Munich Displaced
- Image: Haus der Bayerischen Geschichte (Bayer. Pressebild)
1945
April 29
Liberation of Dachau concentration camp and its satellite camps by American forces
- Image: NARA 111-SC-206196 (Public Domain)
Liberation of Dachau concentration camp, 1945
April 30
Occupation of Munich by American forces
April
The first international relief teams of the UNRRA (United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration) start operating in occupied Germany.
May 8: End of World War II
More than eight million people are considered to be displaced persons. Most of the six million forced laborers, two million prisoners of war and 700,000 former concentration camp prisoners are quickly repatriated. The 50,000–70,000 Jewish survivors form a small group and wished not go back.
August 3
The Harrison Report on Jewish DPs acute living situations is submitted to the American government. As a consequence, separate DP camps are established for Jewish DPs.
The first and plainest need of these people is a recognition of their actual status and by this I mean their status as Jews. Most of them have spent years in the worst of the concentration camps. In many cases, although the full extent is not yet known, they are the sole survivors of their families [...] Understandably, therefore, their present condition, physical and mental, is far worse than that of other groups.
EARL G. HARRISON, 1945
August 4
The Joint (American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee) begins ist relief work in the U.S. Zone.
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The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (AJDC / Joint) played a decisive role in providing for survivors after World War II. It funded emergency relief programs to ensure the provision of basic needs, as well as educational and cultural programs. Together with the religious organization Vaad Hatzalah (Heb. Rescue Committee), the Joint also distributed prayer shawls and prayer books, mezuzot and Seder plates so that survivors could lead an autonomous Jewish religious life once again. Although only a minority of the DPs were religious, everyday Jewish traditions played an important role for the Sh’erit ha-Pletah.
The Joint’s Department for Religion in Munich commissioned Jewish DPs in Marktredwitz in Upper Frankonia, for example, to make more than two thousand Seder plates which were then distributed among DPs in camps and private homes for Passover.
- Image: Jüdisches Museum München, Foto: Franz Kimmel
Seder plate distributed by the JOINT, Bavaria 1948, JM 04/2004
September 18
Föhrenwald DP camp becomes the third Jewish DP camp in the Munich area after Landsberg and Feldafing.
October 1
The UNRRA officially takes over the administration of DP camps in the American zone. By the end of the year, it was in charge of a total of 227 Jewish and non-Jewish camps in the three western occupation zones.
- Image: ITS Digital Archive, Arolsen Archive
Map of the UNRRA D.P. Operations Germany, May 8, 1946
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Distribution of relief supplies to residents of the Föhrenwald DP camp, ca. 1945-1947
1946
340,000 DPs in the U.S. Zone DP camps, of which more than 33,000 are of Jewish origin
January 27-29
First Congress of the Liberated Jews in the U.S. Zone in the Town Hall in Munich
July 4
Pogrom in Kielce (Poland): during the weeks and months that follow, the number of people fleeing Poland reaches its peak.
September 7
Official recognition of the Central Committee of the Liberated Jews in the U.S. Zone by the American military government
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The Central Committee of the Liberated Jews in the American Zone revealed the high degree of self-organization among the Sh’erit ha-Pletah between 1945 and 1950. The newly created committee set up its office in Munich, first in the Deutsches Museum, then in Siebertstrasse.
Its aim was to draw public attention to the distress plight of Jewish survivors in DP camps in order to put pressure on Britain to allow the immigration of DPs into Palestine. Through its different departments, the Central Committee played a decisive role in the fields of education, culture, religious affairs, historical documentation, and training, as well as in the provision of supplies and their distribution, in politics, the search for familiy members and emigration, legal affairs, and restitution.
- Image: Haus der Bayerischen Geschichte (Bayer. Pressebild)
Employees at the Central Committee of the Liberated Jews’s office for tracing family members, June 1946 © Haus der Bayerischen Geschichte (Bayer. Pressebild)
1947
DPs in the U.S. Zone DP camps, of which
are of Jewish origin
February 27
Second Congress of the Liberated Jews in the U.S. Zone in Bad Reichenhall
- Image: Jüdisches Museum München, Nachlass Dr. Dr. Simon Snopkowski, München
Photo album of the Second Congress of the Sche'erit Hapleta in the American zone in Bad Reichenhall, 1947
May 22
The only synagogue in Munich to have survived intact, on Reichenbachstrasse, is reopened.
- Image: Stadtarchiv München
Studying the construction plans in the middle of the building site, October 9, 1946
- Image: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München / Bildarchiv
Backyard view of the Reichenbachstrasse synagogue
- Image: Stadtarchiv München
Interior of the newly designed synagogue, 1947
- Image: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC
Opening ceremony of the Reichenbachstrasse synagogue, 1947
July 1
The IRO (International Refugee Organisation) supersedes the UNRRA.
July
Also in Munich, DPs demonstrate against the rejection of Jewish refugees from the British Mandate of Palestine. The occasion was the forced return of the passengers of the immigrant ship “Exodus 1947” to the British zone.
- Image: From the Archives of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, New York
Demonstration against the expulsion of passengers from the immigrant ship “Exodus 1947”, Munich, July 1947
1948
DPs in the U.S. Zone DP camps, of which
are of Jewish origin
March 30
Third Congress of the Liberated Jews in the U.S. Zone in Bad Reichenhall
May 14
The founding of the State of Israel ushers in the end of the presence of Jewish DPs in Germany.
June 25
The U.S. Congress passes the U.S. Immigration Act: immigration to the USA is made easier for DPs.
June 27 - July 6
In a resolution the World Jewish Congress calls on Jews “never again to settle on the bloodsoaked soil of Germany”.
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The first official departure of Jewish DPs from the goods station at the Funkkaserne barracks to the newly founded State of Israel, July 13, 1948
- Image: Haus der Bayerischen Geschichte (Bayer. Pressedienst)
November 7-28
One female and four male artists from the Sh’erit ha-Pletah exhibited their works in the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus.
- Image: From the Archives of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, New York
Poster “Oysshtelung fun yidishe kinstler” [Exhibition of Jewish Artists] Printed by the Cultural Office of the
Central Committee of the Liberated Jews in the U.S. Zone, Munich, 1948
- Image: From the Archives oft he YIVO Institute for Research, New York
Pinkus Schwarz (later Pinchas Shaar), Maximilian Feuerring, Ewa Brzezińska and Hirsch Szylis (from left to right), Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, 1948
- Image: Yad Vashem Art Collection, Jerusalem, Mit freundlicher Genehmigung von Barbara und Lewis Shrensky, Washington, D.C.
Pinkus Schwarz: Where to?, DP sanatorium Gauting, 1945, Oil on panel
1949
DPs in the U.S. Zone DP camps, of which
are of Jewish origin
August 10
Three DPs are injured by German police during a demonstration against the uncommented publication of an anti-Semitic letter to the editor in the Süddeutsche Zeitung.
- Image: Hermann Grönert
Demonstration in Möhlstrasse, Munich, August 10, 1949
1950
DPs in the U.S. Zone DP camps, of which
are of Jewish origin
December 17
The Central Committee of the Liberated Jews in the U.S. Zone officially stops operations.
1951
DPs in the U.S. Zone DP camps, of which
are of Jewish origin