This 1988 photograph taken at the Friedland border transit camp shows a family of ethnic German resettlers from Eastern Europe [Aussiedler], who were welcomed into the Federal Republic more than forty years after the end of the World War II. Their ethnic “return” from countries such as Poland, Romania, and the Soviet Union was facilitated by the policy of détente. The Friedland camp in Lower Saxony was established by British forces after the end of the Second World War and initially served as a processing facility for returning POWs as well as expellees from former German territories in the East. By accepting GDR refugees and migrants from other countries, Friedland became known as “the gateway to freedom.”