1947 Jewish HOLOCAUST JOINT HAGGADAH Israel SHERIT HAPLETA Hebrew DP CAMP SEDDER

$193.90 $182.27 Buy It Now or Best Offer, $42.15 Shipping, 30-Day Returns, eBay Money Back Guarantee
Seller: judaica-bookstore ✉️ (2,805) 100%, Location: TEL AVIV, IL, Ships to: WORLDWIDE, Item: 285592620217 1947 Jewish HOLOCAUST JOINT HAGGADAH Israel SHERIT HAPLETA Hebrew DP CAMP SEDDER.

DESCRIPTION Up for auction is an authentic JEWISH Hebrew HOLOCAUST HAGGADAH which was published in ERETZ ISRAEL - PALESTINE in 1947 ( Dated ) , One year before the astablishment of the INDEPENDENT STATE of ISRAEL and the 1948 WAR of INDEPENDENCE by YAVNEH Tel Aviv for the AMERICAN "JOINT" -  "The AMERICAN JOINT JEWISH DISTRIBUTION COMMITTEE"  to be used by the HOLOCAUST REMNANTS , SHEIRT HAPLETA who were gathered after the HOLOCAUST and WW2 in DP CAMPS ( Displaced Persons Camps ) all over RUINED EUROPE. Traditional HEBREW HAGGADAH text . Original SC. 5 x 9" . 32 pp . Pristine MINT condition. Tightly bound. Perfectly clean.  ( Pls look at scan for accurate AS IS images ) .Will be sent inside a protective rigid packaging .

PAYMENTS : Payment method accepted : Paypal & All credit cards  . SHIPPMENT : Shipp worldwide via registered airmail costs $ 25 .  will be sent inside a protective rigid packaging . Handling around 5-10 days after payment.  IMPORTANT REMARK : I have literaly hundreds of YIZKOR BOOKS in my library : Yizkor Bucher of places in Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine, Belaruse, Russia, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia , Romania ETC. If you are looking for a specific town or region - Please don't hesitate to requiere - I may be able to provide or trace the book for you.

 

Vaad Hatzalah (the Rescue Committee or Committee for Rescuing) was an organization to rescue Jews in Europe from the Holocaust. It was founded in November 1939 by the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada (Agudath Harabbanim)[1]. It was originally named Emergency Committee for War-Torn Yeshivas and it is often referred to as "the Rescue Committee" also formally named: Vaad ha-Hatzala in Hebrew.Recognizing that following the law would lead to greater numbers of Jews being murdered, the Vaad sometimes used means that were illegal. For example, the Polish government in exile in Bern sent coded cables to New York on behalf of the Vaad and related Jewish organizations. This avoided the strict American censors and allowed messages from Nazi-controlled Europe to reach Jewish rescuers.[1] The American State Department had issued orders to block messages coming from Europe regarding news of the Nazis extermination of the Jews.[2]  ***********   VAAD HA-HATZALAH, a body originally established to rescue rabbis and yeshivah students during World War II. Though originally focusing exclusively on rabbis and yeshivah students, it expanded its agenda to assist all Jews in the wake of the revelation of the Final Solution and became the representative relief agency of American Orthodox Jewry.Established in mid-November 1939 by an emergency meeting of the *Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada, then the largest and most important association of Orthodox rabbis in North America, the Vaad was initially founded to rescue the Polish rabbis and yeshivah students who had escaped to Lithuania following the German and Soviet invasions of September 1939, including the rashei yeshivah and students of leading talmudic academies such as Mir, Kletsk, Radin, Kamenets, and Baranowitz. Initially dubbed the "Emergency Committee for War-Torn Yeshivos," its leadership, headed byRabbi Eliezer *Silver of Cincinnati, originally envisioned the relocation of the refugee yeshivot to safe havens, preferably in Palestine or the United States, as its main goal, but found itself increasingly preoccupied with maintenance as emigration from Lithuania proved extremely difficult.As the number of refugee Polish rabbis and students in Lithuania increased and the financial burden of supporting them grew, the Vaad, which upon its foundation declared that it would seek support exclusively from Orthodox sources, sought to expand its fundraising efforts to the entire American Jewish community. This development led to serious tension between the Vaad and the*American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (and the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds) which bore communal responsibility for administering overseas relief to Jews in distress and had joined in creating the United Jewish Appeal in January 1939 to unify American Jewish fundraising for the first time ever. While ostensibly based on practical considerations affecting fundraising, the debates between the Vaad and the JDC and CJFWF also related to two extremely serious issues: