(Author: Emma Wilkins, Volume 79, #2, Summer 2024)
Oral history is unique in its ability to individualise and emotionalise the experiences of Jewish Displaced Persons (DPs). Within the unlikely space of occupied Germany, the surviving Jewish population began the process of reclaiming its humanity. Existing scholarship has predominantly framed this reconstruction of identity as a unified, collective endeavor. Oral histories reveal that the rediscovery of identity and consciousness was as much a personal process, as it was a communal one. Survivor-testimony unveils the innerworkings of such processes, vividly illuminating the intricate threads of the DP camp’s social fabric. The experiential voice of the survivor elucidates the emotional resonance and “intimate atmosphere” of DP camps. [1] Through analysing a selection of testimonies from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), this essay will focus on the memories of child DPs, the importance of marital partnerships and friendships, and finally the moments of dignity and individuality that survivors reveled in. While oral history cannot claim to be fully representative, in this case the distinctiveness of testimony is its greatest strength. Through recentering the individual in histories of the Holocaust’s aftermath, oral histories can act as a bulwark against the reductive representation of Jewish survivors as a monolithic mass.
Initially, historians assumed that the liminal post-war period, a mere interlude between the devastation of the Holocaust and the creation of the State of Israel, was not worthy of their scholarly attention. [2] Historians were slow to recognise displacement, one of the defining features of the post-war world, as a historical subject in its own right. Much of what was first written about the She’erith Hapleitah (Surviving Remnant), studied DPs through the eyes of others. [3] The methodological reliance on the reports of the American Military, United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Association and the Jewish Brigade propagated an assumption of Jewish passivity and denied DPs a will of their own.
In response to this depiction of DPs as the tools of external powers, historians have more recently mobilised the plethora of sources created by Jewish DPs themselves, in order to disclose their vibrant and autonomous internal life. [4] Analyses of survivor newspapers, speeches, and bulletins reveal how Jewish DPs embraced the task of rebuilding their lives with vitality and determination. Although these sources are invaluable, an overreliance on them can risk privileging those individuals who undertook political or religious leadership roles in DP camps. This can be rectified by the integration of oral testimonies, which democratise the social basis of historical analysis. [5]
Scholars, such as Atina Grossmann and Margaret Myers Feinstein, have incorporated oral histories into their research on Jewish DPs. However, oral history has largely remained at the periphery of studies and has been used to uncover a collective, rather than personal, experience of displacement. It remains integral to allow testimonies to speak for themselves and to centralise them within histories of Jewish displacement. Emotions are a crucial dimension of social history as everyday life has always constituted an arena of feeling. [6] Analysing testimonies through an emotional lens fosters an appreciation for oral history in its entirety and illuminates the intimate landscape of DP camps.
Amidst growing scholarship on the Holocaust and the cultural advance of the survivor-witness, memory and oral testimony came to be acknowledged as indispensable to the reconstruction of the past. [7] Oral testimony recenters the survivor in historiography, granting them a right to their own memories. This should include their experiences before and after the Holocaust. The experiential voice of the survivor evokes a vivid picture of the DP experience. [8] The use of archived testimonies has sometimes been considered less credible than the practice of first-hand interviewing. The archive is an ongoing process, reliant on active agents to revisit it and ensure its legacy. [9] Retrospective testimonies can elicit how survivors have integrated their DP experience into their historical and emotional consciousness. Oral histories reveal the intimate dynamics of the DP community, as survivors worked both individually and collectively to restore their humanity.
An analysis of oral testimonies, conducted over the last thirty years, uncovers the perspectives of child DPs. Much has been written about the symbolic importance of children in post-war reconstruction. [10] Putting existing scholarship in conversation with these oral histories illuminates the presence of a “makeshift therapeutic community”, partly upheld by the hope that children epitomised.[11] For adults, children signified hope and the healing of the Jewish people. [12] In turn, this reverence for children restored young people with a sense of worth and normality.
