Europe
Latvia and the Baltics: Refugees Who Became U.S. Diplomats
From Latvia and the Baltics to the service of the United States.
Displaced persons
When the Soviet army returned to the Baltic states in 1944, tens of thousands of Latvians, Lithuanians, and Estonians fled west. After the war many lived for years in displaced persons camps in Germany and Austria.
The Displaced Persons Act of 1948
The Displaced Persons Act opened the door to hundreds of thousands of Europeans uprooted by the war. Baltic families settled across the United States. When Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia regained independence in 1991, the United States sent a son of that diaspora to Riga as its first ambassador.