rescue priority; i.e., who should be rescued first, and the attitude toward increasingly stringent U.S. regulations, which hampered rescue and relief efforts. While the leaders of the Vaad sought absolute priority for rabbis and yeshivah students, the JDC saw things differently. While the Vaad actively sought means of circumventing the spirit, and in some cases even the letter, of American regulations, which might adversely affect rescue and relief initiatives, the JDC leadership refused to approve the slightest deviation from U.S. directives.During the initial year and a half of its existence, the Vaad concentrated its efforts on assisting the over 2,600 Polish rabbis and yeshivah students who had escaped to Lithuania and trying to arrange their emigration overseas. (When the Soviet Union occupied Lithuania in June 1940, the Vaad also sought to facilitate the emigration of Lithuanian Torah scholars, yet in most cases they were barred from leaving by the Soviet authorities.) In the summer of 1940, for example, they sought to enlist communal support for the mass transfer of all the refugee scholars to the United States, but encountered stiff opposition fromRabbi Stephen *Wise and most of the American Jewish leaders and organizations. Ultimately, the Vaad helped obtain American visas for several leading rashei yeshivah and the members of their families in the framework of a special program to rescue the scientific and cultural elite of Europe.When a possibility for large-scale emigration from Soviet Lithuania developed in the fall of 1940 based on visas to Curaçao and Japanese transit visas, the Vaad helped fund the rail and ship tickets for numerous Torah scholars, but the bulk of the funds for the project were provided by the Joint Distribution Committee. All told, of the approximately 2,300 Polish refugees who emigrated from Lithuania to the Far East from October 1940 until the German invasion in June 1941, some 650 were rabbis and yeshivah students; many of whom were assisted by the Vaad; among the refugees were such leading rashei yeshivah as Rabbi Aaron *Kotler of Kletsk, Reuben Grazowsky of Kamenets, and Abraham Yaphin of Bialystok and communal rabbis such as David Lifshitz of Suwalk and Moses Shatzkes of Lomza, all of whom reached the United States in 1941. Together with Rabbi Abraham Kalmanowitz of Tiktin, who had arrived in America a year earlier, several of these rabbis and especially Rabbi Kotler, were to play leading roles in the activities of the Vaad. The bulk of the refugee scholars who reached the Far East, however, were sent by the Japanese to*Shanghai , where – with the exception of 29 who immigrated to Canada in the fall of 1941 with visas obtained with the help of the Vaad – they remained for the duration of the war.Following the American entry into World War II, the Vaad concentrated primarily on providing assistance to the refugee Torah scholars in Shanghai as well as to the group of several hundred rabbis and yeshivah students in Soviet Central Asia. Many of the latter were among the thousands of Polish citizens deported by the Soviets to Siberia or to prison camps prior to the German invasion, who were released in the wake of the Sikorski-Stalin Pact of August 1941. The Vaad provided funds for both groups and sent parcels of food and clothing to the latter, enabling them to maintain their unique life-style and continue their Torah studies despite the difficult physical conditions in both places.Following the receipt by the Vaad of news from Switzerland concerning the scope of the mass murder of European Jewry, the rabbinic rescue organization began to play a more active role in political activities designed to facilitate the rescue of Jews from German-occupied Europe. Joining forces with the leaders of American Agudat Israel, the Orthodox activists tried to promote efforts to unite American Jewry and to make rescue the community's number one priority. Rabbi Israel Rosenberg, one of the key figures in the Vaad, was among the Jewish leaders who met with President Roosevelt on December 8, 1942, to urge him to take action to save European Jewry, and the Vaad's leadership initially participated in the attempts to establish the American Jewish Conference as a representative umbrella organization for American Jewry.The highlight of these activities was the protest march of some 400 rabbis in Washington on October 6, 1943, the only public demonstration by Jewish leaders in the American capital during the war. The march was organized together with the "Emergency Committee for the Rescue of the Jewish People of Europe," a group headed by revisionist Zionists, which led the efforts to convince the American government to establish a special rescue agency, which ultimately led to the creation of the*War Refugee