Displaced Persons Camps and Centers Poster Collection

Following the end of the Second World War there were initially six to seven million persons living outside of their countries of origin, including approximately 50,000 Jews, who were accorded the status of "displaced persons" (DPs) by the Allied military authorities and the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA). The military authorities immediately began setting up "assembly centers" – commonly known as DP camps – to house and care for these individuals, using whatever buildings were available, including former military barracks, schools, hospitals, and private residences. The majority of DPs were quickly repatriated, so that by September 1945 there remained in the Allied Zones of Germany, Austria, and Italy approximately one million DPs for whom repatriation was problematic, including many Jews. From fall 1945 through 1946 the Jewish DP population grew tremendously, primarily augmented by a large number of Polish Jews who had survived the war in the Soviet Union and initially returned to their former homes in Poland but, unable to reestablish themselves there (the pogrom in Kielce, Poland, on July 4, 1946 is the most infamous example of renewed anti-Semitism after the war), subsequently fled westward. Later there were also significant westward migrations of Romanian and Hungarian Jews. By some estimates a total of more than 250,000 Jewish DPs resided at some point in camps and centers in the Allied Zones of Germany, Austria, and Italy in the period from 1945 to 1952.

A report to President Truman by special envoy Earl G. Harrison, submitted on August 24, 1945, described poor conditions in the DP camps, and highlighted the particularly difficult situation of Jewish DPs, who until then had not been recognized as a group, since the authorities categorized DPs only according to nationality. For the sake of the safety and humane treatment of Jewish DPs the American military authorities subsequently designated certain DP centers as predominantly or exclusively Jewish, beginning with the Feldafing, Landsberg, and Föhrenwald camps (all in the vicinity of Munich, in Bavaria), and followed by scores of others. All-Jewish camps were also established in Austria and Italy.

The camps ran under the authority of the Allied military, who were responsible for security, the facilities, and the delivery of provisions, but oversight of daily operations within the camps fell to the UNRRA, and, later, its successor organization, the International Refugee Organization (IRO). Jewish voluntary organizations, including the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (AJDC) and the World ORT Union, played a vital role in providing supplementary aid and services, including vocational training.

The prospects of Jewish DPs for emigration either to Palestine or the United States (the two most prominent possible destinations) were initially limited, and did not significantly improve until after the establishment of the state of Israel, in 1948 (the highly restrictive British policy on immigration to Palestine prior to then was the subject of debate and protest among the Jewish DP population). As a result, the transitional circumstances in which DPs lived in Germany, Austria, and Italy, had a long-term dimension. Within the framework of the camps and centers, the DPs created their own cultural and social milieus in which they first began to recover from traumatic experiences and to rebuild their lives for the future.

The Jewish DP population developed its own structures of self-government, with meetings of representatives of Jewish survivors first held in Germany shortly after liberation, in spring 1945. Central committees representing Jewish DPs in Germany were separately established in the American, British, and French Zones, respectively (early efforts at a united representation across the zones were unsuccessful). Other such committees of representatives were established in Austria and Italy as well. Jewish self-governing community structures also played an important role at the level of the individual camps.

The cultural and social life in the Jewish DP communities included schools, religious life, training programs, newspapers, lectures, theater, concerts, meetings, and protests. An array of local committees and organizations were typically active within individual camps, such as camp administrative and cultural committees; sports clubs; and Zionist, labor, or religious groups. Many memorial services and commemorations for victims of the Holocaust were also held, including landsmanshaft gatherings in remembrance of prewar Jewish communities of Eastern Europe. The Jewish DP communities also had significant relations and exchange with the Zionist leadership in Palestine, and, later, the young state of Israel.

With increased emigration beginning in 1948, the institutions of Jewish DP life began to disband and the various central committees representing Jewish DPs in Germany, Austria, and Italy were dissolved by the end of 1950. Almost all of the DP camps in all three countries were closed by 1952. The last DP camp to remain open was Föhrenwald, in Germany, which finally closed in 1957.