After the annihilation of six million Jews, some three million Jews remained in Europe, including concentration camp survivors. The liberation of the camps began with Auschwitz in Poland, which was liberated on January 27, 1945, followed by the camps in Germany, until the Germans’ final surrender on May 8, 1945. However, the liberation of Europe and of the concentration camps from the Nazi regime did not bring about the freedom longed for by Jews seeking to escape from the horror and establish new lives for themselves. The gates of immigration to America and Aliyah to Eretz Israel under the British Mandate were locked. Concentration camp survivors who refused to return to their native countries were considered to be “displaced persons” and placed in camps under the auspices of the Western Allies in Germany, Austria and Italy. Thus, concentration camp survivors found themselves once again behind barbed wire fences where they were “liberated but not free”. They were joined by tens of thousands of Jewish survivors and refugees from countries that had been conquered by the Nazis, including many who survived and returned from the USSR to Poland, only to encounter murderous anti- Semitism which forced them to flee to the displaced persons camps. The number of displaced persons and refugees in these camps reached 250,000, mostly in Germany and mainly in the American-held area of Bavaria.
Issue Date:21.04.2020 Printer:Cartor Security Printing, France Process:Offset Size:H30 / W40
