Catalogue description Relief of Distress: World War II Refugees and Evacuees, Ex-Internees and Distressed Europeans in India

Correspondence regarding the accommodation and repatriation of evacuees and refugees in World War II is also to be found in IOR Public and Judicial Collection 110 (L/P & J/8/381-451) indexed at Z/L/P & J/8. For Burma Evacuee Registers 1943 see IOR M/8/57-58.

During the War of 1939-45, the Government of India set up an organisation in India, at the request of the United Kingdom Government, to care for civilian personnel from Poland, the Baltic States, Greece, Malta and other countries who had been sent to India from their home countries because of hosilities. Camps were built and large staffs recruited to deal with the many thousands of evacuees. The whole cost of the organisation was borne by the United Kingdom Government. As the war progressed, those evacuees were joined by refugees from Burma, Malaya, Hong Kong and elsewhere, the cost of whose maintenance was in many cases borne finally by the Government of the country of their origin, although in the first instance, the United Kingdom Government reimbursed the Government of India. For some period after the termination of hostilities, some of the camps were also used by civilian internees, released from other countries in the Far East, while waiting to return home. The process of winding up was naturally slow, and the camps were not closed finally until 1950.