A Straightforward Journey? Discovering Belgium's Refugee Policy through Its Central Government Archives (1945-1957)

When looking at the “management” of refugee crises or violence induced mobility in Western Europe since the 1930s, one cannot help but notice that Belgium offers an interesting case study. In the second half of the 1940s, it recruited over 22,000 displaced persons (DPs) from Germany to work as miners, and by early 1954, it had become the first country to delegate its national competence for recognizing refugees on its territory to the representative of an international body - the Belgian delegate of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). This historical evolution is of cour... Mehr ...