By the spring of 1945, approximately eight million people had been displaced from their homes by the war. By autumn 1945, the Allies had repatriated six to seven million of these people. The one million or so people who remained (approximately 250,000 of which were Jewish) became a somewhat more permanent problem in postwar Europe (primarily in Germany). To care and provide a temporary residence for these people, Displaced Persons’ (DP) camps were created.

Many of the DP camps were set up on the sites of former concentration camps or military barracks. Conditions inside were often unsanitary due to severe overcrowding and a lack of supplies in the post-war period. Initially, all displaced persons (which included military personnel, concentration camp survivors, prisoners of war and slave labourers) were grouped together in the camps according to nationality. This meant that some Jewish survivors found themselves in camps alongside their former oppressors, simply because they both happened to be from the same country.

US President Truman sent Earl G. Harrison, former US Commissioner for Immigration and Representative of the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees, to investigate. Harrison conducted  a tour of the DP camps in July 1945, paying special attention to the situation of Jewish DPs. Harrison recommended the creation of separate camps for Jewish DPs to cater for their specific needs. In December 1945, the British zone of Germany also created separate camps for Jewish DPs, recognising their special needs as a result of their traumatic experiences.

Challenges

The DP camps were plagued by various difficulties throughout their existence including: a lack of professionally trained staff, shortages in medical supplies, food, and clothing in relation to the number of camp inhabitants, the difficulty of dealing with the psychological effects of persecution on survivors, rising antisemitism on local and international fronts, the number of orphans and new children born within the camps.

These issues were extremely frustrating for the survivors, who had experienced significant trauma throughout the war years and were desperate to restart their lives.

Culture

Cultural activities in the DP camps thrived. With the support of relief organisations, DPs opened schools, celebrated religious holidays, founded camp newspapers and publications, created new literature, music, and theatre and formed sports teams. Zionism also enjoyed particular popularity in this period and setting, and as such there were various Zionist-orientated groups, publications, performances, protests and rallies.

Weddings and births were also commonplace in the DP camps.

Closure

The creation of Israel , in combination with the United States Displaced Persons Act of June 1948 (which allowed the admission of 200,000 European refugees into the United States of America), allowed mass emigration out of Europe and dramatically altered situation for DPs in Germany. By 1951, 177,109 Jews had left Europe for Palestine (through legal or illegal methods) – leaving just 20,000 Jews in Germany [Margarete Myers Feinstein, Holocaust Survivors in Postwar Germany, 1945-1957 (United States of America: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 294]. The DP camps in Germany closed one after the other, until, by 1952, only one DP camp, Föhrenwald, remained (it eventually shut in 1957).

The Landsberg Displaced Persons (DP) Camp was established in the summer of 1945. It was situated west of Munich in the American zone of occupation and was adapted from a former Wehrmacht  barracks. Around five thousand DPs lived there, making it the second largest camp in that zone.

Cultural life in the camp flourished, with democratic internal elections, a weekly newspaper (which was extremely popular across the whole of the American zone), several schools, a hospital, a radio, a theatre and a choir. The camp also had several schemes to help DPs prepare for life beyond the camp, such as the trade school, ran by the relief organisation ORT Association for the Promotion of Skilled Trades .

Religious life was quickly re-established and there were celebrations of religious holidays, celebrations, weddings, study groups and schools. As with most DP camps, Zionism thrived and enjoyed popular support.

Following the establishment of Israel 1948, and the United States Displaced Persons Act, the camps’ population quickly reduced. It closed on 15 October 1950, and shortly afterwards all remaining inhabitants were relocated.

Click here to hear testimony from Hyman Wolanski, who was born in the Landsberg DP camp.

Belsen Displaced Persons (DP) Camp was unique as it was the only DP camp to be set up on the former grounds of a concentration camp. Like other DP camps, it became a place where survivors of the Holocaust began to rebuild their lives.

Immediately after entering Belsen on 15 April 1945, the British began coordinating aid, as they encountered over 60,000 prisoners living in hellish conditions and some 13,000 unburied dead bodies.