Board. In early January 1944, the Vaad officially decided that henceforth it would attempt to rescue all Jews regardless of religiosity and/or affiliation. This decision was a product of two major developments – the dissolution of the Joint Emergency Council on European Jewish Affairs and the creation by the Vaad of practical means to transfer funds to rescue activists, headed byRabbi Michael Dov *Weissmandl , in German-occupied Europe. The former had been the only framework which included representatives of all the major Jewish organizations and could have coordinated unified political action to promote practical rescue initiatives. The creation of the latter meant that for the first time ever, the Vaad could actively support rescue activities inside German-occupied Europe. From this point on, the Vaad channeled most of its resources to assist the Jews living under German rule, initiating several rescue projects primarily through its Swiss branch (the HIJEFS relief agency headed by Recha and Isaac Sternbuch), but also via its representatives in Turkey (Jacob Griffel), Tangiers (Renee Reichman), and Sweden (Wilhelm Wolbe). The culmination of these efforts was the release to Switzerland on the night of February 6–7, 1945, of a train with 1,210 inmates from the Theresienstadt ghetto/concentration camp, a product of negotiations conducted by Swiss politician Jean-Marie Musy on the Vaad's behalf with top Nazi leaders. During the same period, the Vaad continued to send considerable sums of money to the refugee scholars in Shanghai and Central Asia, which allowed these Torah scholars, who simultaneously received aid from other Jewish organizations, to continue their studies and maintain their life-style.After World War II, the Vaad played an active role in the spiritual rehabilitation of the survivors, continuing its operations until the early 1950s. From its establishment in 1939 until the end of 1945, the Vaad spent more than three million dollars on relief and rescue activities and in the process helped "Americanize" the American Orthodox leadership. While its insistence on according rescue efforts top priority and circumventing bureaucratic and legal obstacles has been favorably acknowledged by historians, its particularism and insistence on priority for Torah learning at the possible expense of rescue activities continue to be a source of debate and polemic in the Jewish community. ************  The Vaad Hatzala (literally, "rescue committee" in Hebrew) was created by the Executive Committee of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada at an emergency meeting held in New York on November 13-14, 1939. Originally named "The Emergency Committee for War-Torn Yeshivot," the name was later changed to "The Emergency Committee for Relief, Rehabilitation, and Reconstruction" as the organization's activities expanded after World War II. It became best known as the "Vaad Hatzala."The Executive Council of the Vaad was composed of a Presidium of five rabbis: Rabbis Eliezer Silver, Israel Rosenberg, B. Levinthal, J. M. Gordon, and Jacob Levinson; the Executive Secretary, Rabbi Jacob Karlinsky; and the Chairman of the Finance Committee, Menashe Stein.While the organization's headquarters were located in New York, branches were established throughout Europe both during and after the war, including Germany, France, and Switzerland. The directors of these foreign offices were appointed by the Executive Council.In 1946, an Executive Director, Arthur B. Rosenkranz, was hired, together with Gertrude Gould who was in charge of Public Relations.The organization's initial purpose was to raise funds for groups of rabbis, yeshiva students and their families stranded in Vilna, Lithuania after fleeing eastern Poland following the Soviet invasion of Poland in September 1939. The secondary goal was to arrange for their mass emigration. Between 1940 and 1941, the Vaad Hatzala raised funds for the passage of refugees granted transit visas to Japan; at the same time, the committee lobbied to procure visas for rabbis and students in Lithuania to enter the United States. After the Jewish refugees in Japan were transferred to Shanghai, the Vaad Hatzala sent funds and supplies to support the newly established community, while petitioning the governments of the United States, Poland, and Spain, among others, to intervene on their behalf and aid in their emigration.Between 1943 and 1944, the Vaad sent many telegrams to different branches of the United States government, including the White House and the State Department, and to foreign governments alerting officials to the systematic exterminations of Jews taking place in ghettos and concentration camps throughout Nazi-occupied Europe. The following is an excerpt from a telegram to Assistant Secretary