Who Was ‘Worthy’? : How Empathy Drove Policy Decisions about the Uprooted in Occupied Germany, 1945–1948

This article situates the experiences of Baltic, Jewish, and Polish Displaced Persons within the overlapping stories of occupation policy, refugee circumstances, the gathering Cold War, and the process of rebuilding Germany. Using evidence from both the British and American Zones of Occupation, it explains the symbiotic processes of labeling the various groups of the uprooted and the shifting feelings of empathy that occupation authorities experienced for them. The connections between logistics and policy during mass population movements figure in this account, but the author focuses on shortages in housing and employment to trace reevaluations of who was most deserving of assistance.