Members of the family ducked under an empty doorway and stepped over the rubble from their home.

“It’s shocking, really shocking,” said Abdulrahman Alama, 37, as he stared at the damaged home. A refugee in Lebanon for 13 years since the start of Syria’s civil war, he had returned to Homs and was visiting the family home with his sister and another relative just a week after the fall of President Bashar al-Assad. Any joy was tempered by the sight of their home.

“I don’t want to send a photo to my father because it is too shocking,” he said.

Days after the lightning-fast rebel offensive that ousted Mr. al-Assad, Syrians are going back home by the thousands, among them refugees, the internally displaced and detainees emerging from prisons. And residents are shaking off the terror of living under dictatorship.

In Homs, people were reacting with both smiles and tears, thanking God and frequently cursing their former president.

Much of Syria was devastated by Mr. al-Assad’s brutal fight to suppress a popular uprising and hold on to power. Homs, an ancient city in central Syria where protesters were the first to take up weapons in 2011 against his oppression, became a center of resistance.