Beautiful balts: from displaced persons to new Australians

Authored book

Persian, Jayne. 2017. Beautiful balts: from displaced persons to new Australians. Sydney, Australia. NewSouth Publishing.
Book Title

Beautiful balts: from displaced persons to new Australians

Book CategoryAuthored book
ERA Publisher ID2776
Authors
AuthorPersian, Jayne
Number of Pages264
Year2017
PublisherNewSouth Publishing
Place of PublicationSydney, Australia
ISBN9781742234854
9781742242507
Web Address (URL)https://www.newsouthbooks.com.au/books/beautiful-balts/
Abstract

170,000 Displaced Persons arrived in Australia between 1947 and 1952 – the first non-Anglo-Celtic mass migrants.

Australia’s first immigration minister, Arthur Calwell, scoured post-war Europe for refugees, Displaced Persons he characterised as ‘Beautiful Balts’. Amid the hierarchies of the White Australia Policy, the tensions of the Cold War and the national need for labour, these people would transform not only Australia’s immigration policy, but the country itself.

Beautiful Balts tells the extraordinary story of these Displaced Persons. It traces their journey from the chaotic camps of Europe after World War II to a new life in a land of opportunity where prejudice, parochialism, and strident anti-communism were rife. Drawing from archives, oral history interviews and literature generated by the Displaced Persons themselves, Persian investigates who they really were, why Australia wanted them and what they experienced.

KeywordsAustralia, migration, displaced persons, history, second world war, immigration, Calwell
ANZSRC Field of Research 2020430302. Australian history
Public Notes

Files associated with this item cannot be displayed due to copyright restrictions.

Byline AffiliationsSchool of Arts and Communication
Institution of OriginUniversity of Southern Queensland
Funding source
Australian Research Council (ARC)
Grant ID
DP130101215
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