Sh'erit ha-Pletah
Encyclopedia
Sh'erit ha-Pletah is a biblical (First Chronicles
4:43) term used by Jewish survivors of the Nazi Holocaust
to refer to themselves and the communities they formed following their liberation in the spring of 1945.
Hundreds of thousands of survivors spent several years following their repatriation in Displaced Persons camp
s in Germany
, Austria
, and Italy
. The refugees became socially and politically organized advocating at first for their political and human rights in the camps, and then for the right to immigrate to British Mandate of Palestine, most of which became the Jewish State of Israel where the majority ended up living by 1950.
In an effort to destroy the evidence of war crimes, Nazi
authorities and military staff accelerated the pace of killings, forced victims on death marches
, and attempted to deport many of them away from the rapidly shrinking German lines. As the German war effort collapsed
, survivors were typically left on their own, on trains, by the sides of roads, and in camps. Estimates of the number of Jewish displaced persons run at about 250,000.
In the first few days, Allied
military forces improvised relief in the form of shelter, food, and medical care. A large number of refugees were in critical condition as a result of malnutrition
, abuse, and disease. Many died, but medical material was requisitioned from military stores and German civilian facilities. Military doctors as well as physicians among the survivors themselves used available resources to help a large number recover their physical health. The first proper funerals of Holocaust victims took place during this period with the assistance of Allied forces and military clergy.
Shelter was also improvised in the beginning, with refugees of various origins being housed in abandoned barracks, hotels, former concentration camps, and private homes.
As Germany and Austria came under Allied military administration
, the commanders assumed responsibility for the safety and disposition of all displaced persons. The vast majority of non-Jewish DPs were repatriated in a matter of months. General Patton, who acted as the initial military commander for the DP camps, was intent on repatriating Jewish survivors to the countries from which they had been deported. This plan was abandoned, meeting with resistance both from the refugees themselves and civilian American authorities.
The number of refugees in the Sh'erit ha-Pletah continued to grow as displaced Jews who were in Western Europe at war's end were joined by hundreds of thousands of refugees from Eastern Europe. Many of these had returned to their erstwhile homes to a hostile reception among their non-Jewish neighbors. Vigilantes in Poland held often murderous anti-Jewish riots in Cracow on August 20, 1945, Sosnowiec
October 25, Lublin
November 19, and most notably in Kielce
on July 4, 1946, the Kielce pogrom
.
Although hundreds of DP camps were in operation between 1945 and 1948, the refugees were mostly segregated, with several camps being dedicated to Jews. These camps varied in terms of the conditions afforded the refugees, how they were managed, and the composition of their population.
In the American sector, the Jewish community across many camps organized itself rapidly for purposes of representation and advocacy. In the British sector, most refugees were concentrated in the Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp and were under tighter control.
In addition to military authorities, a number of other organizations played an active role in the emerging Jewish community in the DP camps. The short-lived UNRRA and its successor, the International Refugee Organization
took responsibility for much of the humanitarian efforts on behalf of the Allied powers; the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
("Joint") provided financial support and supplies from American sources; in the British sector, the Jewish Relief Unit acted as the British equivalent to the Joint; and the ORT
established numerous vocational and other training. Over time, the political dynamics in the Yishuv
in the British Mandate in Palestine found its counterparties in the Sh'erit ha-Pletah.
and the Allied military administration. It resulted in the formation of a provisional council and an executive committee chaired by Zalman Grinberg
.
In July, events involving two prominent American officials profoundly affected the future of the Sh'erit ha-Pletah.
One was General George Patton, who, acting as military governor in the southern area of Germany decided early in July that the entire Munich area was to be cleared of displaced persons with an eye toward repatriating them to their countries of origin. Joseph Dunner, an American officer who in civilian life was a professor of political science, sent a memorandum to military authorities protesting the order. When 90 trucks of the Third Army arrived at Buchberg
to transport the refugees there, they refused to move, citing Dunner's memo. Patton's attempt at repatriating Jewish refugees resulted in a resolve within the Sh'erit ha-Pletah to define their own destiny. Based on these efforts and blatant antisemitic remarks, Patton was relieved of this command and died shortly afterwards in a car accident.