of the State Department, Adolf Berle, Jr., on Oct. 26, 1944 (Box 9, Folder 68):"We must appeal in last moments for European Jewry and respectfully request your most urgent and desperately needed intercession...We appeal that all possible rescue means be exhausted..."The Vaad did succeed in actually taking out thousands of Jews from concentration camps and bringing them to Switzerland in 1945, transmitting great sums of money to their agents to negotiate with German officials.Following the end of the Second World War, the Vaad's activities, centered in Germany and France, consisted of distributing funds and shipments of food and religious books to Displaced Persons camps in Germany and newly established yeshivot. It provided spiritual rehabilitation to remnants of Jewish communities destroyed during the Holocaust, while arranging for visas to the United States for refugee rabbinical teachers and students.It is not clear from the documents when the organization was officially disbanded; although the latest document is dated 1963, the latest piece of official stationery in the files dates from 1954. It appears that the organization was on the decline after 1948 and did not regain its former vitality after this period. ****  The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah,[b] was the genocide of European Jews during World War II.[3] Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe,[a] around two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population.[c] The murders were carried out in pogroms and mass shootings; by a policy of extermination through labor in concentration camps; and in gas chambers and gas vans in German extermination camps, chiefly Auschwitz-Birkenau, Bełżec, Chełmno, Majdanek, Sobibór, and Treblinka in occupied Poland.[5] Germany implemented the persecution in stages. Following Adolf Hitler's appointment as chancellor on 30 January 1933, the regime built a network of concentration camps in Germany for political opponents and those deemed "undesirable", starting with Dachau on 22 March 1933.[6] After the passing of the Enabling Act on 24 March,[7] which gave Hitler dictatorial plenary powers, the government began isolating Jews from civil society; this included boycotting Jewish businesses in April 1933 and enacting the Nuremberg Laws in September 1935. On 9–10 November 1938, eight months after Germany annexed Austria, Jewish businesses and other buildings were ransacked or set on fire throughout Germany and Austria on what became known as Kristallnacht (the "Night of Broken Glass"). After Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, triggering World War II, the regime set up ghettos to segregate Jews. Eventually, thousands of camps and other detention sites were established across German-occupied Europe. The segregation of Jews in ghettos culminated in the policy of extermination the Nazis called the Final Solution to the Jewish Question, discussed by senior government officials at the Wannsee Conference in Berlin in January 1942. As German forces captured territories in the East, all anti-Jewish measures were radicalized. Under the coordination of the SS, with directions from the highest leadership of the Nazi Party, killings were committed within Germany itself, throughout occupied Europe, and within territories controlled by Germany's allies. Paramilitary death squads called Einsatzgruppen, in cooperation with the German Army and local collaborators, murdered around 1.3 million Jews in mass shootings and pogroms from the summer of 1941. By mid-1942, victims were being deported from ghettos across Europe in sealed freight trains to extermination camps where, if they survived the journey, they were gassed, worked or beaten to death, or killed by disease, starvation, cold, medical experiments, or during death marches. The killing continued until the end of World War II in Europe in May 1945. The European Jews were targeted for extermination as part of a larger event during the Holocaust era (1933–1945),[8] in which Germany and its collaborators persecuted and murdered millions of others, including ethnic Poles, Soviet civilians and prisoners of war, the Roma, the disabled, political and religious dissidents, and gay men.****** Sh'erit ha-Pletah is a Hebrew term for Jewish Holocaust survivors living in Displaced Persons (DP) camps, and the organisations they created to act on their behalf with the Allied authorities. These were active between 27 May 1945 and 1950–51, when the last DP camps closed.[1][2] Hebrew: שארית הפליטה, romanized: Sh'erit ha-Pletah means surviving remnant, and is a term from the Book of Ezra and 1 Chronicles (Ezra 9:14; 1 Chr 4:43).