A Community of Will: The Resettlement of Orthodox Jewish DPs from Föhrenwald

By 1948 the majority of the estimated 250,000 Jewish Displaced Persons (DPs) in the American and British Zones of occupied Germany had managed to leave Europe. Among the minority remaining were one group of approximately 300 Orthodox Jews. The author examines these Jewish survivors’ negotiations with West German authorities as they worked to recreate their communal structures outside the Föhrenwald DP camp. The following analyzes these efforts within the broader German context of a severe postwar housing shortage, continued antisemitism, and economic insecurity.