The most urgent task was medical care for the survivors. The worst cases were transferred elsewhere, such as the 6,000 prisoners taken to Sweden. Despite the best efforts of the British, over 10,000 former prisoners died in the spring and early summer of 1945. At the same time, able survivors from Western Europe began to be repatriated home. The camp population thus only stabilised in November 1945, with approximately 16,000 DPs.

Relief and medical aid

In June 1945, the British Army established the Glyn Hughes Hospital for the DPs. It was staffed by British Army, UNRRA and JDC doctors and nurses, as well as British and Swiss Red Cross units and British medical students.

JDC and Jewish Relief Unit (JRU) representatives arrived at Belsen in summer 1945, and eventually became responsible for different areas in the camp. The JRU focused on welfare work including care for pregnant women and babies. The JDC established a camp postal service and helped survivors search for family members.

The Central Committee

DPs in Belsen quickly organised themselves based on their nationality, apart from the Jewish survivors, who grouped together.

On 25-27 September 1945, the Jewish DPs across the British Zone held a Congress at Belsen to establish their central demands. They elected a 17-person Central Committee to be their governing body, manage internal affairs and liaise with British authorities and international Jewish organisations. They represented the needs and wants of the Jewish DPs in all facets of DP life, including supervising healthcare services, culture, Holocaust commemoration, and advocacy for immigration to Palestine.

In May 1946, the final non-Jewish DPs at Belsen were repatriated, and Belsen became a Jewish-only DP camp. The Central Committee thus effectively led the camp internally.

Cultural life and education

The cultural life in Belsen DP camp was incredibly rich and was part of the spiritual rehabilitation of survivors.

An elementary school was opened in July 1945, and by September it had 92 pupils. Classes were taught in Yiddish, and the children were taught subjects including reading, maths, Jewish and world history, and Hebrew. In December, a secondary school opened, where the older children were also taught Latin, geometry, English, and Hebrew literature.

There were also other types of schools – the camp rabbinate ran religious schools, and the ORT ran vocational training schools, offering training in trades such as carpentry, dressmaking and mechanics.

The Belsen DPs produced the first Jewish newspaper in postwar Germany, Unzer Sztyme (Yiddish for ‘Our Voice’). The first issue was published in July 1945. Written in Yiddish, articles dealt with world Jewish news, cultural events, as well as Yiddish and Hebrew literature, written by the DPs as well as reprinted news from international press. Multiple journals were also published at Belsen, and different political groups established their own periodicals.

A camp library was opened in September 1946, which was the largest of its kind in the British Zone of Germany. By June 1947 it had over 3,000 books in numerous languages, which were provided by the JDC, World Jewish Congress, and Yiddish Scientific Institute (YIVO).

Numerous sports clubs were set up, with the JDC, JRU and UNRRA providing equipment. There were two football teams, called Hatikvah (The Hope) and Kokhav (Star), who frequently played matches against teams from other DP camps.

A major concern for some was also resuming religious life and practice in the camp. Immediately after liberation, Belsen’s surviving rabbis helped bury the dead according to Jewish law as far as they could. After that, they commenced religious education and other duties, such as leading religious ceremonies. They also lobbied the camp leadership for a kosher kitchen and a mikveh .

Closure

In January 1949, the British Secretary for Foreign Affairs granted DPs freedom of movement and lifted the ban on Jewish immigration to the newly created state of Israel. As this was the preferred destination for most DPs, the number of DPs in the camp began to fall. Others emigrated to countries such as Britain, Canada, the US, and France under various resettlement schemes.

By summer 1950, the last DPs still in Belsen were the so-called ‘hardcore’ cases who, because of medical problems, had limited opportunities for resettlement. The camp was permanently closed on 10 July 1950, when the final 1,000 residents were transferred for further care in a town in northern Germany.

Not all Jewish Displaced Persons (DPs) lived in camps, some chose to live outside of the DP camp framework with the help of Gemeinden (Jewish Communities).

The Gemeinden were supported in their activities by large relief agencies, such as the Jewish Relief Unit (JRU) and American Joint Distribution Committee (JDC).

The Gemeinden helped Jewish DPs with issues such as housing, food, medical care, proof of wartime persecution, and property claims. As well as this, the Gemeinden also often served as a community centre, organising cultural, educational and social events. The Gemeinden also defended Jewish DPs interests when they were threatened, such as in the case of the rising vandalism of Jewish cemeteries and rising antisemitism from 1947.

