Contents
By the end of World War II, millions of Displaced Persons (DPs) from Eastern Europe were stranded in defeated Germany. Among them were thousands of Kalmyk families from southern Russia. Most of them lived in DP camps in Bavaria. The author of this book interviewed contemporary witnesses and their descendants, collecting their stories in this book. They describe the everyday life in the camps, how the Kalmyk families adjusted to the new living conditions, how they set up schools for their children, and how they preserved their traditions as well as their Buddhist faith. But the Kalmyks’ greatest wish was to emigrate to the U.S. For some of them, this dream came true in mid-1951. They left Germany and settled mostly in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The stories and reports collected in this volume are accompanied by numerous photos.