Ireland, and Denmark joined the EEC.
5. 1993: The European Union was formed to replace the EEC, with broader political and economic goals.
6. 1999: The common currency, the euro, was introduced.