Many DPs also worked for their local gemeinden, helping with administration, translation or educational activities.

The Jewish Relief Unit (JRU) was the operational arm of the Jewish Committee for Relief Abroad (JCRA), a British charity formed in 1943 that focussed on relief work abroad, and in particular on providing assistance to Jews in Europe.

JRU field workers worked in the Displaced Persons (DP) camps and communities across Germany from August 1945 – September 1950. Although the JRU was a small relief organisation with a short life, it had an extraordinary impact. The JRU helped DPs in the acquisition of identity documents and tracing missing family members, in the provision of child welfare clinics, and with medical, educational, and cultural services.

The JRU officially stopped its activities in Germany, Austria and Italy in the summer of 1950. In their termination letter, J. Donald Kingsley, the Director-General of the International Refugee Organisation, noted the exceptional contribution that the JRU had made to the DPs, stating ‘this record has been so consistent in the tributes paid to your work by all of our field offices that I cannot fail to mention it’ [J. Donald Kingsley to Leonard Cohen, 13 September 1950, Lady Rose Henriques Archive, 52/53, HA19/1-3/6, The Wiener Holocaust Library Collections].

The JCRA held its last meeting on 11 October 1950, whereby it was formally disbanded.

The International Tracing Service (ITS), now known as the Arolsen Archives, is an archive based in Bad Arolsen, Germany, containing over 30 million pages of Holocaust-era documents relating to the fate of over 17.5 million people. The ITS was originally founded to centralise postwar efforts to trace missing persons and help survivors discover the fate of family and friends caught up in the Holocaust and Nazi persecution during the Second World War. The creation of the ITS was disjointed and messy: it emerged out of several, separate (and sometimes competing) efforts by numerous organisations at various points, during and in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War.

One of the primary strands of the archive was created by the Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Forces (SHAEF) in Versailles, France, in 1944, as Allied forces liberated Europe and discovered thousands of people who had been displaced by the war ( Displaced Persons – DPs). In order to begin helping, organising and repatriating these people, SHAEF requested that all DPs be registered and issued with an identification card.

As the Allies’ war effort progressed further into Europe, the documentation and tracing efforts of the Allies’ military forces followed and they moved to Frankfurt am Main, Germany. After SHAEF was dissolved in July 1945, the tracing efforts were temporarily taken over by the Combined Displaced Persons Executive (CDPX) before being handed over to the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRAA) in September 1945. Shortly after, the archive moved to Bad Arolsen.

UNRRA was put in charge of uniting the efforts of the various organisations, including indexing for names and organising Nazi documents that had been gathered during liberation, such as concentration camp and ghetto records, transport lists, Gestapo and police documents, and records of forced labour. This resulted in the creation of the Central Tracing Bureau (CTB), an archive that encompassed available documentation and centralised the search for missing people and Displaced Persons.

After UNRRA ceased to exist in 1947, it passed the CTB onto its successor, the International Refugee Organisation (IRO). In 1948, the IRO renamed the CTB the International Tracing Service (ITS). During this initial period of its existence between 1945 and 1955, the ITS primarily focused on helping people discover the fate of their relatives and other missing persons, registering and interviewing DPs, as well as conducting research projects, such as the ‘graves re-check’, which attempted to map the routes of the death marches and establish who died and where.

In 1955, an International Commission (IC) for the ITS was established to permanently govern the archive. The IC was originally composed of nine countries (Belgium, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, United Kingdom and the United States of America), although this was later expanded to eleven with the inclusion of Poland and Greece. The IC oversaw the archive, but between 1955 and 2012, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) managed its administration and general running.

Under the supervision of the Red Cross, the ITS functioned as a closed archive, meaning only those who worked there could access the documents. On request, it continued to help people trace their relatives and friends, although the process was often inefficient and extremely slow. It also aided the German Government and helped provide documents for restitution claims.

In 2006, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) led efforts to lobby the ITS to open its doors to the rest of the world and become an open archive for research. After significant initial opposition, the IC voted unanimously to open the archive and allow each IC member a digital copy for its citizens to access in their own country. Following this vote, the Red Cross felt it was no longer an appropriate organisation to lead an active research archive, rather than a tracing organisation, and withdrew its guardianship. It was replaced by the German Federal Archives, who continue its maintenance today.

