"Here I am waiting to be liberated…and everything is gone."
– Sara Kay (1926–2019)
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of the National Council of Jewish Women Cleveland Section, RG-50.091.0082.
AFTER THE HOLOCAUST, surviving Jews and Roma and Sinti faced a traumatic confrontation with reality. Entire families had been murdered and communities erased. Many of those who were unable or unwilling to return to their former homes made their way to displaced persons (DP) camps where they might wait for years before it was possible to immigrate to future destinations around the world. Even as they moved forward establishing new homes, families, and communities, the memory of the Holocaust cast a long shadow over their lives.
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Oral history with Nesse Godin, Washington, D.C. 14 December 1995. In Beth B. Cohen, "Case Closed: Holocaust Survivors in Postwar America". New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2007, p. 157 . Courtesy of Beth B. Cohen.
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A survivor in Bergen Belsen concentration camp, Germany, after liberation, April 1945. - United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archives #30883. Courtesy of Shalom Lev Sviridov. Copyright of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
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Bindermichl displaced persons (DP) camp, United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration staff, Linz, Austria. - United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archives #15231. Copyright of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Archive of the City of Linz.
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Bride and groom, Hinda Chilewicz and Welek Luksenburg in the Weiden displaced persons (DP) camp, Germany, weep during the recitation of a prayer in memory of their parents, 2 March 1947. - United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archives #28710. Courtesy of William and Helen Lukensenberg. Copyright of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
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Couples with their new babies in the Gabarsee displaced persons (DP) camp, Germany, 1947. - United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archives # 64678. Courtesy of Rachel Pearl Bitan. Copyright of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
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Group portrait of Jewish DP girls living at a children’s home in Fublaines, France under the auspices of Rescue Children, Inc. - United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archives #33130. Courtesy of Irene Guttman Slotkin Hizme. Copyright of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
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Portrait of Rita Reinhardt Seible (now Prigmore). - United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archives #33344. Courtesy of Rita Prigmore. Copyright of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
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Ceremony commemorating the fourth anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Leipheim displaced persons (DP) Camp, Germany, 1947. - Copyright Yad Vashem Photo Archives, Archival Signature 1486_715.
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Stolpersteine in Koln, Czech Republic. - Francisco Peralta Torrajon photographer. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International.
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A survivor in Bergen Belsen concentration camp, Germany, after liberation, April 1945.
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Gallery image
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Bride and groom, Hinda Chilewicz and Welek Luksenburg in the Weiden DP camp, Germany, weep during the recitation of a prayer in memory of their parents, 2 March 1947.
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Couples with their new babies in the Gabarsee displaced persons (DP) camp, Germany, 1947.
"IN THE MOST HORRIBLE TIMES during the Holocaust, we used to sit and talk to each other, the women, hungry, cold — all the women used to say, ‘Please don’t forget us… If you survive, tell the world what happened’."
– Nesse Godin (1928-2024), survivor of Stutthof concentration camp, Germany and a death march. Oral history courtesy of Beth B. Cohen.
THE WORLD THAT WAS THE HOLOCAUST 1933-1945
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