Barton House – the post-war haven from hell for eastern European refugees

THE news is dominated by events in the Ukraine, with concerns not only about the fighting but also the growing humanitarian crisis as refugees flee westwards to escape the Russian army.

History is repeating itself. In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War there was a similar catastrophe but on a much larger scale. Not only were former Nazi slave workers trying to return to their homes, so too were prisoners of war, writes Nick Saunders.

Ethnic Germans were moving westwards as they lost their homes in what had become the new Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia.