Transcript 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
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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 BergenBelsen
– 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