The other was that Earl G. Harrison
, who had been sent by president Truman to investigate conditions among the "non-repatriables" in the DP camps submitted a report on his findingshttp://www1.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/dp/resourc1.htm, stating among other things that:
Harrison's report was met with consternation in Washington, and its contrast with Patton's position ultimately contributed to Patton being relieved of his command in Germany in September 1945.
Bolstered by the support from Harrison and Patton's frustrated attempts at forcing a solution upon them, the various camp committees convened a conference for the entire Sh'erit ha-Pletah on July 25 at the St. Ottilien camp. The delegates passed a fourteen-point program that established a broad mandate, including the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine with UN recognition, compensation to victims, participation in the trials against Nazi war criminals, archival of historical records, and full autonomy for the committees.
As it turned out, the American and British sectors developed independent organization structures.
The center for the British sector in Germany was at the Bergen-Belsen DP camp
, where Josef Rosensaft
had been the primus motor for establishing what became the Central Committee for Displaced Persons in the British zone. In the American sector, Zalman Grinberg
and Samuel Gringauz and others led the formation of the The Central Committee of the Liberated Jews, which was to establish offices first in the former Deutsches Museum
and then in Siebertstrasse 3 in Munich
.
The central organizations for Jewish refugees had an overwhelming number of issues to resolve, among them:
Military authorities were at first reluctant to officially recognize the central committees as the official representatives of the Jewish refugees in DP camps, though cooperation and negotiations carried characteristics of a de facto acceptance of their mandate. But on September 7, 1946, at a meeting in Frankfurt
, the American military authorities recognized the Central Committee of the Liberated Jews as a legitimate party to the issue of the Jewish displaced persons in the American sector.
group to Labor Zionists
and even ideological communists
. Although Yiddish was the common language within the community, individuals came from virtually every corner of Europe.
There was lively political debate, involving satire, political campaigns, and the occasional acrimony. The growth of Yiddish newspapers within the camps added fuel to the political culture.
The political environment of the community evolved during its years of existence. In the first year or two, it was predominantly focused on improving the conditions in the camps and asserting the legitimacy of the community as an autonomous entity. Over time, the emphasis shifted to promoting the Zionist goals of allowing immigration into the British Mandate in Palestine; political divisions within the Sh'erit ha-Pletah mirrored those found in the Yishuv itself.
At every turn, the community expressed its opposition and outrage against British restrictions on Jewish immigration to Palestine. In the British sector, the protests approached a level of civil disobedience; in the American sector, attempts were made to apply political pressure to alleviate these restrictions. The relationship between Sh'erit ha-Pletah and British authorities remained tense until the State of Israel was formed. This came to a head when Lieutenant General Sir Frederick E. Morgan
- then UNRRA chief of operations in Germany - claimed that the influx of Jewish refugees from Eastern Europe as "nothing short of a skillful campaign of anti-British aggression on the part of Zion aided and abetted by Russia...[meaning] death to the British." (Morgan was allowed to remain in his post after this comment but was fired when making similar comments later).
In late 1945, the UNRRA conducted several surveys among Jewish refugees, asking them to list their preferred destination for emigration. Among one population of 19,000, 18,700 named "Palestine" as their first choice, and 98% also named "Palestine" as their second choice. At the camp in Fürth
, respondents were asked not to list Palestine as both their first and second choice, and 25% of the respondents then wrote "crematorium."
All the while, the Sh'erit ha-Pletah retained close relationships with the political leadership of the Yishuv, prompting several visits from David Ben-Gurion
and other Zionist leaders. While officially detached from the committees, there was considerable support for clandestine immigration to Palestine through the Aliya Beth programs among the refugees; and tacit support for these activities also among American, UNRRA, Joint and other organizations. A delegation (consisting of Norbert Wollheim
, Samuel Schlumowitz, Boris Pliskin, and Leon Retter flew to the United States to raise funds for the community, appealing to a sense of pride over "schools built for our children, four thousand pioneers on the farms... thousands of youths in trades schools... self-sacrifice of doctors, teachers, writers...democratization... hard-won autonomy," and also met with officials at the US War Department and Sir Raphael Salento over the formation of the International Refugee Organization
.
Over time, the Sh'erit ha-Pletah took on the characteristics of a state in its own right. It coordinated efforts with the political leadership in the Yishuv and the United States, forming a transient power triangle within the Jewish world. It sent its own delegation to the Twenty-Second Zionist Congress in Basel
.
