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U.N. exhibit remembers when the world turned its back on stateless Jewish refugees
(New York Jewish Week) — In 2017, Deborah Veach went back to Germany, looking for the site of the displaced persons camp where she and her parents had been housed after World War II. They were in suspension, between the lives her parents led in Belarus before they were shattered by the Nazis, and the unknown fate awaiting them as refugees without a country.
To her dismay, and despite the fact that Foehrenwald was one of the largest Jewish DP centers in the American-controlled zone of Germany, she found barely a trace. A complex that once included a yeshiva, a police force, a fire brigade, a youth home, a theater, a post office and a hospital was remembered by almost no one except a local woman who ran a museum in a former bath house.
“It was sort of an accident of history that we were there in that particular camp in Germany, of all places, with no ties, no extended family, no place to call home,” said Veach, who was born at Foehrenwald in 1949 and lives in New Jersey. Now, “they renamed it. They changed the names of all the streets. There is nothing recognizable about the fact that it had been a DP camp.”
Veach is part of a now-aging cohort of children born or raised in the DP camps, the last with a first-hand connection to the experience of some 250,000 Jewish survivors who passed through them at the end of the war. To make sure memories of the camps survive them, the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and the United Nations Department of Global Communications have staged a short-term exhibit, “After the End of the World: Displaced Persons and Displaced Persons Camps.”
On display at U.N. headquarters in New York City Jan. 10 through Feb. 23, it is intended to illuminate “how the impact of the Holocaust continued to be felt after the Second World War ended and the courage and resilience of those that survived in their efforts to rebuild their lives despite having lost everything,” according to a press release.
Residents of a displaced persons camp in Salzburg, Austria. Undated, post-Second World War. (YIVO Institute for Jewish Research)
Among the artifacts on display are dolls created by Jewish children and copies of some of the 70-odd newspapers published by residents, as well as photographs of weddings, theatrical performances, sporting events and classroom lessons.
The exhibit is “about the displaced persons themselves, about their lives and their hopes and their dreams, their ambitions, their initiatives,” said Debórah Dwork, who directs the Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Crimes Against Humanity at the Graduate Center-CUNY, who served as the scholar adviser for the exhibition.
“There’s no point where the residents of these DP camps were just sitting around waiting for other people to do things for them,” she told the New York Jewish Week. “They took initiative and developed a whole range of cultural and educational programs.”
As early as 1943, as the war displaced millions of people, dozens of nations came to Washington and signed onto the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Authority. (Despite its name, it preceded the founding of the U.N.) After the war, the British and U.S. military were in charge of supplying food, protection and medical care in hundreds of camps throughout Germany and Austria, and UNRRA administered the camps on a day-to-day basis.
Early on, Jewish Holocaust survivors — some who suffered in concentration camps, others who had escaped into the Soviet Union — were put in DP camps alongside their former tormentors, until the U.S. agreed to place them in separate compounds. Unable or unwilling to return to the countries where they had lost relatives, property and any semblance of a normal life, they began a waiting game, as few countries, including the United States, were willing to take them in, and Palestine was being blockaded by the British.
Abiding antisemitism was not the only reason they remained stateless. “Jews were [accused of being] subversives, communists, rebels, troublemakers, and the world war quickly gave way to cold war, and with it the notion that Hitler had been defeated and what we have to worry about is the communists,” David Nasaw, author of “The Last Million,” a history of the displaced persons, told the New York Jewish week in 2020.
In 1948 and 1950, Congress grudgingly passed legislation that allowed 50,000 Jewish survivors and their children to come to the United States. The rest were eventually able to go to Israel, after its independence in 1948.
The U.N. exhibit focuses less on this macro history — which includes what became another refugee crisis for the Palestinians displaced by Israel’s War for Independence — than on life in the DP camps.
“The exhibition illustrates how the displaced persons did not shrink from the task of rebuilding both their own lives and Jewish communal life,” said Jonathan Brent, chief executive officer at YIVO, in a statement.
Among those rebuilding their lives were Max Gitter and his parents, Polish Jews who had the perverse good luck of being exiled to Siberia during the war. The family made its way to Samarkand, in Uzbekistan, where Gitter was born in 1943. After the war ended, his parents returned to Poland, but repelled by antisemitism sought refuge in the American zone in Germany. They spent time in the Ainring DP camp, a former Luftwaffe base on the Austrian border, and at a small camp called Lechfeld, about 25 miles west of Munich.
Dolls made by stateless Jewish children residing in a DP camp near Florence, Italy, known as “Kibbutz HaOved.” The dolls are attired in local costumes based on the districts of the Tuscan city of Sienna. (YIVO Institute for Jewish Research)
“I was there until we came to the United States when I was six and a half, so I have some very distinct memories and some hazy memories,” said Gitter, emeritus director and vice chair of the YIVO board. One story he hasn’t forgotten is how his father and a friend were walking through the camp when they came upon a long line of people. “They were from the Soviet Union, so they knew that when there’s a line that it might be of interest.” It turned out to be a line for the lottery that would allow them to get into the United States under the Displaced Persons Act of 1948.
