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Renewal of Jewish Life
in the DP Camps
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At the end of 1945, some 55,000 Jewish
survivors of forced-labor camps, concentration camps,
extermination camps, and death marches were either unwilling or
unable to return to their homes. Most of the camp survivors
assembled in DP camps in the Allied zones of occupation in Germany
and Austria, and were joined by refugees fleeing from Eastern
Europe. By the end of 1946, there were an estimated 250,000 Jewish
DPs—mostly single young persons but also a large number of family
groups and children. As early as June 1945, they had organized
themselves as a group called She’erit Hapletah (Surviving
Remnant) with its own collective consciousness and objective: to
emigrate from Europe and settle in Eretz Yisrael, though
ultimately many immigrated to the US and other countries.
Although the DP camps were under the
auspices of the Allied military authorities, their care was
entrusted to the United Nations, which supplied basic necessities
and acted as the principal coordinating and supervisory agency of
the nongovernmental welfare agencies. The Joint, headed by its
European director, Joseph J. Schwartz, sent its first team to the
American-run DP camps in June 1945. By August 1945, its operations
gained official recognition and it expanded activities, offering
assistance to Jews in the camps and aiding those who wished to
emigrate to Palestine.
In the British zone, a Jewish Relief
Unit sponsored by British Jewry was engaged in welfare
operations. Emissaries of the Jewish Brigade Group, Jewish youth
movements and agricultural settlement organizations from
Palestine, and a delegation of the Jewish Agency headed by Haim
Yahil were also active in the DP camps.
Despite the extraordinary challenges
associated with the rehabilitation of the survivors, dedicated and
resourceful volunteers answered their physical, emotional and
spiritual needs to the best of their abilities, though the efforts
of the DPs themselves were decisive. Besides the wedding supplies,
the Joint sent tefillin, mezuzot, Torah
scrolls, holy books and Hebrew dictionaries to the refugees in
order to help rekindle the Jewish life that had been all but
extinguished during the war.
Copyright ©2004 Yad Vashem The Holocaust
Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority |
