ABSTRACT
The scale of the problem presented to West European states by refugees and asylum seekers after the Second World War was new, even if the problem itself was not. Although there had been massive population movements since the beginning of the century (Marrus 1985; Zolberg et al. 1989), never before had so many been displaced in such a short period of time. In addition, many could not or would not return to their original countries of nationality or residence. The problem was that there were large groups of people within the territories of states who did not belong to those states (Arendt 1967; Zolberg et al. 1989). Throughout Europe there was a shortage of housing, food and, perhaps most importantly, work (though this would change very quickly). The governments of the day obviously had responsibilities to their own citizens, but who was to be responsible for these others? Whose duty was it to provide for them and what was to be done with them? The needs of, and problems presented by, 30 million displaced persons in mainland Europe (Loescher 1992a:9), including refugees, those who had been shipped eastwards to labour camps and ethnic Germans now fleeing westwards, presented one of the greatest challenges of the immediate post-war period. That there was a problem —a crisis-no one could doubt, but what kind of crisis was it, and how was it to be to resolved? These were the questions facing the victorious powers in 1945 and they remain important questions because the way the crisis was viewed then, the way it was constructed at that time, continues to constrain the formulation of responses to asylum seekers at the international, regional and national levels.
