Call Number:

Ms. Coll. 1632

Repository:

University of Pennsylvania: Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts

Extent:

.1 linear feet (1 box)

Language:

English, German, Hebrew, Polish, and Yiddish

Preferred Citation:

Jewish displaced persons photographs, 1945-1946, Ms. Coll. 1632, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania

Date:

1945-1946 (inclusive)

Form:

Photographs and Black-and-white photographs

Abstract:

After the Holocaust, millions of Jewish survivors either did not wish to return to their home, could not as a result of continuing antisemitism or as a result of their homes being occupied by new tenants. As a result, 1,800 displaced persons camps opened to accomodate these refugees until they could return home or immigrate elsewhere. The Displaced persons photographs consist of 64 black and white photographs of life in at least two displaced persons camps after the Holocaust, dating from 1945 to 1946.

According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum the Holocaust was, "...the systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million European Jews by the Nazi German regime and its allies and collaborators" that occurred from 1933 until 1945. In addition to the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust, other groups persecuted and sent to camps by the Nazi regime were the Roma, political opponents, persons assumed to be homosexual, Jehovah's Witnesses, people with disabilities, and many others. During the Holocaust, the Nazis built dozens of concentration camps throughout the countries they occupied, to which the Nazis would deport millions of people for hard labor or death in gas chambers. Some of the camps were: Auschwitz-Birkenau, Bergen-Belsen, Treblinka, Buchenwald, Dachau, Theresienstadt, and Mauthausen.

After the war ended, the Allied forces transferred Holocaust survivors to one of the 1,800 displaced persons (DP) camps opened across Europe. The displaced persons camps represented in the collection include Bergen-Belsen and Zeilsheim as well as unidentified displaced persons camps.

The Bergen-Belsen DP camp opened in the summer of 1945, near the former concentration camp, and closed in 1951 once the last displaced persons found a home. The Bergen-Belsen DP camp was run by its own committee of survivors and by the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Agency (UNRRA). While in service, the camp provided education for children and adults, and published a newspaper called Unzer Shtimme.

The Zeilsheim DP camp opened outside Frankfurt (Germany) in 1945 and closed in 1948, when the U. S. Army decided to give back the homes used for the DPs to their German owners. The camp provided education for children and adults, a library, theatre group, jazz orchestra and published the Yiddish newspapers Unterwegs and Undzer Mut.

According to Judith Tydor Baumel, "sixteen survivors of the Buchenwald concentration camp who on July 3, 1945, founded the first postwar kibbutz training farm (hachsharah) in liberated Germany" (Baumel-Schwartz 1). The group originally planned the farm at a site in Egendorf in June 1945 (26), until they moved to Geringshof where the kibbutz would settle until 1948 (35). After years of training on the farm, many members of Kibbutz Buchenwald immigrated to Israel, establishing their own settlement there named Kibbutz Netzer Sereni in 1948 (2).

Works consulted:

Baumel-Schwartz, Judith Tydor. Kibbutz Buchenwald : survivors and pioneers. New Brunswick, N.J. : Rutgers University Press, [1997]

"Off to a new world: the emigration of displaced persons." Arolsen Archives, 22 January 2024, https://arolsen-archives.org/en/news/emigration-of-displaced-persons/. Accessed 19 February, 2024.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. "Bergen-Belsen Displaced Persons Camp." Holocaust Encyclopedia. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/bergen-belsen-displaced-persons-camp. Accessed on February 19, 2025.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. "Introduction to the Holocaust." Holocaust Encyclopedia. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/introduction-to-the-holocaust. Accessed on February 19, 2025.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. " Zeilsheim Displaced Persons Camp." Holocaust Encyclopedia. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/zeilsheim-displaced-persons-camp-1. Accessed on February 19, 2025.

The Displaced persons photographs consist of 64 black and white photographs of life in at least two displaced persons camps after the Holocaust, dating from 1945 to 1946. Twenty-two of the photographs have captions in English, German, Hebrew, Yiddish, and Polish. Two photographs are from Kibbutz Buchenwald, two are from the Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp, three photographs are labeled "M. D. Bashein American Joint Distribution Committee," fourteen photographs are from the Zeilsheim displaced persons camp, one photograph is from a Tel-Aviv shop, and 45 photographs do not have any identifiable location. The majority of the photographs in this collection are group photographs of refugees. There are also three photographs of weddings in the camp, fourteen portraits, and a number of photographs of school children and meal times. It seems that at least eleven photographs were removed from a photograph album, since they still carry the adhesive corner stickers found in albums around this time. There are two photographs of groups holding up banners displaying quotes in Hebrew, which, according to seller's website, state "Am Yisrael Chai" and "the Land of Israel without the Torah is like a body without a soul."

Works consulted:

"Collection of Photographs – Displaced Persons Camps in Europe – Holocaust Survivors." Kedem Auction House Ltd. https://www.kedem-auctions.com/en/collection-photographs-%E2%80%93-displaced-persons-camps-europe-%E2%80%93-holocaust-survivors. Accessed 19 February 2025.