), the vast majority of the Jewish DPs ultimately left the camps and settled elsewhere. About 136,000 settled in Israel, 80,000 in the United States, and sizeable numbers also in Canada and South Africa.
Although the community established many of the institutions that characterize a durable society, and indeed came to dominate an entire section of Munich, the overriding imperative was to find new homes for the refugees. To make the point, many of the leaders emigrated at the first possible opportunity. Both overt lobbying efforts and underground migration sought to open for unrestricted immigration to Palestine. And the camps largely emptied once the state of Israel was established, many of the refugees immediately joining the newly formed Israel Defense Forces
to fight the 1948 Arab-Israeli War
.
The Central Committee in the American sector declared its dissolution on December 17, 1950 at the Deutsche Museum in Munich. Of the original group that founded the committee, only rabbi Samuel Snieg remained for the dissolution. All the others had already emigrated, most of them to Israel. Rabbi Snieg had remained to complete the first full edition of the Talmud
published in Europe after the Holocaust, the so-called Survivors' Talmud
.
The last DP camp, Föhrenwald
, closed in February 1957, by then populated only by the so-called "hardcore" cases, elderly and those disabled by disease.
Books of Chronicles
The Books of Chronicles are part of the Hebrew Bible. In the Masoretic Text, it appears as the first or last book of the Ketuvim . Chronicles largely parallels the Davidic narratives in the Books of Samuel and the Books of Kings...
4:43) term used by Jewish survivors of the Nazi Holocaust
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
to refer to themselves and the communities they formed following their liberation in the spring of 1945.
Hundreds of thousands of survivors spent several years following their repatriation in Displaced Persons camp
Displaced persons camp
A displaced persons camp or DP camp is a temporary facility for displaced persons coerced into forced migration. The term is mainly used for camps established after World War II in West Germany and in Austria, as well as in the United Kingdom, primarily for refugees from Eastern Europe and for the...
s in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
, and Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
. The refugees became socially and politically organized advocating at first for their political and human rights in the camps, and then for the right to immigrate to British Mandate of Palestine, most of which became the Jewish State of Israel where the majority ended up living by 1950.
Formation of the DP camps
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
authorities and military staff accelerated the pace of killings, forced victims on death marches
Death marches (Holocaust)
The death marches refer to the forcible movement between Autumn 1944 and late April 1945 by Nazi Germany of thousands of prisoners from German concentration camps near the war front to camps inside Germany.-General:...
, and attempted to deport many of them away from the rapidly shrinking German lines. As the German war effort collapsed
End of World War II in Europe
The final battles of the European Theatre of World War II as well as the German surrender to the Western Allies and the Soviet Union took place in late April and early May 1945.-Timeline of surrenders and deaths:...
, survivors were typically left on their own, on trains, by the sides of roads, and in camps. Estimates of the number of Jewish displaced persons run at about 250,000.
In the first few days, Allied
Allies of World War II
The Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War . Former Axis states contributing to the Allied victory are not considered Allied states...
military forces improvised relief in the form of shelter, food, and medical care. A large number of refugees were in critical condition as a result of malnutrition
Malnutrition
Malnutrition is the condition that results from taking an unbalanced diet in which certain nutrients are lacking, in excess , or in the wrong proportions....
, abuse, and disease. Many died, but medical material was requisitioned from military stores and German civilian facilities. Military doctors as well as physicians among the survivors themselves used available resources to help a large number recover their physical health. The first proper funerals of Holocaust victims took place during this period with the assistance of Allied forces and military clergy.
Shelter was also improvised in the beginning, with refugees of various origins being housed in abandoned barracks, hotels, former concentration camps, and private homes.
As Germany and Austria came under Allied military administration
Allied Occupation Zones in Germany
The Allied powers who defeated Nazi Germany in World War II divided the country west of the Oder-Neisse line into four occupation zones for administrative purposes during 1945–49. In the closing weeks of fighting in Europe, US forces had pushed beyond the previously agreed boundaries for the...
, the commanders assumed responsibility for the safety and disposition of all displaced persons. The vast majority of non-Jewish DPs were repatriated in a matter of months. General Patton, who acted as the initial military commander for the DP camps, was intent on repatriating Jewish survivors to the countries from which they had been deported. This plan was abandoned, meeting with resistance both from the refugees themselves and civilian American authorities.
