Even by the end of 1945, the responsible officials from UNRRA and the military governments were aware that there were people in the DP camps who were not actually DPs, meaning that other organizations were responsible for them. For this reason, screenings were conducted in the British and US occupation zones from 1946 onward. Decisions about DP status were made on the basis of questionnaires that all residents of the DP camps had to fill out. In the British zone, a questionnaire for DPs with the abbreviation “DP/E1” was used. This form was also translated into Polish and possibly other languages. In the US zone, a questionnaire for DPs was used with the abbreviation “DP/G-1.” Russian, Ukrainian, Latvian, Estonian and Lithuanian versions of this form have also been preserved in the Arolsen Archives.
The forms from the British and US zones are structured in a very similar way, and the questions are nearly identical. The main difference is that the US forms had a pre-printed field for the decision on whether the person would receive DP status. It is important to note that these questionnaires are not CM/1 applications; they were created in a very different context. In many cases, both these early questionnaires and the later CM/1 applications for the same people have been preserved.