ROSENHEIM

After World War II ended in Europe, there were hundreds of thousands of people displaced in Germany. Many had escaped westward in front of advancing Soviet troops, while others had been used as slave labor. My mother's family had drifted about in the last years of the war, from Ukraine to Austria, to Czechoslovakia, back to Austria, whereupon they escaped a short period of forced labor by the Russian and went to the Displaced Persons camp in Rosenheim, Bavaria. The are had once been used as labor camps for the BMW plant. It now held thousands of mostly Polish and Eastern European displaced (although there seems to have been a very diverse group there). The family seems to have remained there until around 1948, and eventually they were relocated in Baltimore in 1949. While in the camp the Ukrainians organized many different groups, as well as schools and other activities. Depending on who you talk with, one group was for young Ukrainians (my Mom called them Scouts; some historical research called the Youth Brigades). Some research has been done on these camps, but not nearly enough. Although I may be wrong about the locations, I am guessing all of these pictures (and some I posted in past years) are from Rosenheim, 1947.

Did this group live in this tent? Was it a former army tent? It looks fairly permanent, with orderly road and small fence with garden. Could it just have been a backdrop for this picture? I don't know, but I do know that the young lady sitting in the front with her legs crossed is my mom, Lydia Oxana Chmielwskyj. Perhaps some of the ladies are still alive and maybe one will see this and identify individuals, although they would likely be in their eighties and even nineties now.

Looks like a group of scouts/youth members raising a flag. Beyond that, hard to tell.

Hard to tell what this group is working on, but the lady on the end of the table nearest the viewer is my mother. I would guess it might have something to do with cooking, but just can't make it out.

A dark shot, hardly more than just a silhouette.

I'm not 100% sure, but I think this is also a picture of the Rosenheim camp, a row of older Army tents. Was their a river running through it?