[citation needed] A total of more than 250,000 Jewish survivors spent several years following their liberation in DP camps or communities in Germany, Austria, and Italy, since they could not, or would not, be repatriated to their countries of origin. The refugees became socially and politically organized, advocating at first for their political and human rights in the camps, and then for the right to emigrate to the countries of their choice, preferably British-ruled Mandatory Palestine, the USA and Canada. By 1950, the largest part of them did end up living in those countries; meanwhile British Palestine had become the Jewish State of Israel.[citation needed] Contents 1 Formation of the DP camps 2 Harrison report 3 Growth of the camps 4 Humanitarian services in the DP camps 5 From representation to autonomy 6 Political activism 7 A community dedicated to its own dissolution 8 Legacy 9 See also 10 References 11 Further reading 12 External links Formation of the DP camps School children at Schauenstein DP camp in 1946 In an effort to destroy the evidence of war crimes, Nazi authorities and military staff accelerated the pace of killings, forced victims on death marches, and attempted to deport many of them away from the rapidly shrinking German front lines. As the German war effort collapsed, survivors were typically left on their own, on trains, by the sides of roads, and in camps. Concentration and death camps were liberated by Allied forces in the final stages of the war, beginning with Majdanek, in July 1944, and Auschwitz, in January 1945; Buchenwald, Bergen-Belsen, Dachau, Mauthausen, and other camps were liberated in April and May 1945.[3] At the time of Germany's unconditional surrender on 7 May 1945 there were some 6.5 to 7 million displaced persons in the Allied occupation zones,[4] among them an estimated 55,000 [5] to 60,000[6] Jews. The vast majority of non-Jewish DPs were repatriated in a matter of months.[7] The number of Jewish DPs, however, subsequently grew manyfold as Jewish refugees from Eastern Europe and Soviet occupation zone migrated westward. It is estimated that a total of more than 250,000 Jewish DPs resided in camps or communities in Germany, Austria, and Italy during the period from 1945 to 1952.[8] In the first weeks after liberation, Allied military forces improvised relief in the form of shelter, food, and medical care. A large number of refugees were in critical condition as a result of malnutrition, abuse, and disease. Many died, but medical material was requisitioned from military stores and German civilian facilities. Military doctors as well as physicians among the survivors themselves used available resources to help a large number recover their physical health. The first proper funerals of Holocaust victims took place during this period with the assistance of Allied forces and military clergy.[citation needed] Shelter was also improvised in the beginning, with refugees of various origins being housed in abandoned barracks, hotels, former concentration camps, and private homes.[citation needed] As Germany and Austria came under Allied military administration, the commanders assumed responsibility for the safety and disposition of all displaced persons. The Allies provided for the DPs according to nationality, and initially did not recognize Jews as constituting a separate group. One significant consequence of this early perspective was that Jewish DPs sometimes found themselves housed in the same quarters with former Nazi collaborators.[9][10] Also, the general policy of the Allied occupation forces was to repatriate DPs to their country of origin as soon as possible, and there was not necessarily sufficient consideration for exceptions; repatriation policy varied from place to place, but Jewish DPs, for whom repatriation was problematic, were apt to find themselves under pressure to return home.[11] General George Patton, the commander of the United States Third Army and military governor of Bavaria, where most of the Jewish DPs resided, was known for pursuing a harsh, indiscriminate repatriation policy.[12][13] However, his approach raised objections from the refugees themselves, as well as from American military and civilian parties sympathetic to their plight. In early July 1945, Patton issued a directive that the entire Munich area was to be cleared of displaced persons with an eye toward repatriating them. Joseph Dunner, an American officer who in civilian life was a professor of political science, sent a memorandum to military authorities protesting the order. When 90 trucks of the Third Army arrived at Buchberg to transport the refugees there, they refused to move, citing Dunner's memo. Based on these efforts and blatant antisemitic remarks, Patton was relieved of this command.