In the post-war period, children quintessentially epitomised survivors’ vitality and resilience. [13] Jewish DPs embraced the notion of living not for themselves, but for their children. [14] Nesse Godin remembers how in Feldafing DP camp “[smiling] you saw those beautiful children and…you know there is a future…that something else is coming”. Through marking a break from past devastation, children were emotionally symbolic and encouraged DPs to have “a little more hope”. [15] By 1946, reports claimed that “a thousand [Jewish] babies were born each month” in the American zone. [16] Grossmann has attributed this baby boom to a form of gendered “biological revenge”, through which Jewish women expressed their triumph over Nazi oppression.[17] Sonia Brodecki remembers the birth of her son Joseph in Landsberg: “I have something mine. I’m gonna love it…I was delighted. Who wouldn’t be?” [18] Through reaffirming herself in relation to having a child, Sonia portrays how fertility and maternity were a means for her own emotional rehabilitation.
The testimonies of child survivors reveal that the high esteem adults held children in had a concrete impact on the humanity of young people. This illuminates the multidirectional healing processes at play within DP camps. Morris Engelson, born in 1935 in Lithuania, labels both his pre-war childhood and his experience in a Bavarian DP camp as “carefree”. Morris characterises the DP camp as the renewal of normality as he lived “the same [way] as any other child”. He attributes this to the “dedication and input” of the adults around him who recognised that “this was the first chance to raise a survived generation”. Morris has a nostalgic appreciation for how “children were precious so you could get away with all kinds of stuff [laughing]”. [19] Morris’ memory reveals how the post-war investment in young people was therapeutic and humanising for children, as well as adults.
Regina Laks Gelb, born in 1929 in Poland, echoes Morris’ memory of DP life: “I always talk about the experience in the DP camp as one of the nicest, because I was really still a child, and there was every effort made…to have those children come back to the life of a child”. Regina’s gratitude for the emotional support she received offers insight into the DP camp’s therapeutic community. Rather than her interviewer, Regina’s photo album prompts her memory of the DP camp. Regina has actively positioned her DP experience within her memory “as one of the nicest” times. [20] Jewish DPs were creators of a significant period of history in their own right.
Historians have often positioned DP education as primarily serving the Zionist preparation for a Jewish homeland. [21] Zeev W. Mankowitz describes the “politics of education” at play in DP camps, as schools strove to deepen Jewish consciousness. [22] This contrasts with Regina’s memory of school, as a chance to make “very good friends”, have “special lunches [with] chocolate” and enjoy celebratory outings, such as picnics and parades for Jewish festivals. Regina recalls the unity of DP children who all “truly identified with the group”, regardless of their wartime experience or their nationality. Regina’s DP experience was characterised by the revival of her youth: “when…you come back to living a life of a young girl, who cares if you live in a barrack or if you live in a palace”. Her testimony introduces the personal perspective of a student to histories of education in DP camps. Through the community and friendship that her education provided, Regina experienced the gradual renewal of her humanity, as she became “a real schoolgirl” again. [23]
It is noteworthy that although Regina was already sixteen at the time of liberation, the same age as some women around her would have been getting married and having children, she retrospectively positions herself as “still a child”. This could reflect the disruption the Holocaust posed to an ordinary childhood and a willingness to rectify this loss. It could also mirror the fact that Regina survived the war with her two older sisters which she describes as “absolutely…miraculous”.[24] Survival was not experienced uniformly and for many it was shaped by which (if any) of their family members remained. Perhaps the guidance of her older sisters allowed Regina to hold on to any fragment of innocence and youthfulness she was able to preserve.
Both Morris and Regina conceptualise their time in occupied Germany as the renewal of their youth. The hope and delight that children incited in their communities in turn facilitated their own recovery. With the support of adults and other children around them, Morris and Regina rediscovered and sharpened their identities as young people. Through uncovering otherwise unheard perspectives, oral histories enhance and nuance narratives of DPs’ collective and personal healing.
As survivors confronted overwhelming trauma, relationships with those around them endowed their lives with meaning and purpose. DPs turned to marriage in an attempt to reconstruct their emotional lives after the war. [25] Marriage has often been studied as a collective, regenerative enterprise, understood as part of the post-Holocaust resurrection of the Jewish people. [26] Survivors’ memories of their own weddings and marriages can emotionalise such experiences and reveal what marriage meant to them. In Germany’s DP camps, weddings and marriages were simultaneously personally and communally significant.
