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Jewish refugees, part of the Brihah (the postwar mass flight of Jews from eastern Europe), in a crowded boxcar on the way to a displaced ...

The Aftermath of the Holocaust: Effects on Survivors

For survivors, the prospect of rebuilding their lives after the Holocaust was daunting. Many feared to return to their former homes. 

Key Facts

  • 1

    Following the liberation of Nazi camps, many survivors found themselves living in displaced persons camps where they often had to wait years before emigrating to new homes. 

  • 2

    Many feared returning to their former homes due to postwar violence and antisemitism.

  • 3

    Finding refuge in other countries was frequently problematic or dangerous. Initially, immigration abroad was very difficult.

[caption=da013afa-85da-43c4-9783-4821c2accea8] - [credit=da013afa-85da-43c4-9783-4821c2accea8]

Emaciated survivors of the Buchenwald concentration camp soon after the liberation of the camp.
Survivors of Buchenwald

Emaciated survivors of the Buchenwald concentration camp soon after the liberation of the camp. Germany, after April 11, 1945.

  • US Holocaust Memorial Museum

In 1945, when Allied troops entered the concentration camps, they discovered piles of corpses, bones, and human ashes—testimony to Nazi mass murder. Soldiers also found thousands of Jewish and non-Jewish survivors suffering from starvation and disease. For survivors, the prospect of rebuilding their lives was daunting.

After liberation, many Jewish survivors feared to return to their former homes because of the antisemitism (hatred of Jews) that persisted in parts of Europe and the trauma they had suffered. Some who returned home feared for their lives. In postwar Poland, for example, there were a number of pogroms (violent anti-Jewish riots). The largest of these occurred in the town of Kielce in 1946 when Polish rioters killed at least 42 Jews and beat many others.

Funeral procession for victims of the Kielce pogrom.
Funeral procession for victims of the Kielce pogrom

Funeral procession for victims of the Kielce pogrom. Kielce, Poland, July 1946.

With few possibilities for emigration, tens of thousands of homeless Holocaust survivors migrated westward to other European territories liberated by the western Allies. There they were housed in hundreds of refugee centers and displaced persons (DP) camps such as Bergen-Belsen in Germany. The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) and the occupying armies of the United States, Great Britain, and France administered these camps.

Major camps for Jewish displaced persons, 1945-1946
Major camps for Jewish displaced persons, 1945-1946

Following World War II, several hundred thousand Jewish survivors remained in camps for displaced persons. The Allies established such camps in Allied-occupied Germany, Austria, and Italy for refugees waiting to leave Europe. Most Jewish DPs preferred to emigrate to Palestine but many also sought entry into the United States. They decided to remain in the DP camps until they could leave Europe. At the end of 1946 the number of Jewish DPs was estimated at 250,000, of whom 185,000 were in Germany, 45,000 in Austria, and 20,000 in Italy. Most of the Jewish DPs were refugees from Poland, many of whom had fled the Germans into the interior of the Soviet Union during the war. Other Jewish DPs came from Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Romania.

  • US Holocaust Memorial Museum

A considerable number and variety of Jewish agencies worked to assist the Jewish displaced persons. The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee provided Holocaust survivors with food and clothing, while the Organization for Rehabilitation through Training (ORT) offered vocational training. Refugees also formed their own organizations, and many labored for the establishment of an independent Jewish state in Palestine.

The largest survivor organization, Sh'erit ha-Pletah (Hebrew for "surviving remnant"), pressed for greater emigration opportunities. Yet opportunities for legal immigration to the United States above the existing quota restrictions were still limited. The British restricted immigration to Palestine. Many borders in Europe were also closed to these homeless people.

Jewish survivors in a displaced persons camp post signs calling for Great Britain to open the gates of Palestine to the Jews.
Jewish DPs call for Great Britain to open Palestine to the Jews

Jewish survivors in a displaced persons camp post signs calling for Great Britain to open the gates of Palestine to the Jews. Germany, after May 1945.

  • YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, New York

The Jewish Brigade Group (a Palestinian Jewish unit of the British army) was formed in late 1944. Together with former partisan fighters displaced in central Europe, the Jewish Brigade Group created the Brihah (Hebrew for "flight" or "escape"). This organization that aimed to facilitate the exodus of Jewish refugees from Europe to Palestine. Jews already living in Palestine organized "illegal" immigration by ship (also known as Aliyah Bet). British authorities intercepted and turned back most of these vessels, however. In 1947 the British forced the ship Exodus 1947, carrying 4,500 Holocaust survivors headed for Palestine, to return to Germany. In most cases, the British detained Jewish refugees denied entry into Palestine in detention camps on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus.

A British soldier removes refugees, wounded resisting the British, from the ship "Exodus 1947."
A British soldier removes refugees from the ship Exodus 1947

A British soldier removes refugees, wounded resisting the British, from the ship Exodus 1947. Haifa, Palestine, July 20, 1947.

  • Central Zionist Archives

With the establishment of the State of Israel in May 1948, Jewish displaced persons and refugees began streaming into the new sovereign state. Possibly as many as 170,000 Jewish displaced persons and refugees had immigrated to Israel by 1953.

In December 1945, President Harry Truman issued a directive that loosened quota restrictions on immigration to the US of persons displaced by the Nazi regime. Under this directive, more than 41,000 displaced persons immigrated to the United States. Approximately 28,000 were Jews.

In 1948, the US Congress passed the Displaced Persons Act. The act provided approximately 400,000 US immigration visas for displaced persons between January 1, 1949, and December 31, 1952. Of the 400,000 displaced persons who entered the US under the DP Act, approximately 68,000 were Jews.

Displaced persons leave for the United States

At the end of World War II, the Allied powers in Europe repatriated from Germany millions of displaced persons (DPs). The remaining 1.5 to 2 million DPs—both Jews and non-Jews—refused or were unable to return to their prewar homes. Immigration restrictions precluded the large-scale admission of these refugees to other European countries and the United States. They remained in occupied Germany until they could arrange to settle in another country. In this footage, filmed more than four years after the war, displaced persons in Munich pack their belongings and board a US airplane for the trip to the United States.

  • National Archives - Film

Other Jewish refugees in Europe emigrated as displaced persons or refugees to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, western Europe, Mexico, South America, and South Africa.

I was 18, but I was, in fact, only 13 because those years were nothing. Those were erased from my life. 
—Madeline Deutsch

Madeline Deutsch describes her postwar experiences

Madeline was born into a middle class family in an area of Czechoslovakia that was annexed by Hungary in 1938-1939. Her father worked out of their home and her mother was a homemaker. Madeline attended high school. In April 1944 her family was forced into a Hungarian ghetto. The family lived in the ghetto for two weeks before being transported to Auschwitz. Madeline and her mother were separated from her father and older brother. Neither her father nor brother survived the war. A week after arriving in Auschwitz, Madeline and her mother were sent to work in an ammunition factory in Breslau. They were in the Peterswaldau subcamp of Gross-Rosen for one year until liberation by Soviet forces in May 1945. Madeline and her mother lived in a displaced persons camp in Munich while awaiting visas to the United States. They arrived in New York in March 1949.

  • US Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection

Author(s): United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC

Critical Thinking Questions

  • What challenges immediately faced survivors of the Holocaust?

  • How did countries respond to the plight of the survivors? What obligations, if any, do countries have to the survivors of genocide and mass atrocity?

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