Refugees from the East! Foreigners at the Italian North-Eastern border in the 1950s and in the 1960s

This paper examines the transit of foreign refugees in Trieste's relocation camps between the 1950s and 1960s. During the post-World War II resettlement, the Upper Adriatic region and Trieste served as a hinge between East and West, acting as collection points for both Italian and foreign refugees. The research focuses on several aspects: it explores the role of Trieste as a transit city and the Northeastern Italian border as a gateway to the West; it highlights the support networks involved in border crossing; and it analyzes the historical representation of Eastern European refugees, a group that, in the Cold War atmosphere, began to be seen as needing support from the “Free World.”