In the aftermath of World War II two migration streams entered Belgium: former allied soldiers
from Poland and former Ostarbeiterinnen from the Soviet Union. This book focuses on these
people's attempts to give meaning to their war experiences in post-war life and delineates the
various processes they used to understand and articulate what they had been through. These
processes were shaped not only by the characteristics of the war experiences themselves but
also by the changing positions which these immigrant men and women held within their home and
host societies. Looking from the perspective of the newcomers this study examines how they
gathered in groups in order to remember their war experiences and how they were integrated
into and or excluded from their home and host societies over time.