The number of refugees in the Sh'erit ha-Pletah continued to grow as displaced Jews who were in Western Europe at war's end were joined by hundreds of thousands of refugees from Eastern Europe. Many of these had returned to their erstwhile homes to a hostile reception among their non-Jewish neighbors. Vigilantes in Poland held often murderous anti-Jewish riots in Cracow on August 20, 1945, Sosnowiec
Sosnowiec
Sosnowiec is a city in Zagłębie Dąbrowskie in southern Poland, near Katowice. It is one of the central districts of the Upper Silesian Metropolitan Union - a metropolis with a combined population of over two million people located in the Silesian Highlands, on the Brynica river .It is situated in...
October 25, Lublin
Lublin
Lublin is the ninth largest city in Poland. It is the capital of Lublin Voivodeship with a population of 350,392 . Lublin is also the largest Polish city east of the Vistula river...
November 19, and most notably in Kielce
Kielce
Kielce ) is a city in central Poland with 204,891 inhabitants . It is also the capital city of the Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship since 1999, previously in Kielce Voivodeship...
on July 4, 1946, the Kielce pogrom
Kielce pogrom
The Kielce pogrom was an outbreak of violence against the Jewish community in the city of Kielce, Poland on July 4, 1946, perpetrated by a mob of local townsfolk and members of the official government forces of the People's Republic of Poland...
.
Although hundreds of DP camps were in operation between 1945 and 1948, the refugees were mostly segregated, with several camps being dedicated to Jews. These camps varied in terms of the conditions afforded the refugees, how they were managed, and the composition of their population.
In the American sector, the Jewish community across many camps organized itself rapidly for purposes of representation and advocacy. In the British sector, most refugees were concentrated in the Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp and were under tighter control.
In addition to military authorities, a number of other organizations played an active role in the emerging Jewish community in the DP camps. The short-lived UNRRA and its successor, the International Refugee Organization
International Refugee Organization
The International Refugee Organization was founded on April 20, 1946 to deal with the massive refugee problem created by World War II. A Preparatory Commission began operations fourteen months previously. It was a United Nations specialized agency and took over many of the functions of the earlier...
took responsibility for much of the humanitarian efforts on behalf of the Allied powers; the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee is a worldwide Jewish relief organization headquartered in New York. It was established in 1914 and is active in more than 70 countries....
("Joint") provided financial support and supplies from American sources; in the British sector, the Jewish Relief Unit acted as the British equivalent to the Joint; and the ORT
World ORT
World ORT is a non-profit non-governmental organization whose mission is the advancement of Jewish and other people through training and education, with past and present activities in over 100 countries....
established numerous vocational and other training. Over time, the political dynamics in the Yishuv
Yishuv
The Yishuv or Ha-Yishuv is the term referring to the body of Jewish residents in Palestine before the establishment of the State of Israel...
in the British Mandate in Palestine found its counterparties in the Sh'erit ha-Pletah.
From representation to autonomy
The refugees who found themselves in provisional, sparse quarters under military guard soon spoke up against the ironic nature of their liberation, invoking an oft-repeated slogan "From Dachau to Feldafing." Working committees were established in each camp, and on July 1, 1945 the committees met for a founding session of a federation for Jewish DP camp committees in Feldafing. The session also included representatives of the Jewish BrigadeJewish Brigade
The Jewish Infantry Brigade Group was a military formation of the British Army that served in Europe during the Second World War. The brigade was formed in late 1944, and its personnel fought the Germans in Italy...
and the Allied military administration. It resulted in the formation of a provisional council and an executive committee chaired by Zalman Grinberg
Zalman Grinberg
Zalman Grinberg was a medical doctor who served as the chairman for the Central Committee of Liberated Jews in the American sector of Germany and Austria after World War II....
.
In July, events involving two prominent American officials profoundly affected the future of the Sh'erit ha-Pletah.
