Towards the end of World War II and the Holocaust, in 1944 and 1945 Soviet, British and American soldiers
liberated Europe, freeing what remained of European Jewry from forced labor camps,
concentration camps and extermination camps. Jews, and particularly Jewish
children and adolescents, were also liberated from their places
of hiding and from monasteries. On Victory Day,
Europe joyously celebrated its freedom. But for many Jews, liberation came too late. Aside from the immediate joy of being freed,
this day marked the beginning of their coming to terms
with the scale of destruction and disaster. The life they had known
before the war was no longer. Liberation Day was the beginning
of an almost superhuman effort to gather the fragments of life
and begin anew. Many of the liberated Jews
succumbed quickly after liberation. The long years of suffering had left
their mark, and thousands died from weakness, hunger, diseases, and over-eating
in the immediate aftermath of liberation. According to estimates,
some 20,000 former Jewish prisoners died in Germany
during the first weeks after liberation. The physical condition of those who survived
was exceedingly poor, with most suffering from malnutrition
and serious diseases, as a result of their living conditions
during the Holocaust. The loneliness survivors faced upon
liberation was at times too much to bear. During the difficult war years, the struggle
to survive had left little room for thoughts about the fates of their families,
loved ones and former lives. Now that they had been liberated, the survivors were forced to face up
to their losses. Their parents, partners,
children, homes, cities - their entire worlds and identities -
were gone. This recognition resulted in feelings of ruin
and despair, and at times even a sense of guilt for having survived
while their families had been murdered. Many survivors were left entirely alone,
without any family or friends. Some were the last remnants
of their communities, without a soul in the world
who had known them from their previous lives. As soon as the eastern areas
had been liberated by the Red Army, in the summer of 1944,
Jews began to wander from place to place, searching for their family members, property
and communities. Their return home was protracted
and complicated. At the end of the war,
Europe was plunged into chaos. Basic means of transportation were lacking,
and the transportation that was to be found was irregular. Travelers
often fell victim to violence along the way. When survivors arrived at their destinations,
there was usually no one waiting for them. In rare cases, they would meet other family
members wandering among the ruins. Many survivors discovered that their families had been murdered,
and that strangers were living in their homes. In addition, some of the survivors encountered antisemitic
violence, particularly in Eastern Europe. In pogroms
that took place in Polish towns and cities, 350 Jews were murdered by the end of 1945. The best-known was the Kielce pogrom,
in which 42 Jews were murdered. In Western Europe as well,
the Jewish survivors faced many difficulties from their neighbors and from the bureaucratic
organizations tasked with caring for them. Antisemitic incidents and the generally
hostile environment led many Jews to organize a spontaneous exodus from Eastern Europe,
heading for Germany, Austria and Italy. This flight was organized by survivors, mainly
former partizans and soldiers, in an attempt to reach the coasts of the Mediterranean,
and from there, the Land of Israel. From their testimony, we can learn that,
alongside feelings of despair and emptiness, survivors were also filled
with a strong urge to live, and a burning desire
to return to normality and resume their lives, even if that meant finding a new meaning
for their lives. Many of the Jews had nowhere to go
and nowhere to return to, and so they remained in the
former concentration camps. According to the Allies' definition
they became Displaced Persons. The survivors, who only a few
weeks before had been prisoners in these camps, now found themselves
living in them as free people.