[14] Harrison report Main article: Harrison Report By June 1945 reports had circulated back in the United States concerning overcrowded conditions and insufficient supplies in the DP camps, as well as the ill treatment of Jewish survivors at the hand of the U.S. Army. American Jewish leaders, in particular, felt compelled to act.[15][16] American Earl G. Harrison was sent by president Truman to investigate conditions among the "non-repatriables" in the DP camps. Arriving in Germany in July, he spent several weeks visiting the camps and submitted his final report on 24 August. Harrison's report stated among other things that: Generally speaking... many Jewish displaced persons and other possibly non-repatriables are living under guard behind barbed-wire fences, in camps of several descriptions (built by the Germans for slave-laborers and Jews), including some of the most notorious of the concentration camps, amidst crowded, frequently unsanitary and generally grim conditions, in complete idleness, with no opportunity, except surreptitiously, to communicate with the outside world, waiting, hoping for some word of encouragement and action in their behalf.... ...While there has been marked improvement in the health of survivors of the Nazi starvation and persecution program, there are many pathetic malnutrition cases both among the hospitalized and in the general population of the camps... at many of the camps and centers including those where serious starvation cases are, there is a marked and serious lack of needed medical supplies... ...many of the Jewish displaced persons, late in July, had no clothing other than their concentration camp garb-a rather hideous striped pajama effect-while others, to their chagrin, were obliged to wear German S.S. uniforms. It is questionable which clothing they hate the more... ...Most of the very little which has been done [to reunite families] has been informal action by the displaced persons themselves with the aid of devoted Army Chaplains, frequently Rabbis, and the American Joint Distribution Committee... ...The first and plainest need of these people is a recognition of their actual status and by this I mean their status as Jews... While admittedly it is not normally desirable to set aside particular racial or religious groups from their nationality categories, the plain truth is that this was done for so long by the Nazis that a group has been created which has special needs... ...Their desire to leave Germany is an urgent one.... They want to be evacuated to Palestine now, just as other national groups are being repatriated to their homes... Palestine, while clearly the choice of most, is not the only named place of possible emigration. Some, but the number is not large, wish to emigrate to the United States where they have relatives, others to England, the British Dominions, or to South America... ...No other single matter is, therefore, so important from the viewpoint of Jews in Germany and Austria and those elsewhere who have known the horrors of the concentration camps as is the disposition of the Palestine question... ...As matters now stand, we appear to be treating the Jews as the Nazis treated them except that we do not exterminate them. They are in concentration camps in large numbers under our military guard instead of S.S. troops.[17] Harrison's report was met with consternation in Washington, and its contrast with Patton's position ultimately contributed to Patton being relieved of his command in Germany in September 1945.[citation needed] Growth of the camps The number of refugees in the DP camps continued to grow as displaced Jews who were in Western Europe at war's end were joined by hundreds of thousands of refugees from Eastern Europe. Many of these were Polish Jews who had initially been repatriated. Nearly 90% of the approximately 200,000 Polish Jews who had survived the war in the Soviet Union chose to return to Poland under the Soviet-Polish repatriation agreements [pl].[18] But Jews returning to their erstwhile homes in Poland met with a generally hostile reception from their non-Jewish neighbors. Between fall 1944 and summer 1946 as many as 600 Jews were killed in anti-Jewish riots in various towns and cities,[19] including incidents in Cracow, around August 20, 1945;[20] Sosnowiec, on October 25; and Lublin, on November 19. Most notable was the pogrom in Kielce on July 4, 1946, in which 42 Jews were killed.[21] In the course of 1946 the flight of Jewish refugees from Eastern Europe toward the West amounted to a mass exodus that swelled the ranks of DPs in Germany and Austria, especially in the U.S. Zone.[22] Although hundreds of DP camps were in operation between 1945 and 1948, the refugees were mostly segregated, with several camps being dedicated to Jews. These camps varied in terms of the conditions afforded to the refugees, how they were managed, and the composition of their population.