The book is a group biography of the 175 000+ Latvians who fled their homeland during the final
year of World War II (1944-45) lived until 1951 as refugees in Sweden and Germany and then
dispersed to other countries throughout the world.The post-1945 history of these Latvians
includes a description of their lives in 'displaced person' camps in post-war Germany
dispersion in the 1949-1951 years resettlement in new host countries in Europe and overseas
strategies of adaptation to the new circumstances organizational efforts acculturation and
assimilation measures of cultural and linguistic preservation renewal of contacts with the
old homeland generational change and disagreements political mobilization changes in
personal and group identity and after 1991 the inclusion by the Latvian government of the
descendants of this post-war population into a formally designated 'Latvian diaspora' (Diaspora
Law 2019).