One was General George Patton, who, acting as military governor in the southern area of Germany decided early in July that the entire Munich area was to be cleared of displaced persons with an eye toward repatriating them to their countries of origin. Joseph Dunner, an American officer who in civilian life was a professor of political science, sent a memorandum to military authorities protesting the order. When 90 trucks of the Third Army arrived at Buchberg
Buchberg
Buchberg is a municipality in the canton of Schaffhausen in Switzerland.With Rüdlingen, Buchberg forms an exclave of the Canton of Schaffhausen on the Rhine, bordered by the Canton of Zürich and Baden-Württemberg.-History:...
to transport the refugees there, they refused to move, citing Dunner's memo. Patton's attempt at repatriating Jewish refugees resulted in a resolve within the Sh'erit ha-Pletah to define their own destiny. Based on these efforts and blatant antisemitic remarks, Patton was relieved of this command and died shortly afterwards in a car accident.
The other was that Earl G. Harrison
Earl G. Harrison
Earl Grant Harrison was an American attorney, academician, and public servant. He is chiefly remembered for his work on behalf of displaced persons in the aftermath of the Second World War, when he brought attention to the plight of Jewish refugees in a crucial report he submitted to President...
, who had been sent by president Truman to investigate conditions among the "non-repatriables" in the DP camps submitted a report on his findingshttp://www1.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/dp/resourc1.htm, stating among other things that:
- Generally speaking...many Jewish displaced persons and other possibly non-repatriables are living under guard behind barbed-wire fences, in camps of several descriptions (built by the Germans for slave-laborers and Jews), including some of the most notorious of the concentration camps, amidst crowded, frequently unsanitary and generally grim conditions, in complete idleness, with no opportunity, except surreptitiously, to communicate with the outside world, waiting, hoping for some word of encouragement and action in their behalf....
- ...While there has been marked improvement in the health of survivors of the Nazi starvation and persecution program, there are many pathetic malnutrition cases both among the hospitalized and in the general population of the camps...at many of the camps and centers including those where serious starvation cases are, there is a marked and serious lack of needed medical supplies...
- ...many of the Jewish displaced persons, late in July, had no clothing other than their concentration camp garb-a rather hideous striped pajama effect-while others, to their chagrin, were obliged to wear German S.S. uniforms. It is questionable which clothing they hate the more...
- ...Most of the very little which has been done (to reunited families) has been informal action by the displaced persons themselves with the aid of devoted Army Chaplains, frequently Rabbis, and the American Joint Distribution Committee...
- ...As matters now stand, we appear to be treating the Jews as the Nazis treated them except that we do not exterminate them. They are in concentration camps in large numbers under our military guard instead of S.S. troops...
- ...The first and plainest need of these people is a recognition of their actual status and by this I mean their status as Jews...While admittedly it is not normally desirable to set aside particular racial or religious groups from their nationality categories, the plain truth is that this was done for so long by the Nazis that a group has been created which has special needs...
- ...Their desire to leave Germany is an urgent one....They want to be evacuated to Palestine now, just as other national groups are being repatriated to their homes...Palestine, while clearly the choice of most, is not the only named place of possible emigration. Some, but the number is not large, wish to emigrate to the United States where they have relatives, others to England, the British Dominions, or to South America...
- ...No other single matter is, therefore, so important from the viewpoint of Jews in Germany and Austria and those elsewhere who have known the horrors of the concentration camps as is the disposition of the Palestine question.
Harrison's report was met with consternation in Washington, and its contrast with Patton's position ultimately contributed to Patton being relieved of his command in Germany in September 1945.
Bolstered by the support from Harrison and Patton's frustrated attempts at forcing a solution upon them, the various camp committees convened a conference for the entire Sh'erit ha-Pletah on July 25 at the St. Ottilien camp. The delegates passed a fourteen-point program that established a broad mandate, including the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine with UN recognition, compensation to victims, participation in the trials against Nazi war criminals, archival of historical records, and full autonomy for the committees.
As it turned out, the American and British sectors developed independent organization structures.
The center for the British sector in Germany was at the Bergen-Belsen DP camp
Bergen-Belsen DP camp
Near the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, British forces established a displaced persons camp for refugees after World War II. The site used abandoned German army Panzer barracks for housing facilities, and after November 1945, Jewish refugees were given their own section...