The family came to the United States in 1950, to “pretty shabby lodgings” in the Bronx, before his father bought a candy store and moved to Queens. Max went on to attend Harvard College and Yale Law School, and became a corporate litigator.
Gitter’s brother was born in one of the camps, and the exhibit includes a poster depicting the population increase between 1946 and 1947 at the Jewish DP center Bad Reichenhall. The birthrate in the camps has often been described as evidence of the optimism and defiance of the survivors, but Dwork said the truth is somewhat more complicated.
“There was a very high birth rate among the Jews in DP camps. This is the age group of reproductive age, at 20 to 40,” she said. “However, this image of fecundity hides what was rumored to be a significant abortion rate, too. And women had experienced years of starvation. Menstruation had only recently recommenced. So many women, in fact, miscarried or had trouble conceiving to begin with.”
A chart by artist O. Lec depicts the natural population increase of the Jewish Center Bad Reichenhall, Germany, 1946-1947. There was a very high birth rate among the Jews in DP camps. (YIVO Institute for Jewish Research)
“There is no silver lining here,” she added. “People live life on many levels. On the one hand, DPs look to the future and look with hope; at the same time, they carry tremendous burdens of pain and suffering and trauma and trepidations about the future.”
Veach, a member of the YIVO board, hopes visitors to the exhibit understand that such trauma is hardly a thing of the past.
“I think the real lesson is that history keeps repeating itself,” said Veach, growing emotional. “Basically we have DPs on our border with Mexico, you have DPs from Ukraine. I don’t think people realize the repercussions for these people who are trying to find a place to live. These are good people who are just placed where they are by history.”
Gitter, who like Veach will speak at an event Jan. 24 at the U.N. marking the exhibit, also hopes “After the End of the World” prods the consciences of visitors.
“A lot of the countries, a lot of places, including the United States, would not accept Jews after the war,” he said. “The issue of memory, the issue of statelessness, the issue of finally there was some hope for the Jews in their immigration to Israel and the United States — that part of the story also needs to be told.”
“After the End of the World: Displaced Persons and Displaced Persons Camps” is on view from Jan. 10-Feb. 23, 2023, at the United Nations Headquarters, 405 E 42nd St, New York, Monday-Friday, 9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. Entrance to the United Nations Visitor Centre in New York is free, but there are requirements for all visitors. See the United Nations Visitor Centre entry guidelines.
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Germany Flags Surge in Antisemitic Slogans, Extremist Symbols, Hate Speech Under Banner of ‘Palestine Solidarity’
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators during a protest against Israel to mark the 77th anniversary of the “Nakba” or catastrophe, in Berlin, Germany, May 15, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Axel Schmidt
German authorities are stepping up scrutiny of antisemitic slogans, extremist symbols, and online hate speech amid a deteriorating climate of hostility toward Jews and Israelis that officials warn is hardening into a deepening national crisis.
On Tuesday, Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), released new guidance aimed at raising awareness of antisemitism and extremist forms of so-called “Palestine solidarity,” with a particular focus on developments in Berlin.
According to the agency’s newly published report, a growing network of extremist activists has emerged within segments of the pro-Palestinian movement in the German capital, where anti-Israel demonstrations increasingly feature antisemitic slogans, hateful imagery, and incitements to violence.
German officials said these new resources are intended primarily for teachers, educators, and the general public, as part of broader efforts to strengthen democratic resilience and sharpen awareness of more subtle forms of antisemitism.
In a document entitled “Hidden Messages – Antisemitic Codes and Ciphers,” the agency defines antisemitism as “rejecting, hostile or violent attitudes towards Jews or towards people who are perceived as Jewish.”
Among the report’s key findings is that within secular pro-Palestinian extremism, criticism of Israel’s policies and actions is increasingly being generalized onto Jews as a whole, with anger over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict frequently mutating into antisemitic narratives.
The agency also points to a growing use of antisemitic slogans and imagery, noting recurring symbols among extremist pro-Palestinian activists, including the red inverted triangle — used to signal support for Hamas — and the watermelon motif when used to depict the outline of Israel.
It also points to the slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” which is widely interpreted as a call for the elimination of the State of Israel.
German officials warned that these dynamics are increasingly serving as “bridge narratives,” drawing together otherwise disparate extremist circles, including the far right, far left, and Islamist movements.
The report further notes that since the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, segments of Germany’s radical left have drawn closer to what they describe as the “Palestinian liberation struggle.”
