After The Holocaust
This research paper documents and explains the triumphant cultural and political revitalization of a victimized Europe, while combining additional details on the specifics of the liberation and the daily life of the "displaced persons", particularly Jews, in post-World War II DP camp.Never before has an event in history been as tragic and as catastrophic as the Holocaust of Eastern Europe in the early 1940s. It is generally believed that a total of twelve million people were murdered by the Nazi regime, including political opponents, Gypsies, the mentally ill, homosexuals, and other "undesirables." An estimated six of the seven million Jews of Europe were killed just because they were Jewish. For the first time in history, an entire people were targeted for annihilation by a government. The Nazi state systematically implemented a plan to destroy all Jews simply because they existed. The destruction of European Jewry stands as the archetype of genocide in human history. Not all of the Jews in Europe were murdered in the Holocaust. After the fall of the Third Reich, Europe was war-torn shambles. Hundreds of thousands of people were homeless and seeking a new life. These were known at the time as "displaced persons." Among them
Once you get out of these camps, you are faced with even greater obstacles. News, however, was not the most important aspect to the survivors. " For the great majority of Jewish DPs however, both staying on German soil and returning to Eastern Europe were out of the question. Weddings were one of the joyous experiences in camp life and were hardly rare events. "On April 18th, 1945, only three days after the Liberation, a committee of former Jewish prisoners was formed in Bergen-Belsen and elected Josef Rosensaft chairman. " In the American Occupational Zone, several large camps were formed, each with some 5,000 inhabitants. The plays performed by the Dramkrays Hazomir in the DP camp of Landsberg am Lech illustrate the connection with the immediate experience of suffering. The present leadership of Jewish DP's is, but for few exceptions, made up of people that have little experience in social planning or social responsibilities. Most of the children in the DP camps had grown up in the concentration camps and had miraculously weathered their first years. No family, no friends, no culture, no life! What do you have to look forward to? Liberation? Liberation was a temporary high because the real "liberation" is far in the future and might never come. Education was also used to preach against revengeful acts of violence against Germans for the atrocities committed by their people. These camps included Feldafing, Fohrenwald, Pocking, Landsberg, and Leipheim in Bavaria; as well as Zeilsheim, Wetzlar, and Eschwege in Hesse. Some Jews were, in fact, murdered by mobs if and when they tried to return to Poland. Liberation was a false hope for happiness.
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