The conflict forced millions of Europeans to flee persecution, fighting, and poverty. The displacement began even before the war, when the first signs of Nazi aggression compelled German residents and their neighbors—especially Jews—to seek safety elsewhere. Migration continued throughout the war, as families left burned-out cities, children were sent to safer areas, and the scale of Nazi crimes increased. Even after the return of peace, there was an influx of refugees, with released prisoners as well as citizens of the occupied Axis powers wandering the continent.

In total, according to some estimates, approximately 60 million Europeans became refugees during the entire Second World War. According to the United Nations, by 1951, more than five years after the end of the fighting, one million people still hadn’t found a place to settle. The desperation and urgency of Europe’s current humanitarian emergency have been powerfully conveyed through photography, and this was no less true during World War II. These are just a few images that help convey the impact and magnitude of the postwar refugee crisis.

Betti Malek—pictured here on May 17, 1945—was one of numerous refugee children brought to England from Belgium after the German occupation of Antwerp in 1940. (AP Photo)

German refugees and displaced persons cram every inch of a train leaving Berlin after the end of the war. 1945. (Margaret Bourke-White—The  LIFE  Images Collection/Getty Images)

On August 10, 1944, a girl and her grandmother wait in a schoolyard in Saint-Pois, Normandy, France. Refugees fled to Saint-Pois to escape the fighting in Mortaine during the final Battle of Normandy. (Gallery Bilderwelt – Getty Images)

In 1945, there were still a handful of survivors of the 150 refugees who had left Lodz, Poland, for Berlin two months earlier. They followed the railway tracks in the hope of being picked up by a British train. (Fred Ramage – Getty Images)

Refugees wait in La Gleize, Belgium, on January 2, 1945, for transport from the war-torn town after it was recaptured by American troops during the German advance into the Belgian-Luxembourg salient. (Peter J. Carroll – AP Photo)

Refugees from across Central Europe line up for food at an Allied refugee camp in Germany on March 20, 1945. (Allan Jackson/Keystone—Getty Images)

A stream of refugees and people bombed out of their homes after the end of the war in 1945 moves through destroyed streets in Germany. Two Soviet soldiers on patrol are visible at left. (ullstein bild—Getty Images)

A group of Dutch refugee children arrive at Coventry Station in Great Britain in 1945. (Ian Smith – The  LIFE  Picture Collection/Getty Images)

German refugees flee the Russian occupation zone in Europe in the first weeks after the end of World War II, photographed on October 25, 1945. They sleep on straw in a makeshift transit camp in Uelzen in the British occupation zone of Germany. (Keystone—Getty Images)

German refugees crowd the market square in Jüchen, a town captured by the U.S. Army at the end of World War II, on March 3, 1945. (Fred Ramage/Keystone—Getty Images)

Exhausted, homeless German refugees huddled in a municipal building, seeking shelter. 1945. (Leonard McCombe—The  LIFE  Images Collection/Getty Images)

Arrival of Dutch refugee children in Britain in Tilbury, Essex, on March 11, 1945. The small paper parcel under the boy’s arm contains all his luggage. (Photographer, Ministry of Information Photo Unit/IWM – Getty Images)

Refugees from East Germany around 1944-1945. (Berlin Verlag/Archive/picture-alliance/dpa—AP Photo)

German civilian refugees prepare to flee war-torn Aachen as the battle for the doomed city draws to a close (October 24, 1944). (Keystone—AP Photo)

Women and children stand on the side of the road in 1945. (dpa/picture-alliance/dpa—AP Photo)

Swiss Jew Eva Bass, a former nightclub singer in Paris, enters the Fort Ontario refugee camp with her children Yolanda and Joachim. She carried them on a 60-kilometer march through battle lines to reach the American transport ship Henry Gibbins. 1944. (Alfred Eisenstaedt—The  LIFE  Picture Collection/Getty Images)

German civilian refugees march through the streets of Aachen on October 15, 1944, on their way to a safer area away from the combat zone. (FPG/Hulton Archive—Getty Images)

A civil affairs refugee camp in France, 1944. (Ralph Morse – The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images)

War refugees march through Berlin with their belongings on December 15, 1945. (dpa DANA/picture-alliance/dpa—AP Photo)

A French woman with two children and belongings in a stroller, seen on February 20, 1945, in Haguenau, France, before they began their long march to safety in the hinterland. They are among the refugees leaving the town because of the planned withdrawal of the U.S. 7th Army. (AP Photo)

A guard with a white armband (front, right) escorts newly arrived refugees through the refugee camp in Bebra in January 1946. (dpa/picture-alliance/dpa—AP Photo)