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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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How the Haskalah Changed the Way Jews Experienced Judaism
A Torah scroll. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
The word “Haskalah” conjures up a period of upheaval in 18th century European Jewish life. If you were to ask anybody what the term Haskalah refers to nowadays, in Israel you will be told that “Haskalah Gevoha” means higher education. But once upon a time, Haskalah was a scandalous word to some, and stood for intellectual freedom to others.
It was Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786) who was (perhaps unfairly) regarded as the founder of Haskalah — the attempt to combine the Jewish religion and its scholarship with secular cultural and scientific advances.
Mendelssohn was given permission to settle in Berlin, where he came into contact with non-Jewish scholarship. His brilliant philosophical mind soon led to him being accepted into the German cultural elite.
Mendelssohn saw the danger of Jews moving out of the ghetto to assimilate. He believed that by translating the Torah into German, the danger could be averted. He argued that Judaism did not conflict with modern states. It is worth reading his book, Jerusalem: Or on Religious Power and Judaism. In it, he claimed that Jews were not a threat to established societies and religions, and should be granted equality.
Sadly, although he remained completely Orthodox himself, within a generation, all his children married out and abandoned Judaism. At the time, this seemed to negate his position. But his position found support and admirers in much of Central Europe, even in rabbinic circles.
Back in Eastern Europe and Russia, the leaders of the Jewish world saw this trend of accepting and studying secular subjects as a threat to their Jewish life.
When Napoleon attacked Russia, many rabbis sided with the antisemitic tzar against Napoleon, because they feared that if Napoleon brought equality to the Jews, many would abandon Judaism altogether. They also believed that loosened restrictions in Central and Western Europe were leading to assimilation.
This era was described as a “Kulturkampf” (culture war) between the old and the new. And either way, Jews were seen as outsiders. This is why Theodor Herzl believed that Jews would always be alien, and only a Jewish state could keep the Jewish people safe.
Within the Jewish world, the desire for wider knowledge in the realms of medicine, mathematics, and philosophy had always been encouraged by great rabbinic authorities from Maimonides to the Vilna Gaon. But they were not approved for mass consumption.
The movement to open up to the cultural world became known as the Haskalah — with rival camps supporting their own systems of education, language, literature, drama, and ideology. But it often turned into an anti-religious mindset.
At the same time, the Reform movement began in Germany and headed in a different direction. The rivalry between rabbis of different persuasions fractured and altered Jewish communities fundamentally.
In the past, if you wanted to abandon Judaism, your only option was to become a Christian or a Muslim. Now, for the first time, there was a third option — embrace a different strand of Judaism. The cohesion that had been forced on the Jewish people since the Roman exile began to fragment.
Secular Judaism is strong and manifest in Israel. On the other hand, the Haredi world has doubled down on its separatism as the only way to combat the attraction of Western civilization.
Today, there are so many other factions and sects that have developed. And what is called Modern or Open Orthodoxy still adheres to the dream of combining two worlds that generated the Haskalah originally.
The Jewish people face constant challenges from the outside and within. Nothing reflects this more clearly than the history of Haskalah. I can only conclude that this division can be regarded as creative, forcing us to cope with different challenges and to examine our own lives and our own relationship with Judaism.
The author is a writer and rabbi based in New York.
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US Intelligence Raises Doubts About Venezuela Leader’s Cooperation
Venezuela’s interim president Delcy Rodriguez speaks during a press conference, more than a week after the US launched a strike on the country and captured President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, at Miraflores Palace in Caracas, Venezuela, Jan. 14, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Leonardo Fernandez Viloria
US intelligence reports have raised doubts about whether interim Venezuelan President Delcy Rodriguez will cooperate with the Trump administration by formally cutting ties with US adversaries, four people familiar with the reports said in recent days.
US officials have said publicly they want the interim president to sever relations with close international allies like Iran, China, and Russia, including expelling their diplomats and advisers from Venezuela.
But Rodriguez, whose swearing-in ceremony was attended by representatives of those countries early this month, has yet to publicly announce such a move. She became president after the US captured former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Jan. 3.
The US intelligence reports said it was not clear if she is fully on board with the US strategy in her country, according to the sources, who declined to be identified by name.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled on Jan. 15 to Caracas, where he discussed the country’s political future with Rodriguez. Reuters could not determine if those conversations changed the intelligence agencies’ opinion.
