The New Life: Jewish Students of Postwar Germany

Conclusion

263 Conclusion The students’ staggered exit from Germany took place against the backdrop of the demobilization from late 1947 on of nearly the entire Jewish DP world, referred to by Jewish organizations as the “liquidation [Liquidierung] of the She’erith Hapleitah.” Jews left Germany in droves. As of April 1948, just before the declaration of the state of Israel, 165,000 or so Jews remained in the American Zone. By September there were perhaps only 30,000.1 The majority, as we have seen, immigrated to Israel. But the easing of immigration restrictions to the United States via the Displaced Persons Act of 1948 enabled others to leave for America. Initially restricting immigration to those DPs who had been in the American Zone as of December 1945 (and hence had not entered thereafter with the waves of “infiltrees” from the east), the act was amended in June 1950 to extend the residency cutoff to 1949, greatly expanding those eligible. As Jews left Germany, the displaced persons camps that had housed so many of them were dramatically reduced in size or decommissioned altogether . By June 1950 only four DP camps remained in operation, holding about 9,000 Jews. The Landsberg camp closed in October 1950. The Feldafing camp closed less than a year later, with many of its 1,500 residents moved to the Foehrenwald DP camp.2 The final haven for a Jewish DP “hard core,” Foehrenwald closed in 1957.3 Jews living still in Germany outside the camps worked to create what would become longstanding or even permanent communities. The key institutions displaced Jews had energetically built also wound down and then exited the historical stage. Principally, the Central Committee disbanded in December 1950, holding its final meeting in Munich’s 264 C O N C L U S I O N Deutsches Museum, where the DP saga had begun for so many refugees.4 Much of its leadership, however, had already emigrated. With a dwindling Jewish population to serve, and many of their members now gone, other bodies and programs DPs had created—vocational institutes, newspapers, theater troupes, musical ensembles, and literary collectives—also disbanded. Among them was the school system for Jewish children built by DPs, educators from Palestine, and institutions like the Joint. Summing up its achievements , a Joint official remarked in August 1948, “I dare say that in the history of education one will not find so elaborate a program developed so rapidly, and certainly not under comparable conditions.”5 Despite plans to sustain the system for those staying behind, it too withered. Intertwined with and accompanying this denouement were changes in the broader political landscape—above all, the creation of Israel. In Germany itself, both the US authorities and the German people prepared for the advent of an independent West German state, realized in May 1949. The US Military Government had already given way to US civilian authority in Germany. Eager to reconcile with the Germans and to help create the Federal Republic as a bulwark against communism, the Americans increased pressure for DPs to emigrate or integrate into German society. International relief efforts, scaled back when UNRRA was replaced by the IRO, fell even more to private entities like the Joint, which now dealt with frustratingly recalcitrant DP populations. In 1951 the German government assumed formal control over the remaining DP camps.6 In the midst of the dissolution of the DP world, the Jewish students pressed on. Despite hard-fought pledges of support from Jewish organizations , difficulties persisted. With the Central Committee disbanding, the students’ main quarrel was now with their longstanding patron, the Joint. A panicked Union letter from February 1949, sent in rough English to the JDC’s main offices in New York City and Paris, represented the students ’ situation as still dire. It detailed the modest (if improved) contents of monthly rations, claimed that the students suffered “headache anemia” from malnutrition, and demanded that the JDC both create “special Relief Funds” for the students and provide scholarships for study in the United States or Israel.7 It also reported the “irony” that “Jewish maid-students must work as servants in German restaurants” to support their studies. The Joint did not take kindly to the missives, questioning the validity of the students’ claims and privately describing the students as now something of a nuisance. Samuel Haber, the Joint director for the entire American Zone since March 1947, personally weighed in, informing colleagues that the current level of JDC support, which...