Lesum and Tirpitz camps in Bremen, Germany, were the last stop in Europe where refugees from all over Europe passed final inspection and were shipped to the participating countries all over the world which provided formal sponsors for such war relief emigration. Catholic Charities was one of them.

Enrico Ciceran family, Bremen, Germany, August 1951
A restaurant on the outskirts of the Lesum refugee camp in Bremen, Germany, frequented by Istrian and other refugees
(August or early September 1951)

Camp food was awful, so those  who had any spare change - usually earned by doing menial work at the camp - were allowed to leave the camp compound to have dinner at a local pub (osteria). My sister and I could not stomach the camp food so our family frequented two such pubs, one being on a cliff that overlooked the sea (and there they offered a heavenly chicken soup that I can still taste after 53 years as well as the atrocious Lipton soup made out of dry packets we ate at the camp and on the sea voyage! The above photo is taken in the second pub we frequented.

In the front row from left to right are the husband and wife proprietors, an unknown woman with a little boy, then Bruna and Marisa Ciceran. In the back row are unknown Istrians and at the extreme right Nina and Rico Ciceran, parents of the two girls.

Below: the Ciceran family with another Istrian, name unknown.

War Relief Services, Resettlement Identification Form.

General S. D. Sturgis

Photographed in 1949 at its point of departure, Bremerhaven, Germany, this is one of the American ships that transported World War II refugees to other countries including Canada, USA and Australia. It was also the ship on which the Ciceran family left Europe for the USA, docking in New Orleans, Louisiana on October 11, 1951. Read about the voyage just before theirs that docked at Halifax, Canada - 11 settembre 1951 - sbarco al Pier 2.