In response to the interviewer asking how he ended up in Landsberg, Boleslaw Brodecki immediately recalls his wedding in the DP camp. This reveals his partnership with his wife, Sonia, to be the paradigmatic memory of his DP experience. Boleslaw describes how for Sonia’s birthday, before they were married, he had “no money for gifts” so he decided “I’ll write you a poem and tell her what I thought of her…she got beautiful teeth and eyes”. [27] This glimpse of romance challenges histories which have generalised all DP marriages as merely “marriages of desperation”. [28]
In her own testimony, Sonia Brodecki defends the fact that she only knew Boleslaw for three months before they got married: “But I knew him very well”. [29] Within the space of the DP camp, survivors could find a spouse who understood their trauma, tying them together with an immediate bond. [30] Frances Davis explains “two people can work out things better, and they have support from one another, which is true”. [31] Frances affirms how her marriage was a means of consolation and rebuilding. Sonia remembers “you put a glass of water…in the morning, you had ice. But it was fine, I wasn’t by myself. I had…a wonderful family”, revealing how the stability and comfort of family acted as a bulwark against her loneliness and the hardships of displacement.
Behind the emotional commitment of every DP marriage was a celebratory wedding. Boleslaw positions his wedding as “an event to remember” and Sonia reminisces, “it was beautiful”. Sonia recalls how she “didn’t send any invitations, but everybody came to the wedding, the whole camp…People were cooking. People were baking. People brought liquor from Germany…People were playing music”. [32] Boleslaw described their wedding as “a community project” where “everybody had a good time”. [33] Frances remembers how her students “sewed a dress for me; there wasn’t white material…I remember it was a light blue chiffon dress, [laughing]”. [34] These oral histories reveal weddings to have been collaborative and inclusive affairs. As DPs worked together in an effort to make weddings personally significant for the bride and groom, they also revelled in the joy of celebration and social connectedness. Weddings were collectively therapeutic. They epitomised the regeneration of the Jewish people and offered the DP community warmth and comfort in the hostile “waiting room” of occupied Germany. [35] Simultaneously, weddings marked the beginning of marital partnerships, through which survivors could help one another heal.
After describing her wedding, Sonia asserts “we are still married, and very happy”. For many survivors, the DP camp is imbued with nostalgic, emotional symbolism, as in this unlikely space, they began their lifelong partnerships. This might help to explain the absence of sorrow in these retrospective narratives of weddings. Scholars have argued that the joyful and charged symbolism of DP weddings existed alongside bitter memories of those who were lost. [36] Both the Brodeckis and Frances have romanticised their weddings as solely joyous affairs. This act of remembering and narrating is significant. The omission of sorrow insinuates that the lasting joy of their lifelong partnerships has shaped the way they have each characterised their DP experience in their emotional consciousness.
In social histories of Jewish displacement, marriage has overshadowed friendships and other familial bonds which also sustained the DPs’ therapeutic community. In a liminal space, the relationships with those around them instilled DPs’ lives with meaning and a sense of normality, fostering emotional rehabilitation. Regina vividly recalls the evening dances she attended with friends where they sang songs like “[singing] Kiss me once, and kiss me twice, and kiss me once again. It’s been a long, long time”. The entrenchment of the specific lyrics and tune to this song in Regina’s memory signifies the centrality of dancing and singing with friends to her DP experience. The lyrics of the song mirror the longing for affection that permeated through DP camps after such a “long time”. Regina “remember[s] all this with great affection… what nice relationships we all established with the boys… [we] were very close at the time…that was really lovely”. [37] Regina reminisces the normality of teenage girls and boys being able to enjoy each other’s company. These relationships endowed her DP experience with pleasure and purpose.
Melvin Galun’s memory of the DP camp is defined by the relationships he had with those around him. Melvin recalls the excitement of being with other children again and “the adventures we had” like “walking to the outskirts of the camp…finding unexploded bombs…kids are like that”. With the support of other children, Melvin reignited his child-like mischievousness. Melvin’s uncle and cousins were also important to his DP experience, as “the Sabbath was always spent eating at their table”. The space of the DP camp, although temporary, facilitated a return to some of the traditions and regularity of pre-war life. Melvin positions his cousins as “two older brothers…because I didn’t have any siblings”. [38] Following the destruction of so many nuclear families, the extended family became increasingly significant. The formation of makeshift families is emblematic of Jewish DPs’ determination to rebuild support systems in the face of unprecedented loss.
