they had taken to the roads as soon as they knew they were liberated

CHAPTER XII The Rhineland Campaign, 1945
The DP Flood Begins
In January 1945, the twenty-nine Poles in the camp at Brand were the only displaced persons held by SHAEF in Germany. On 31 March, the army groups reported 145,000 on hand in centers and 45,000 shipped out to France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg, the latter mostly repatriated citizens of these countries but also including eastern Europeans. Many thousands more had not reported to the centers or had not yet been evacuated from the division areas. The number of DPs on hand had doubled in the last week of the month and, wherever the Rhine was crossed, multiplied with every mile that the front moved east. By the time the Remagen bridgehead attained an area of fifteen square miles, it contained 3,500 DPs, 235 for every square mile taken.

The intelligence reports of the previous fall had been correct. The Germans had moved many forced laborers out of the Rhineland. The number of persons recovered, therefore, was less than half the total that had been there as late as September 1944, which was lucky, since the DP problem even with those who were left was bigger than had been anticipated. Nobody was hugely surprised when the DPs ignored SHAEF's appeals to stand fast. The DPX, however, had expected those on farms, where lodging and food were assured, to stay at least several weeks; they had not. Like the others, they had taken to the roads as soon as they knew they were liberated. On bicycles, on wagons, and on foot, displaced persons streamed away from the rural districts at the same time others were leaving towns and cities-many, the Russians and Poles especially, heading no place in particular other than away from where they had been. Cut loose from the German economy and unable to provide for themselves, they became the charges of the first U.S. unit they met. In a fairly typical instance, the 5th Infantry Division, on one day, 27 March, found 190 DPs in three towns in its sector, 400 more on the roads behind the front, and another 300 in the area uncovered in the day's advance-together, enough to fill a good-size camp. Assembly centers run by the armies quickly reached populations of 10,000 or more. Western Europeans could be kept moving toward home, but on 12 March SHAEF closed the border to the Poles, Russians, and other eastern Europeans for fear of wrecking the already weak French economy. The eastern Europeans, who made up more than half of all the DPs, hereafter became an unanticipated long-term responsibility of the occupation forces. Unanticipated too was the amount of care and supervision they needed. Homeless, without jobs, knowing neither English nor German, elated at being free but uncertain about the future, sometimes restless, sometimes apathetic, they caused problems in more than just feeding, housing, and road-clearing, as the DPX sadly discovered. SHAEF had proposed to turn the DPs over to UNRRA teams, but in March only seven teams appeared. The H and I detachments did the work; they were sometimes reorganized with a doctor, US or French welfare workers, and Allied liaison officers attached, and often operated without assistance and as a sideline to their military government assignments.