Islamist and left-wing extremists are increasingly merging anti-imperialist ideology with entrenched antisemitic narratives in their propaganda around the Israel–Hamas war, including claims of a “genocide in Gaza,” depictions of the Jewish state as a “colonial power,” and labels such as “child murderer.”
Such antisemitic narratives have become a central mobilizing force since the Oct. 7 atrocities, shaping public discourse and being used to justify acts of violence and intimidation.
After more than two years of escalation, German officials warn that the threat to Jewish life has risen dramatically, with antisemitic hate speech surging as extremist actors deliberately exploit the war in Gaza for propaganda.
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Anti-Israel Rep. Thomas Massie Trails in Race as New Kentucky Ad Targets Jewish Donor With Rainbow Star of David
US Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) leaves a meeting of the House Republican Conference in the US Capitol on Wednesday, June 4, 2025. Photo: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
A new poll is signaling growing trouble for US Rep. Thomas Massie in Kentucky’s Republican primary, with Trump-endorsed challenger Ed Gallrein now leading the incumbent congressman 53 percent to 45 percent among likely GOP voters in the state’s 4th Congressional District.
The poll comes as Massie faces intensifying backlash over an advertisement released by a pro-Massie super PAC targeting billionaire Republican donor Paul Singer, a prominent Jewish supporter of pro-Israel causes who has backed efforts to defeat the incumbent.
The ad characterizes Singer as a “pro-trans billionaire” and features a rainbow-colored Star of David behind his image while attacking Gallrein’s allies.
NEW: Take a look at this #KY04 ad called “LGBTQ Mafia” from a PAC affiliated w/ Jan. 6 rioter Derrick Evans.
It depicts Jewish donor Paul Singer with an unexplained rainbow Star of David.
More on this insane, now record-breaking $25 million primary: https://t.co/iT3YN8wYEz pic.twitter.com/0YIRYmaJwL
— Andrew Solender (@AndrewSolender) May 11, 2026
Critics condemned the imagery as antisemitic, arguing it invoked longstanding tropes about Jewish financial influence and used Jewish symbolism in a way designed to inflame cultural resentment. Many social media users accused the ad of crossing a red line at a time when antisemitic incidents in the United States remain elevated following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel.
The Kentucky ad was paid for by Hold the Line PAC — a group backing Massie that is “focused on Religious Liberty, 2A, and Restoring Election Integrity,” according to its website — not Massie’s official campaign.
The race has drawn national attention, with more than $25 million spent on ads, the most ever in a House primary election, according to AdImpact.
Outside groups have poured millions of dollars into the campaign, Because Kentucky’s 4th District is overwhelmingly Republican, the GOP primary is widely expected to determine who will ultimately hold the seat. According to data sourced from the Federal Election Commission (FEC), Massie has only garnered roughly $70,000 from in-state donors, compared to over $1.1 million from out-of-state, a whopping 94 percent of his total donations.
The latest survey showing Massie trailing was conducted on May 12 by Quantus Insights. It marks one of the clearest signs yet that US President Donald Trump’s endorsement may be reshaping the race in Gallrein’s favor. The Kentucky primary has rapidly evolved into one of the most closely watched Republican intraparty battles of the 2026 election cycle, drawing national attention over divisions surrounding Israel, antisemitism, and ideological loyalty within the GOP.
Massie, a libertarian-leaning Republican known for frequently breaking with party leadership, has a long track-record of voting against sending aid to all foreign countries, including Israel. Although he has received substantial criticism over his voting record, Massie has argued that his positions do not reflect an animus against the Jewish state but are reflective of his staunch fiscal conservatism. He has also condemned Israel’s military operations in Gaza and Lebanon, arguing that the Jewish state has targeted civilian infrastructure and should not receive assistance from the US.
Critics contend his voting record and anti-Israel rhetoric have increasingly isolated him from the Republican mainstream, particularly on issues involving Israel and national security. Skeptics also claim that Massie’s criticisms of Israel are devoid of nuance, oftentimes omitting Hamas’s tendency to use human shields, repurpose civilian infrastructure for military purposes, and intercept trucks intended to distribute food.
The race has become a major test of Trump’s continued influence over Republican primaries. Trump has repeatedly criticized Massie in recent months before formally endorsing Gallrein, framing the contest as a battle between party unity and ideological obstructionism.
“We got to get rid of this loser. This guy is bad,” Trump said at a March rally in Hebron, Kentucky. “He’s disloyal to the Republican Party. He’s disloyal to the people of Kentucky, and most importantly, he is disloyal to the United States of America. And he’s got to be voted out of office as soon as possible.”
Gallrein, a retired Navy SEAL officer, has sought to position himself as a firmly pro-Israel conservative aligned with Trump’s “America First” coalition. His campaign has emphasized strong US-Israel relations, expanded security cooperation, and staunch support for the Jewish state following Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack.
