Survivors and Displaced Persons

Survivors and Displaced Persons

Sickness

• Many of the survivors were very sick and would spend time in medical camps recovering

Survivors in a Hospital Barracks

Americans Working In A Typhus Ward

Sickness in the Camps

• Corpses were scattered around the camps and the liberators buried them quickly to avoid disease and distress.

There Was No Homecoming

• Allies found seven to nine million displaced persons living in countries not their own.

• They had no homes to return to

• With nowhere to go, they were forced to live in camps set up on sites where they were imprisoned.

There Was No Homecoming

There Was No Homecoming

• American army not equipped to deal with all of the problems they encountered– Immediate housing– Medical care– Food– Trying to reunite families– Resettling those who could not or would not go

home

There Was No Homecoming

• Other problems displaced persons faced– Depression– Haunted by nightmares– Mistrusted authority- even Americans trying to

help them– Camps were dirty and overcrowded

Displaced Persons

• Britain unwilling to permit Jewish emigration to Palestine

• U.S. not ready to receive an influx of refugees

Truman and the Jews

• Truman sends Earl Harrison to report on the displaced-persons camp– “We appear to be treating the Jews as the

Nazi’s treated them, except that we do not exterminate them”

• Truman pressures Britain to let 100,000 Jews immigrate to Palestine

• He opens the U.S. to limited immigration

Truman and the Jews

• Dec. 22, 1945- Truman grants preferential treatment to displaced persons wanting to emigrate to U.S.– Over next 18 months- 22,950 DP’s admitted

• 15,478 of them Jews

• Problem of what to do with displaced persons could not be solved with a minor adjustment of quotas

Displaced Persons

• Britain calls Anglo-American Commission of Inquiry– Strategy was to buy some time and to kill the

political momentum by preparing a committee report

– Committee recommended sending Jews to Palestine

Displaced Persons

• Slowly survivors renewed their lives.– Camps filled mainly with men

• Relief organizations began to help

Displaced Persons

• By 1946, life inside camps improves– Survivors marry– New families form– Political life began anew

Pogrom in Kielce

• Was a town in Poland

• Before the war, 24,000 Jews lived here– Only 150 returned after the war looking for

family and their homes

• On July 4, 1946, a mob of Poles attacked them– 42 killed and 50 wounded

Pogrom in Kielce

• Appeals to church leaders and police fell on deaf ears

• Jews throughout Poland understood it was not safe to return home

Summer 1946

• American zone of occupied Germany flooded with Polish Jews released from Soviet Union

• Also flooded by Jews fleeing Eastern Europe after the Kielce Pogrom

• Congress had to intervene

Summer 1946

• Political battle in U.S. rages– Congress passes bill in 1948 allowing 200,000

Jews over 4 years– By then, most have already fled for Israel

Immigration Law 1948

– During 3 years after the war only 48,000 DP’s admitted to U.S.

– With immigration law of 1948- 365,334 DP’s to U.S.

• 50% Roman Catholic, only 16% Jews

– During the seven years of DP camps, fewer than 100,000 Jews make it to U.S.

Jews in the U.S.

• Many Jews in the U.S. describe their arrival to the U.S. with joy and gratitude.

• Some were reunited with relatives

• Once in the U.S. they were essentially on their own

Exodus

• Between 1944 and 1948, more than 200,000 Jews fled Eastern and Central Europe to Palestine– They weren’t content to wait while politicians

decided their fate– Set out for Palestine on their own

Exodus

• Many came to Palestine by boat– Pictures of the British forcibly removing them

from ships and imprisoning them yet again were sent to newspapers throughout the world.

• When ship called Exodus was captured, British sent survivors back to Bergen-Belsen– Caused international revulsion

The Creation of Israel

• 1922- League of Nations grants Britain a mandate over Palestine

• British decide they can no longer manage Palestine

• Nov. 29, 1947 UN partitions Palestine into two states- one Jewish and Arab

Israel

• On May 14, 1948, David Ben-Gurion proclaimed the state of Israel– That same night, Israel

was attacked by five Arab countries

– A Jewish army was in place to defend its country

Israel

• 1950- Law of Return granted Jews immediate citizenship upon their arrival

• Once unwanted everywhere, Jews now had a country

Israel

• Task of state-building was challenging– Wars to be fought– Cities to be built– Crops to be planted

• The birth of Israel was the most significant positive consequence of the Holocaust

Healing the Wounds

• Scars of their past remained

• Survival was a gift and a curse– Why did they survive when so many perished?

• Victor Frankl

• The Sunflower

Remembrance

• At first many survivors remained silent

• I promised I would tell- Sonia Weitz

Counting the Costs

• Many communities and institutions destroyed

• 10 million people killed including 6 million Jews

• Each person had a past, a present, and would have had a future

Stolen Property and Compensation

• Nazis took many valuable from the victims when they were seized

• Survivors and organizations acting on their behalf have sought compensation from Germany and other governments and banks.

• They are motivated by a desire for the suffering to be recognized and for the perpetrators to admit their guilt.

The Sites of the Camps Today

Memorials, Museums, Education

Big Questions??

• Can a person say “I was only following orders?

• What about using medicines developed by Nazi doctors?

• What about Holocaust deniers?

• Should we forgive?

• Can we forget?

“I have tried to keep memory alive…I have tried to fight those who would forget.

Because if we forget, we are guilty, we are accomplices.”

Elie Wisel, Nobel Prize Speech, 1986