After liberation, survivors had to rebuild their self-identity and find their place within a makeshift society. [39] Historiography has granted more attention to the restoration of a collective Jewish identity and consciousness within DP camps. Oral histories can complement existing scholarship by illuminating the moments of individuality and personal dignity which, alongside communal rebuilding, restored survivors’ humanity. Hyman Blady encapsulates this process: “little by little we came back, and we began to act as human beings”. [40]
The first thing Susan Beer remembers about her DP experience is that “they were serving on tables, I remember, with napkins…it was the first normal setting of some kind of food”. In contrast with the animalistic treatment she had endured, the ability to eat in a “normal setting” restored Susan’s personal dignity. Susan remembers the generosity of “one soldier…I wish I remembered his name, [who] gave my mother his food ration”. [41] The significance of this action, demonstrated by Susan’s regret at forgetting the soldier’s name, exposes the extent of humiliation that had gone before. Pearl Benisch also recovered part of her dignity by changing the setting in which she enjoyed food. In Bergen-Belsen DP camp, Pearl proudly remembers how she fought alongside other women for the establishment of “a kosher kitchen before Rosh Hashana…isn’t that great?”. Pearl declares “[smiling] that was the girls, not the young men”.[42] Supported by the women around her, Pearl sharpened her identity as a Jewish woman and found a sense of purpose as a DP.
For Frances, the cultural life of Landsberg was particularly important. Frances remembers fondly how the entertainment of Jewish actors “was important. It was, like, a spiritual revival”. With other young people, Frances used to “read poems, sing songs…play theatre”. The vitality of entertainment evoked “a lot of nostalgia” for Frances as “in Poland…I used to love the theatre…that’s what life is about.” [43] Through reconnecting with her home, Frances reignited her passion for theatre and reclaimed what life meant to her. Frances’ testimony demonstrates how the collective culture of DP camps resonated with particular individuals.
These personal memories and anecdotes are uniquely uncovered by oral history. The distinctiveness of testimony reveals how the emotional significance of displacement and survival manifested itself in different ways for different people.
Oral history is indispensable to a full appreciation of Jewish DPs’ experiences in post-war Germany. Placing multiple testimonies in conversation with one another can elucidate commonalities in DPs’ memories without compromising the individuality and authenticity of experience. The memories of survivors reveal that the transient DP camp became a nexus for both collective and personal healing. The perspectives of child survivors unveil the multidirectional therapeutic community that DPs cultivated. Within this community, the relationships survivors formed with those around them endowed their unstable post-war lives with meaning and normality. Oral testimonies illuminate the emotional meaning of such relationships, adding colour to existing social histories of displacement. Supported by fellow DPs, survivors enjoyed personal moments of dignity, pride and individuality. Oral histories mitigate the risk of attributing a collective, unnuanced identity to the She’erith Hapletah. The experiential voices of survivors uncover the intricate threads of the DP camp’s multifaceted social fabric.
- Emma Wilkins is a graduate of and research assistant in the Department of History at the University of Bristol.
[1] Ruth Gay, Safe Among Germans: Liberated Jews After World War II, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), pp.58.
[2] Julie Kalman, Daniella Doron, ‘Absence in the Aftermath’, Journal of Contemporary History, 52(2017), 197-210, pp.199-200.
[3] Zeev W. Mankowitz, Life Between Memory and Hope: The Survivors of the Holocaust in Occupied Germany, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp.3.
[4] Avinoam J. Patt, Michael Berkowitz, ‘Introduction’ in “We are Here”: New Approaches to Jewish Displaced Persons in Post-war Germany, ed. by Patt, Berkowitz, (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2010), pp.7.
[5] Steve Hochstadt, ‘The Social History of Jews in the Holocaust: The Necessity of Interviewing Survivors’, Historical Social Research, 22(1997), 254-274.