Washington wants to rein in its foes’ influence in the Western hemisphere, including in Venezuela, where Trump seeks to exploit the OPEC nation’s vast oil reserves.
If Rodriguez were to break ties with the US rivals, it would open more opportunity for US investment in Venezuela’s energy sector. But failure to control Rodriguez could undercut Washington’s efforts to direct the country’s interim rulers from afar and avoid a deeper US military role.
The Central Intelligence Agency and the Venezuela government did not respond to requests for comment.
Asked for comment, a senior Trump administration official, who declined to be identified, said US President Donald Trump “continues to exert maximum leverage” over Venezuela‘s leaders and “expects this cooperation to continue.”
ABANDON LONGTIME ALLIES?
The CIA has previously assessed that officials loyal to Maduro, including Rodriguez, were best positioned to govern the country following his ouster.
But critics of Trump’s Venezuela strategy have expressed doubts about the wisdom of keeping Maduro’s loyalists in place as the country’s interim leaders. The concerns about Rodriguez’ reliability were present prior to the US military operation, said two sources.
For Venezuela, the US directive means abandoning its closest allies outside the region. Iran has helped Venezuela repair oil refineries while China has taken oil as repayment for debt. Russia has supplied weaponry, including missiles, to Venezuela‘s military.
Trump has also cited communist-led Cuba as another US foe he wants Venezuela to abandon. Havana has provided security and intelligence support while receiving cut-rate Venezuelan oil.
Since Maduro’s removal, Rodriguez, whose deep ties to the oil sector are crucial to keeping the country stable, has taken steps to stay in favor with Washington including releasing political prisoners and authorizing the sale of 30 million to 50 million barrels of oil to the United States.
In a speech on Sunday, Rodriguez said she has had “enough” of US intervention. Still, US officials have also held positive calls with her in recent days, according to two of the sources.
The Trump administration does not see an immediate alternative to working with Rodriguez, given it has publicly backed her so strongly, two of the sources said.
But US officials are developing contacts with senior military and security officials in case they decide to change their approach, a source briefed on Venezuela policy said.
MACHADO CONSIDERED A LONGER-TERM OPTION TO RUN VENEZUELA
The recent intelligence reports also found that opposition leader Maria Corina Machado is not currently able to run the country successfully in part because she lacks strong ties to the country’s security services or oil sector, the sources said.
Some observers and Machado’s movement say it won a 2024 election that year by a huge margin, though the state backed a Maduro victory. She remains popular with Venezuelans.
Trump told reporters last week he wanted Machado “involved” in the country’s leadership, without providing details.
One person familiar with the administration’s discussions with Machado said she is well-liked by the White House and is considered a longer-term option for a leadership position in Venezuela.
The separate source briefed on Venezuela policy suggested that for now, Machado could be considered for an advisory role but no firm decision had been made. Representatives for Machado did not respond to a request for comment.
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UN Experts Denounce Switzerland for Sentencing Students Over Anti-Israel Protest Activity
Illustrative: Youths take part in the occupation of a street in front of the building of the Sciences Po University in support of Palestinians in Gaza, during the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Paris, France, April 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes
UN human rights experts said on Tuesday they had protested to Switzerland after a group of students were sentenced for trespassing after taking part in anti-Israel sit-ins at a Swiss-funded university during the war in Gaza.
The students who took part in the protests in May 2024 were opposing the Swiss university ETH Zurich’s partnerships with Israeli universities, the UN experts said.
“Peaceful student activism, on and off campus, is part of students‘ rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, and must not be criminalized,” the UN experts said, adding that they had written to the Swiss government and the university to raise the issue.
A spokesperson for the Swiss Foreign Ministry confirmed it had received the message and said it would respond in due course.
An ETH Zurich spokesperson said it had received the letter. It said that of the 40 people that were reported for trespassing, 11 were ETH members, including nine students and two employees.
“The claim that the two sit-ins were peaceful and aimed at dialogue does not match our perception,” the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson also said that the university and the police communicated to the sit-in protesters the potential consequences regarding charges and prosecution for trespassing and gave the demonstrators several deadlines to leave without consequences.
Five students have so far been sentenced for trespassing, resulting in suspended fines of up to 2,700 Swiss francs ($3,516), legal fees of over 2,000 Swiss francs and a criminal conviction on their records which could discourage future prospective employers, the UN experts said.
Ten others who appealed the charges await sentencing and two others were acquitted, they said.
($1 = 0.7679 Swiss francs)