Post-Holocaust Politics: Britain, the United States, and Jewish Refugees, 1945-1948 (review)

Within a few months of the conclusion of World War II, the victorious Allied powers faced a daunting humanitarian and political challenge—the repatriation of millions of displaced persons left homeless and often stateless by the devastating conflict. Within that larger problem was the pressing and poignant concern of what to do with the hundreds of thousands of Jews who had survived the Shoah and had begun to fill the hastily constructed displaced persons' camps in Germany and Austria between 1945 and 1947. It soon became clear that many of them did not want to return to their countries of origin but desired instead to go to Palestine. Their desperate plight underscored the fact that, for European Jews, the tragedy of the Shoah did not end with liberation.

Unfortunately, the solution to this problem became enmeshed in international politics, British imperial interests in the Middle East, and emerging Cold War geopolitical rivalries. Arieh Kochavi skillfully demonstrates—while paying meticulous attention to the voluminous historical evidence he has unearthed—that for the British, humanitarian considerations were eclipsed by political and pragmatic calculations. Decision makers in London, whether from the Labour or Conservative Party, continued the policies that had guided them since the early 1930s—namely, the desire to mollify or appease the Arab nationalists in their developing conflict with the Zionists and the Yishuv. In this regard, the British attempted to separate the problem of the Jewish DPs in Europe from the Palestine question. As the Arabs made the limitation of Jewish immigration a test case of Anglo-Arab relations, Whitehall continued to argue that the solution to the Jewish DP problem did not lie in Palestine. From this followed London's insistence that the Jewish DP crisis had to be dealt with as a part of the general DP problem resulting from the war, and that Jewish DPs should not be given preferential treatment. The solution included repatriation of Jews to their countries of origin and more generous resettlement overseas, particularly in the United States.

As Kochavi so skillfully and comprehensively demonstrates, the principal obstacles to the British approach were the DPs themselves and their able leadership, particularly that of Josef Rosensaft and the Jewish Committee of Bergen-Belsen, who advocated for improved conditions and special consideration for the Jewish DPs, self- government and separation from non-Jews, an effective pro-Zionist agenda, and a rejection of repatriation. The Zionists presented another obstacle with their aggressive Brichah (mass organized movement of Jewish survivors across Europe) and Ha'apala (illegal immigration) efforts, which were moving tens of thousands of Jews from various European ports to Palestine. Also helpful was American support, exemplified by President Truman, who, publicly empathetic to the plight of the Jewish DPs, demanded that 100,000 DPs be allowed to enter Palestine. In the end, Kochavi shows, American policy toward the Jewish DPs effectively undermined the British insistence on separating that problem from the Palestine question.

Based on exhaustive research, this book provides new details and insights into British policy and attitudes, Zionist efforts to derail that approach, and the well-organized and highly subsidized efforts by Holocaust survivors to leave Europe and rebuild their lives in a Jewish homeland. He provides new information on how the Americans, after Truman made his demand, assembled the Jews in separate camps, opened the camps in the American zone to Jews fleeing from countries under Soviet influence, indirectly encouraged DPs in the American zone in their efforts to reach ports in Italy and France, and allowed fundraising in the United States for the Ha'apala campaign. The American Jewish community played a crucial role in helping to underscore for American policymakers the centrality of the DP issue and the Ha'apala effort.

The general outline of this history was known before, but Kochavi provides added detail and context. He also points out how postwar international political considerations needlessly prolonged the despair...