Survivors of Nazi Persecution in Europe after the Second World War, Vol. 1, Landscapes after Battle ed. by Susanne Bardgett et al. (review)

The literature on the Holocaust is voluminous, but that on the survivors is less so. In this excellent collection of essays the editors focus on how “national and international policies framed justice and shaped memories” (p. xiii) and “how the choices and decisions made between 1945 and 1950 had profound consequences for nations, groups, and individuals” (p. xiii).

The editors view the experiences of the displaced persons (DPs) after the war from a variety of perspectives: how they were found, aided, and classified; attitudes of liberators and liberated on initial contact and how these feelings changed with the passage of time; how war-ravaged countries tried to rebuild after the war and how the intertwining of nationalistic and anti-Semitic beliefs and attitudes affected policies toward DPs; and, finally, how the war and its aftermath specifically affected women and children. Much of this information is already known to scholars of DPs and the redeveloping European countries, but many of the specific details and experiences of the people the authors of these essays describe are both horrifying and enlightening. Moreover, political rather than humanitarian concerns often dictated how administrative agencies and governments shaped many of the evolving policies affecting the lives of DPs.

In the first section the contributors describe the conditions of the survivors in Bergen-Belsen in April 1945, when the British troops arrived. The inhuman conditions in which the inmates lived had made those still living appear less than human. Never before had the soldiers and relief workers seen people in such abominable shape. Everything was done as quickly as possible to alleviate the sufferings of those who appeared half, or only one-quarter, alive. Even so, within weeks thousands died. The next question was how to rehabilitate survivors and help them return to their previous homes. At that point serious questions arose. Many of the inmates had no desire to return to their original homes and wanted entry to other countries that, for the most part, were wary of admitting newcomers at a time of continued dislocation from the war. For the British, another complication involved classifying the Jews. The British government believed that to acknowledge them as a group, collectively, instead of by nationality, indicated recognition of their unique experiences and the legitimacy of their desire to enter Palestine, a region held by the UK as a mandate from the League of Nations. Neither the British nor most of the Arabs in the Middle East wanted more Jews in Palestine. As a result, British officials declared that they would not discriminate against people on the basis of religion, a policy that enabled them to classify German Jews and German gentiles as “enemy aliens.” As a result of this decision, they categorized, treated, and lumped together concentration camp victims with concentration camp guards. It took several months before this reprehensible policy was changed.

Other problems arose over the classification of people. Who was and who was not a DP, according to predetermined guidelines written by the Allies, caused numerous conflicts. If one had been a Lithuanian before World War II, did that person become a Soviet citizen afterward because the Soviet Union had forcibly annexed Lithuania? Thousands of East Europeans did not want to be returned to Communist-controlled countries, yet under the terms of agreements signed by the Allies, Soviet DPs had no choice—they were compelled to go back, often at gunpoint. What about “stateless” people who had been expelled from the places where they were born and reared? What was to be done with them? This presented another difficult problem for the Allies and the agencies trying to help with the resettlement of DPs and survivors.

The second section deals with how Poland and France dealt with returning prewar citizens and forced laborers. The Poles, anxious to develop a united country, were averse to the inclusion of...