Tovit Schultz Granoff
Influences on Rehabilitation in Deggendorf Displaced Persons Camp
2020 | Full access
At the end of World War II the Allies were left to deal with a continent in chaos. Millions of displaced persons (DPs) were scattered throughout Europe and Russia. Jewish survivors made up a very small percentage of the overall numbers of DPs. In the years following the Holocaust, about 250,000 Jewish survivors were temporarily resettled in DP camps in the American zone.
Immediately following their liberation, the Jewish survivors on a whole were in poor health and were faced with dreadful living conditions in the DP camps as they waited for the world to open immigration to Palestine and other countries. Months passed until the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) took over operation of the DP camps and political pressure forced the United States government to improve conditions and supplies in the DP camps, and create special DP camps for Jewish survivors.
While some of the larger Jewish DP camps have been the subjects of in-depth research, little research has been done on the Jewish survivors in Deggendorf DP camp in Bavaria. This camp was known to the researcher as her grandparents lived in the Deggendorf DP camp following their liberation in Poland. Research on the process of rehabilitation in Deggendorf DP camp reveals that this DP camp had a number of unique factors that influenced a rapid rehabilitation process. The factors include a large and somewhat cohesive group of Jewish survivors that arrived in Deggendorf DP camp from the concentration camp in Theresienstadt and a dynamic, experienced, and empathic UNRRA director who worked cooperatively with the Jewish DPs.
Following the path of recovery in the first year after surviving a genocide, this paper examines the self-agency of the Jewish survivors that was instrumental in their establishing a functional community of their own in Deggendorf DP camp and in their rehabilitation. In this age of worldwide dislocation, it is worthwhile to look backward at previous episodes of displacement to reveal factors that either by chance or by intention, helped facilitate a relatively rapid transition from genocide survivors to DPs reliant on external organizations to immigrants establishing new, independent lives in other countries.
Supervisor:
Prof. Keith (Kalman) Weiser