carrying or pushing their poor pitiful possessions

Chapter XXX: Refugees and Displaced Persons in the Wake of Battle
Refugees
800,000 Western Europeans had been repatriated, of which one half million were French. They came by plane, by train, by truck convoy, on bicycles and on foot, carrying or pushing their poor pitiful possessions accumulated through the years of slavery and confinement by the Nazis. At the border control stations each individual was registered, photographed, screened for security, bathed, X-rayed, disinfected, given ration cards, identity papers and money for immediate need; if ragged he was clothed, if sick, he was hospitalized. The border control stations, working around the clock cleared a repatriate and started him toward his home within a few hours.

Earlier:
us army civil affairs
taken to roads