Lost Property was partly inspired by the current refugee crisis in Germany. But I also wanted to draw parallels with the refugee crisis in post-war Germany. In 1945, Germany was in ruins and yet it had to accept and assimilate ethnic German refugees kicked out of their ancestral homes in, for example: Poland, USSR, Czechoslovakia, Baltic States, Rumania, Hungary and Yugoslavia. The numbers are staggering: some estimates put the number of refugees as high as 14,000,000. Many of these never made it to Germany. Between 600,000 and 2,500,000 refugees died en route through disease, violence or malnutrition.
Consequently, I was interested to see this article on the BBC online today (19 November). This is how it begins.
Between 1944 and 1947, an estimated 12 million ethnic Germans fled or were expelled from their homes. Overshadowed by the crimes of the Nazis, their stories have often received little international attention. But these days, as Bethany Bell reports from Germany, the new arrivals from Syria have awakened old memories about what it means to flee.
Christa Nolte carefully lifted a little book out of a box of family papers.
"This is what my grandmother, Anna, took with her when we fled," she told me. "It was important for her to save it."
It was a pocket-sized Lutheran hymnal, the Silesian Church's Songbook.
Christa was a war baby, born in April 1943. Her family came from the town of Goldberg in Silesia, which back then was part of Germany.
If you want to read more, here is the link to the article.
http://www.bbc.com/news/stories-42016634
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