[6] Thomas Dixon, History of Emotions: A Very Short Introduction, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023), pp.2.
[7] Aleida Assmann, ‘History, Memory, and the Genre of Testimony’, Poetics Today, 27(2006), 261-273, pp.261-262.
[8] Eva Kolinsky, ‘Experiences of Survival’, The Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook, 44(1999), 245-270, pp.246-7.
[9] April Gallwey, ‘The rewards of using archived oral histories in research: the case of the Millennium Memory Bank’, Oral History, 41(2013), 27-50, pp.37-38.
[10] Françoise Ouzan, ‘Rebuilding Jewish Identities in Displaced Persons Camps in Germany 1945-1957’, Bulletin du Centre de recherche français à Jérusalem, 14(2004), 98-111, pp.108.
[11] Atina Grossmann, ‘Victims, Villains, and Survivors: Gendered Perceptions and Self-perceptions of Jewish Displaced Persons in Occupied Post-war Germany’, Journal of the History of Sexuality, 11(2002), 291-318, pp.300.
[12] Angelika Königseder, Juliane Wetzel, Waiting for Hope: Jewish Displaced Persons in Post-WW2 Germany, (Evanston: North-Western University Press, 2001), pp.181-183.
[13] Margaret Myers Feinstein, ‘Jewish Women Survivors in the Displaced Persons Camps of Occupied Germany: Transmitters of the Past, Caretakers of the Present, and Builders of the Future’, Shofar, 24(2006), 67-89, pp.73-74.
[14] Abraham J. Peck, ‘”Our Eyes Have Seen Eternity:” Memory and Self-Identity among the She’erith Hapletah‘, Modern Judaism, 17(1997), 57-74, pp.63.
[15] Nesse Godin, Oral Testimony, USHMM Collection, video recording, February 20, 1995, interviewed by Sandra Bradley.
[16] Grossmann, pp.307.
[17] Grossmann, pp.308.
[18] Sonia Brodecki, Oral Testimony, USHMM Collection, audio recording, July 26, 2003, interviewed by Neenah Ellis.
[19] Morris Engelson, Oral Testimony, USHMM Collection, video recording, March 26, 1990, interviewed by Linda G. Kuzmack.
[20] Regina Laks Gelb, Oral Testimony, USHMM Collection, audio recording, March 23, 2001, interviewed by Regine Beyer.
[21] Feinstein, pp.89.
[22] Mankowitz, pp.132-160
[23] Gelb.
[24] Gelb.
[25] Tara Zahra, ‘”The Psychological Marshall Plan”: Displacement, Gender and Human Rights after World War II’, Central European History, 44(2011), 37-62, pp.50.
[26] Grossmann, pp.306.
[27] Boleslaw Brodecki, Oral Testimony, USHMM Collection, video recording, February 13, 1995, interviewed by Sandra Bradley.
[28] Grossmann, pp.306.
[29] Sonia Brodecki.
[30] Sarah E. Wobick-Segev, ‘” Looking for a Nice Jewish Girl…”: Personal Ads and the Creation of Jewish Families in Germany before and after the Holocaust’, Jewish Social Studies, 23(2018), 38-66, pp.57.
[31] Frances Davis, Oral Testimony, USHMM Collection, video recording, August 3, 1995, interviewed by Randy M. Goldman.
[32] Sonia Brodecki.
[33] Boleslaw Brodecki.
[34] Davis.
[35] Ouzan, pp.101.
[36] Dan Stone, The Liberation of the Camps: The End of the Holocaust and its Aftermath, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015), pp.167-169
[37] Gelb.
[38] Melvin Galun, Oral Testimony, USHMM Collection, audio recording, October 29, 2009, interviewed by Gail Schwartz.
[39] Kolinsky, pp.250.
[40] Hyman Blady, Oral Testimony, USHMM Collection, audio recording, October 2, 1982, interviewed by Hanna Silver.
[41] Susan Eisdorfer Beer, Oral Testimony, USHMM Collection, video recording, May 16, 1995, interviewed by Randy M. Goldman.
[42] Pearl Benisch, Oral Testimony, USHMM Collection, video recording, October 29, 2013, interviewed by Henri Lustiger Thaler.
[43] Davis.