In December 2011, the United Kingdom’s digital copy of the archive was deposited at The Wiener Holocaust Library, where it is still used to help historians and relatives of victims uncover what happened to hundreds of victims of Nazi persecution each year. In 2020, for example, ITS researchers at the Library investigated the experiences of over 326 victims of the Holocaust.

The ITS remains a crucial archive to understanding the history and long-lasting effects of the Holocaust and those who survived. As the historian Dan Stone writes, the documents preserved in Bad Arolsen, ‘speak first and foremost to the ongoing suffering of Holocaust victims; [that] there was no ‘happy ending’ in 1945’ but, equally as important, these documents can also be used ‘to write a history of Nazi persecution focused on the victims that does not neglect the perpetrators’ [Dan Stone, “The Memory of the Archive: The International Tracing Service and the Construction of the Past as History”, Dapim: Studies on the Holocaust 31:2, (2017), 69-88, 87]. Using perpetrator and postwar documents, the ITS continues to help historians to reinstate the voices of the victims and survivors, without ignoring those that inflicted their conditions.

In 1945, the Central British Fund for German-Jewry (CBF), an Anglo-Jewish relief charity, received permission from the British government to bring one thousand child survivors of the Holocaust to recuperate in Britain on a temporary two-year visa. Between 1945 and 1946, the CBF arranged for over 700 children to come to Britain. This group have been referred to as ‘The Boys’, ‘The Girls’ and ‘The Windermere Children’.

The scheme was first proposed by Leonard Montefiore , a Jewish philanthropist. In May 1945, Anthony de Rothschild and Otto Schiff met with representatives in the Home Office to ask for permission for Montefiore’s scheme to go ahead. Under the conditions that the scheme would be entirely funded by charitable organisations and the children would not stay in the country for longer than two years, the British government granted Rothschild and Schiff’s request.

The CBF and the Jewish Refugees Committee then set about fundraising the money needed (approximately £81 million today), and began to organise transport, accommodation and care for the new arrivals.

The children were housed in various locations across the country, the largest of which was a former industrial estate in Windermere in the Lake District. The first group of 305 children arrived in Windermere on 14 August 1945. Other locations for the children included Weir Courtney and Bulldogs Bank in Sussex (both of which primarily cared for very young children); Wintershill Hall in the New Forest; Polton House Farm School in Prestwick in south-west Scotland; Millisle Farm near Donaghadee in Northern Ireland, and various youth shelters in London.

Once the children had arrived, the CBF and Jewish Refugees Committee arranged formal education, sports, English classes, religious instruction and psychological rehabilitation for them, with the aim of restoring their physical health and preparing them for the future. After their initial placement, many of the children were moved to youth shelters around the country until they were old enough to work and support themselves, while some of those who were younger were adopted or fostered into Jewish families.

The traumatic experiences of the children during the war, and their shared loss of family, friends and home resulted in many of the children on the scheme becoming extremely close to each other. As Maurice Vegh, a Czech Jew whose mother, father and sister were murdered by the Nazis, described: ‘We were like family. We had each other. We had no one else. We had no mothers and fathers. We only had each other’ (quoted in Martin Gilbert, The Boys: Triumph over Adversity, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1996). The bond created between some of the children was lifelong.

By 1947, most of the children were working, and so to maintain the community the CBF opened The Primrose Club in Belsize Park, a recreational space where those from the scheme could meet, socialise, learn, and eat.  As the CBF children developed into young adults and outgrew the club, the ’45 Aid Society was founded in 1963. The society – which continues to this day – provides aid for any member in need, makes charitable donations, and organises education and events.

At the reunion of the ’45 Aid Society in 1976, Michael Etkind, a Polish child survivor, expressed the sentiment felt by many of the former children succinctly in verse: ‘Linked by a past that none could foretell, And none understand, unless he’d seen Hell’ (Michael Etkind, ‘The Reunion’, Journal of the ’45 Aid Society, 1977).

To find out more about the scheme, visit the ’45 Aid Society website.