Political analysts say the outcome could reverberate far beyond Kentucky, shaping how Republican lawmakers navigate issues surrounding Israel, antisemitism, and loyalty to Trump heading into the 2026 midterm elections.
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Jewish Teens in France Tell US Ambassador About Enduring Antisemitism in Schools
Members of French Cteen chapters meet with United States Ambassador to France Charles Kushner and his wife Seryl on Monday, May 4, 2026. They discussed their experiences with antisemitism and what keeps them motivated. Photo: US Embassy in France
Nine members of the Chabad youth group CTeen France met last week with US Ambassador to France Charles Kushner to discuss their experiences of antisemitism in the years since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, a massacre which left nearly 1,200 people dead and led to a surge in hate crimes targeting Jews around the world.
Following an invitation, the youth aged 14-18 visited the ambassador’s official residence at rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in Paris for a two-hour discussion also attended by Kushner’s wife Seryl. Rabbi Mendy Mottal, CTeen’s director, and his wife Chaya also participated.
One member of the group, 18-year-old Younes, declined when offered a letter from the embassy to explain his absence from school. He explained that he did not want anyone at his school to discover he was Jewish, that only his best friend knew the secret of his true identity.
Another student, Salomé, described living 90 minutes south of Paris in Orléans and not knowing any other Jews in her region until the launch of a CTeen group. “All week at school I’m just waiting for the moment when I can see my Jewish friends,” she told the ambassador.
“These are teens who walk into their public school every morning knowing they may be the only Jew in their classroom,” said Rabbi Mendy Kotlarsky, chairman of CTeen International.
Discussing the meeting on X, Kushner wrote, “I love seeing motivated young leaders! CTeen is developing youth across France and focusing, like me, on countering antisemitism by combatting all forms of hatred in our communities.”
The teenagers received a tour of the ambassador’s residence and enjoyed Kosher refreshments before receiving two gifts: a kippah custom-made for the embassy and an embassy medal.
“These are teens regularly experiencing antisemitism on the front line,” Mottal said. “The ambassador was very moved by them and how they spoke. Frankly, so was I.” He described how Kushner “wanted to know what actually happens in the hallways, what they feel when they walk into a classroom knowing they might be the only Jews in the room.”
Kushner stated during the meeting that he intended the gathering to be the start of his collaborations with the CTeen group and that combating antisemitism in France had become a top priority.
“The fact that the ambassador sits with them, listens to their stories, and acknowledges the weight they carry on their shoulders — that means something profound to these young people,” Kotlarsky said.
The students’ fears align with survey responses from Jews in France and Europe. A 2026 Jewish Agency report found 78 percent of French Jews expressed feelings of fear in their country while 43 percent of European Jews surveyed said they experienced antisemitism in the last year either themselves or through a member of their family.
Last year authorities in France documented 1,320 antisemitic incidents recorded nationwide, a fall of 16 percent from the previous year’s high of 1,570. While Jews make up less than one percent of the French population — totaling 500,000 to amount to Europe’s highest Jewish population — they account for 53 percent of hate crime victims. French officials warned that the numbers were certainly undercounts of the actual number of incidents.
Last month, lawmaker Caroline Yadan put forward legislation to expand penalties for antisemitic speech. Dubbed the “Yadan law,” the proposed measure would ban “implicit” justifications of terrorism, advocacy for obliterating any state recognized by France, and comparing Israel to Nazi Germany. The bill’s supporters chose to withdraw the plan on April 16 after determining they were unlikely to succeed.
The centrist party Ensemble pour la République (EPR) blamed the leftist La France Insoumise (LFI) party for allegedly obstructing the bill’s progression.
In March, Dov Maimon, a senior fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute, described the ideological dynamics in local French politics today and the threat they posed against the Jewish people.
“On one side, Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s far-left party, La France Insoumise (LFI), which didn’t hold a single seat on any municipal council, has now entered hundreds of councils and captured real cities for the first time,” Maimon wrote. “On the other side, the far right took approximately 40% of the vote and clinched dozens of mayoral races.”
Maimon warned that “the center seems to have collapsed. According to current polls, Mélenchon has a real chance of reaching that final round as the standard-bearer of the left. His political movement has weaponized hostility toward Israel, and his ties to Islamist networks are well-documented.”
In March, French authorities arrested two brothers alleged to have planned an antisemitic terror attack. Investigators found a semi-automatic firearm, a bottle of acid, and an ISIS flag during a traffic stop.
Kushner is the grandson of Holocaust survivors. His son Jared is US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and serves as the Special Envoy for Peace where he has acted as a key foreign policy negotiator during the ongoing conflict with the Islamic regime in Iran.