'The Last Million' Sheds Light On Middle East History, Newer Refugee Policy Failures
Historian David Nasaw writes with deep, broad knowledge of the hundreds of thousands of refugees filling Europe's roads after WWII, hoping to return to homes that, in many cases, no longer existed.
Americans tend to think World War II ended cleanly and neatly, with a raucous celebration in Times Square, followed by a pivot to the Cold War. The truth, needless to say, was more complex.
In Europe, the end of the war brought chaos, not closure, with hundreds of thousands of refugees filling the roads, hoping to return to homes that, in many cases, no longer existed.
They were "the displaced, deserters, war criminals, their intended victims who had managed to resist, to escape, all walking as one limping mass through the carnage," writes historian David Nasaw, in his insightful and eye-opening book,
