Oshawa Museum Exhibition

The aftermath of World War II saw a world faced with mass movement of human beings on a scale never before seen. Initially the idea was to “repatriate” people back to the countries from where they had been displaced, and there were over 1.1 million people left who were determined "non repatriable." The job of finding homes for these individuals was handed over to the newly created International Refugee Organization (IRO).

In 1947 the Canadian government agreed to open the borders for 5000 displaced persons to come to Canada and begin life anew.

Since 2016, the Oshawa Museum has been undertaking a very important oral history project. The focus of this project was to collect the memories of those who arrived in Oshawa as displaced persons and post-war immigrants, many hundreds of whom resettled in Oshawa due to economic and social factors, positively contributed to the city as both an industrial hub and as the proud beneficiary of a rich cultural landscape.