For five years, Germany drained Europe of its manpower, via promises, blackmail or brute force. They needed this workforce as Germans had abandoned their jobs in order to fight. By the end of the war, eighteen million foreign workers had ended up in Germany, before being suddenly liberated in 1945.
Initially, Germans bore the brunt of their pent-up hatred, but their former slaves were keener to get back home. Either stealing wagons and trucks or attempting the journey on foot, they lived off the land on the way, until they were rounded up by military police and put back in regimented camps, race, language and identity sunk into a common mass.
But the crucial difference here is that they're in charge. Although Allied officers are nominally in control, in practice decisions are made by group leaders representing their people. Each individual is investigated, both to establish their origins and to whether or not they were former Nazis. Many inmates are infested with lice and diseases, and while some are fit, others show their former suffering with every step they take. Bread and clothes are taken from Germans and given to the inmates.
In these new camps, new systems of living spring up. Everyone agrees that children should not suffer any more. A Dutch teacher teaches a class, hiding her own emotional anguish: she hasn't seen her home for years or received a letter in months. The Russians send representatives to tell their people what had happened to them in captivity. Poles set up a camp radio station. Musicians band together to provide entertainment and dancing. Although the horrors of the past are dwindling, the camp's inhabitants can't wait to get home.
A train pulls into a station, and the former prisoners disembark to greet their loved ones in tearful reunions. But one and a half million prisoners have not returned. Some may be guilty of crimes in their own lands, others fearful of new regimes at home. Although the war is over, there is still no peace for them. It is now up to the United Nations to make sure they find it.