, where Josef Rosensaft
Josef Rosensaft
Josef Rosensaft was a Holocaust survivor who led the community of Jewish displaced persons Josef Rosensaft (January 15, 1911 - September 11, 1975) was a Holocaust survivor who led the community of Jewish displaced persons Josef Rosensaft (January 15, 1911 - September 11, 1975) was a Holocaust...
had been the primus motor for establishing what became the Central Committee for Displaced Persons in the British zone. In the American sector, Zalman Grinberg
Zalman Grinberg
Zalman Grinberg was a medical doctor who served as the chairman for the Central Committee of Liberated Jews in the American sector of Germany and Austria after World War II....
and Samuel Gringauz and others led the formation of the The Central Committee of the Liberated Jews, which was to establish offices first in the former Deutsches Museum
Deutsches Museum
The Deutsches Museum in Munich, Germany, is the world's largest museum of technology and science, with approximately 1.5 million visitors per year and about 28,000 exhibited objects from 50 fields of science and technology. The museum was founded on June 28, 1903, at a meeting of the Association...
and then in Siebertstrasse 3 in Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
.
The central organizations for Jewish refugees had an overwhelming number of issues to resolve, among them:
- Ensuring healthy and dignified living conditions for the refugees living in various camps and installations
- Establishing political legitimacy for themselves by establishing a constitution with a political process with debates, elections, etc.
- Facilitating and encouraging religious, educational, and cultural expression within the camps
- Arranging for employment for the refugees, though not in enterprises that would contribute to the German economy
- Supporting the absorption in the camp infrastructure of "new" refugees arriving from Eastern Europe
- Resolving acrimonious and sometimes violent disputes between the camps and German police
- Managing the public image of displaced persons, particularly with respect to black market activities
- Advocating immigration destinations for the refugees, in particular to the British Mandate in Palestine, but also the United States, Australia, and elsewhere
Military authorities were at first reluctant to officially recognize the central committees as the official representatives of the Jewish refugees in DP camps, though cooperation and negotiations carried characteristics of a de facto acceptance of their mandate. But on September 7, 1946, at a meeting in Frankfurt
Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...
, the American military authorities recognized the Central Committee of the Liberated Jews as a legitimate party to the issue of the Jewish displaced persons in the American sector.
Political activism
What the people of the Sh'erit ha-Pletah had in common was what had made them victims in the first place, but other than that they were a diverse group. Their outlook, needs, and aspirations varied tremendously. There were strictly observant Jews as well as individuals that had earlier been assimilated into secular culture. Religious convictions ran from the RevisionistRevisionist Zionism
Revisionist Zionism is a nationalist faction within the Zionist movement. It is the founding ideology of the non-religious right in Israel, and was the chief ideological competitor to the dominant socialist Labor Zionism...
group to Labor Zionists
Labor Zionism
Labor Zionism can be described as the major stream of the left wing of the Zionist movement. It was, for many years, the most significant tendency among Zionists and Zionist organizational structure...
and even ideological communists
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
. Although Yiddish was the common language within the community, individuals came from virtually every corner of Europe.
There was lively political debate, involving satire, political campaigns, and the occasional acrimony. The growth of Yiddish newspapers within the camps added fuel to the political culture.
The political environment of the community evolved during its years of existence. In the first year or two, it was predominantly focused on improving the conditions in the camps and asserting the legitimacy of the community as an autonomous entity. Over time, the emphasis shifted to promoting the Zionist goals of allowing immigration into the British Mandate in Palestine; political divisions within the Sh'erit ha-Pletah mirrored those found in the Yishuv itself.
At every turn, the community expressed its opposition and outrage against British restrictions on Jewish immigration to Palestine. In the British sector, the protests approached a level of civil disobedience; in the American sector, attempts were made to apply political pressure to alleviate these restrictions. The relationship between Sh'erit ha-Pletah and British authorities remained tense until the State of Israel was formed. This came to a head when Lieutenant General Sir Frederick E. Morgan
Frederick E. Morgan
Lieutenant General Sir Frederick Edgeworth Morgan KCB was a British Army officer who fought in the First World War and the Second World War...
- then UNRRA chief of operations in Germany - claimed that the influx of Jewish refugees from Eastern Europe as "nothing short of a skillful campaign of anti-British aggression on the part of Zion aided and abetted by Russia...
