Germany in 1945 was crammed with millions of people displaced by war, deportation, Nazi slave labour, and flight before the advance of the Red Army. Many of them, including Poles and the Baltic peoples of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, refused to return to their communist-controlled homelands. Simultaneously in Italy, the Middle East and Britain, there were more than 100,000 Polish military personnel under British command, along with their dependants. Most of these were survivors of the one and a half million Poles deported to Siberia by the Soviet security police. Based on official documents and the words of the survivors and their children, this book describes the brutal uprooting of these people, their subsequent terrible experiences in the Soviet and Nazi forced labour camps and prisons, and their ultimate settlement in Britain. Here the newcomers created communities, integrated into British life while attempting to preserve their cultures and identities, and experienced how ethnic minorities relate to the host society.