Survivors, Displaced Persons, Refugees

Abstract

Abstract This chapter shows how survivors became displaced persons (DPs), then refugees and new immigrants, or, in a minority of cases, stayed to become the nucleus of a renewed Jewish community in Germany—a very beleaguered and small one with a tenuous connection to wider society in the first postwar decade or so. As the camps became established communities, UNRRA/IRO cared for survivors by housing them and providing medical assistance. With the indispensable help of charities, survivors were encouraged to become functioning members of society again through vocational training, economic assistance, and joining and running associations and institutions of all sorts, from sports clubs to religious bodies, theatre groups to political movements, and self-representation organizations for dealing with the occupation and German authorities. Because the DP camps lasted for longer than anyone envisaged, these organizations became deeply entrenched and developed, and the camps became the settings for revitalized communities, long before their inhabitants were transplanted to Palestine/Israel, the United States, or elsewhere. The role of the survivors in helping themselves was crucial; from medical care to vocational training to political representation, survivors held key positions in the movements and societies that sought to advance the DPs’ cause—on the basis that no one else could understand them or would help them in the necessary ways. Using ITS records, the chapter shows how survivors formed their own tracing organizations, searched for their loved ones, and were in turn helped with medical care and emigration.