In late 1945, the UNRRA conducted several surveys among Jewish refugees, asking them to list their preferred destination for emigration. Among one population of 19,000, 18,700 named "Palestine" as their first choice, and 98% also named "Palestine" as their second choice. At the camp in Fürth
Fürth
The city of Fürth is located in northern Bavaria, Germany in the administrative region of Middle Franconia. It is now contiguous with the larger city of Nuremberg, the centres of the two cities being only 7 km apart....
, respondents were asked not to list Palestine as both their first and second choice, and 25% of the respondents then wrote "crematorium."
All the while, the Sh'erit ha-Pletah retained close relationships with the political leadership of the Yishuv, prompting several visits from David Ben-Gurion
David Ben-Gurion
' was the first Prime Minister of Israel.Ben-Gurion's passion for Zionism, which began early in life, led him to become a major Zionist leader and Executive Head of the World Zionist Organization in 1946...
and other Zionist leaders. While officially detached from the committees, there was considerable support for clandestine immigration to Palestine through the Aliya Beth programs among the refugees; and tacit support for these activities also among American, UNRRA, Joint and other organizations. A delegation (consisting of Norbert Wollheim
Norbert Wollheim
Norbert Wollheim was a chartered accountant, tax advisor, previously a director of Central Council of the Jews in Germany and a functionary of Jewish organizations....
, Samuel Schlumowitz, Boris Pliskin, and Leon Retter flew to the United States to raise funds for the community, appealing to a sense of pride over "schools built for our children, four thousand pioneers on the farms... thousands of youths in trades schools... self-sacrifice of doctors, teachers, writers...democratization... hard-won autonomy," and also met with officials at the US War Department and Sir Raphael Salento over the formation of the International Refugee Organization
International Refugee Organization
The International Refugee Organization was founded on April 20, 1946 to deal with the massive refugee problem created by World War II. A Preparatory Commission began operations fourteen months previously. It was a United Nations specialized agency and took over many of the functions of the earlier...
.
Over time, the Sh'erit ha-Pletah took on the characteristics of a state in its own right. It coordinated efforts with the political leadership in the Yishuv and the United States, forming a transient power triangle within the Jewish world. It sent its own delegation to the Twenty-Second Zionist Congress in Basel
Basel
Basel or Basle In the national languages of Switzerland the city is also known as Bâle , Basilea and Basilea is Switzerland's third most populous city with about 166,000 inhabitants. Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany...
.
A community dedicated to its own dissolution
With the exception of 10,000–15,000 who chose to make their homes in Germany after the war (see Zentralrat der Juden in DeutschlandZentralrat der Juden in Deutschland
The Zentralrat der Juden in Deutschland is a federation of German Jews organizing many Jewish organisations in Germany. It was founded on July 19, 1950, as a response to the increasing isolation of German Jews by the international Jewish community and increasing interest in Jewish affairs by the ...
), the vast majority of the Jewish DPs ultimately left the camps and settled elsewhere. About 136,000 settled in Israel, 80,000 in the United States, and sizeable numbers also in Canada and South Africa.
Although the community established many of the institutions that characterize a durable society, and indeed came to dominate an entire section of Munich, the overriding imperative was to find new homes for the refugees. To make the point, many of the leaders emigrated at the first possible opportunity. Both overt lobbying efforts and underground migration sought to open for unrestricted immigration to Palestine. And the camps largely emptied once the state of Israel was established, many of the refugees immediately joining the newly formed Israel Defense Forces
Israel Defense Forces
The Israel Defense Forces , commonly known in Israel by the Hebrew acronym Tzahal , are the military forces of the State of Israel. They consist of the ground forces, air force and navy. It is the sole military wing of the Israeli security forces, and has no civilian jurisdiction within Israel...
to fight the 1948 Arab-Israeli War
1948 Arab-Israeli War
The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, known to Israelis as the War of Independence or War of Liberation The war commenced after the termination of the British Mandate for Palestine and the creation of an independent Israel at midnight on 14 May 1948 when, following a period of civil war, Arab armies invaded...
.
The Central Committee in the American sector declared its dissolution on December 17, 1950 at the Deutsche Museum in Munich. Of the original group that founded the committee, only rabbi Samuel Snieg remained for the dissolution. All the others had already emigrated, most of them to Israel. Rabbi Snieg had remained to complete the first full edition of the Talmud
Talmud
The Talmud is a central text of mainstream Judaism. It takes the form of a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs and history....
published in Europe after the Holocaust, the so-called Survivors' Talmud
Survivors' Talmud
The Survivors' Talmud was an edition of the Talmud published in the U.S. Zone of Allied-occupied Germany on behalf of Holocaust survivors housed in displaced persons camps. It was the first and only known edition of the Talmud to be published by a government body...
.
The last DP camp, Föhrenwald
Föhrenwald
The Föhrenwald DP camp was one of the largest in post-World War II Europe and the last to close . It was located in the section now known as Waldram in Wolfratshausen in Bavaria, Germany....
, closed in February 1957, by then populated only by the so-called "hardcore" cases, elderly and those disabled by disease.
Legacy
While most Holocaust survivors view their time in the DP camps as a transitional state, the Sh'erit ha-Pletah became an organizing force for the repatriation of the remnant in general and to Israel in particular. Its experience highlighted the challenges of ethnic groups displaced in their entirety without recourse to their original homes. It also demonstrated the resolve and ingenuity of individuals who had lost everything but made a new life for themselves.See also
- Anti-SemitismAnti-SemitismAntisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
- Bereavement in JudaismBereavement in JudaismBereavement in Judaism is a combination of minhag and mitzvah derived from Judaism's classical Torah and rabbinic texts...
- History of IsraelHistory of IsraelThe State of Israel declared independence on May 14, 1948 after almost two millennia of Jewish dispersal and persecution around the Mediterranean. From the late 19th century the Zionist movement worked towards the goal of recreating a homeland for the Jewish people...
- Holocaust denialHolocaust denialHolocaust denial is the act of denying the genocide of Jews in World War II, usually referred to as the Holocaust. The key claims of Holocaust denial are: the German Nazi government had no official policy or intention of exterminating Jews, Nazi authorities did not use extermination camps and gas...
- Jewish historyJewish historyJewish history is the history of the Jews, their religion and culture, as it developed and interacted with other peoples, religions and cultures. Since Jewish history is over 4000 years long and includes hundreds of different populations, any treatment can only be provided in broad strokes...
- Beni VirtzbergBeni VirtzbergBeni Virtzberg was an Israeli forester, Holocaust survivor and writer who was among the first in Israel to write an autobiographical account of his experiences during and after the Holocaust...
Further reading
- Angelika Königseder and Juliane Wetzel: Waiting for Hope: Jewish Displaced Persons in Post-World War II Germany. Evanston, Illinois, 2001. Northwestern University Press. ISBN 0810114771
- Leo W. Schwarz: The Redeemers: A Saga of the Years 1945–1952. New York, 1953. Farrar, Straus, and Young.
- Mark Wyman: DPs: Europe's Displaced Persons, 1945–1951. Ithaca, 1989 and 1998. Cornell University Press.
- Eli Barnavi (ed.): A Historical Atlas of the Jewish People. New York, 1992. Schocken Books.
- Juliane Wetzel, "An uneasy existence: Jewish survivors in Germany after 1945," in: Hanna Schissler (ed.), Miracle Years. A cultural history of West Germany 1949-1968, Princeton, Oxford 2000, S. 131–144;
- Angelika Königseder/Juliane Wetzel, "DP Camp 1945–1950: The British Section", in: Erik Somers/René Kok (eds.) Jewish Displaced Persons in Camp Bergen-Belsen 1945–1950, Waanders Publishers Zwolle 2003, S. 42-55.
- Zeev W. Mankowitz, Life between Memory and Hope, The Survivors of the Holocaust in Occupied Germany, Cambridge University Press, 348 pages, ISBN 0521811058, ISBN 9780521811057
- Ha-Dimah (The Tear), by Rafael Olewski, published by Irgun She'erit Hapleta Bergen-Belsen Be-Israel, Tel-Aviv, 1983. ISBN 978-965-91217-0-0
External links
- Jewish Virtual Library topic page
- United States Holocaust Museum: The Aftermath
- Four Seasons Documentary, ( 2006 in production) set in New York's Catskill Mountains
- Yad Vashem lexical entry on displaced persons
- Simon Wiesenthal Center on the Aftermath
- German language article in shoa.de on displaced persons in Germany
- "The Will to Live" Time Magazine July 12 1947