[citation needed] In the American sector, the Jewish community across many camps organized itself rapidly for purposes of representation and advocacy. In the British sector, most refugees were concentrated in the Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp and were under tighter control.[citation needed] Humanitarian services in the DP camps The Allies had begun to prepare for the humanitarian aftermath of the war while it was still going on, with the founding of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), on 9 November 1943. However, the beginnings of the agency were plagued by organizational problems and corruption.[23] The military authorities were, in any case, reluctant to yield significant responsibility for the DP assembly centers to a civilian organization, until it became clear that there would be a need to house and care for the DPs for an extended period of time.[23][24] At the point when it was supposed to begin its work the UNRRA was woefully understaffed in view of the larger than expected numbers of DPs, and additional staff that were hastily recruited were poorly trained.[25] The agency began to send staff into the field in summer 1945; its mission had been conceived mainly as a support to the repatriation process, including providing medical services, and assuring the delivery of adequate nutrition, as well as attending to the DPs' needs for comfort and entertainment; however, it often fell short of fulfilling these functions.[26] As of 15 November 1945, the UNRRA officially assumed responsibility for the administration of the camps, while remaining generally subordinate to the military, which continued to provide for housing and security in the camps, as well as the delivery of food, clothing, and medical supplies. Over time the UNRRA supplemented the latter basic services with health and welfare services, recreational facilities, self-help programs, and vocational guidance.[27] By the time that the UNRRA took the reins of administration of the camps, the Jewish DPs had already begun to elect their own representatives, and were vocal about their desire for self-governance. However, since camp committees did not yet have any officially sanctioned role, their degree of power and influence depended at first on the stance of the particular UNRRA director at the given camp.[28] The UNRRA was active mainly through the end of 1946 and had wound down its operations by mid 1947. In late 1947 a new successor organization, the International Refugee Organization (IRO) absorbed some of the UNRRA staff and assumed its responsibilities, but with a focus turned toward resettlement, as well as care of the most vulnerable DPs, rather than repatriation.[29] A number of other organizations played an active role in the emerging Jewish community in the DP camps. The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee ("Joint") provided financial support and supplies from American sources; in the British sector, the Jewish Relief Unit acted as the British equivalent to the Joint; and the ORT established numerous vocational and other training.[citation needed] From representation to autonomy The refugees who found themselves in provisional, sparse quarters under military guard soon spoke up against the ironic nature of their liberation, invoking an oft-repeated slogan "From Dachau to Feldafing."[30] Working committees were established in each camp, and on July 1, 1945 the committees met for a founding session of a federation for Jewish DP camp committees in Feldafing. The session also included representatives of the Jewish Brigade and the Allied military administration. It resulted in the formation of a provisional council and an executive committee chaired by Zalman Grinberg. Patton's attempt at repatriating Jewish refugees had resulted in a resolve within the Sh'erit ha-Pletah to define their own destiny. The various camp committees convened a General Jewish Survivors’ Conference a conference for the entire Sh'erit ha-Pletah at the St. Ottilien camp attended by delegates representing Holocaust survivors from forty-six Displaced Persons camps in both the American and the British Zones of Occupied Germany and Austria. The delegates passed a fourteen-point program that established a broad mandate, including the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine with UN recognition, compensation to victims, participation in the trials against Nazi war criminals, archival of historical records, and full autonomy for the committees. However, the survivor organizations in the American and British Zones remain separate after the conference and the American and British sectors developed independent organization structures.[31][2][1] The center for the British sector in Germany was at the Bergen-Belsen DP camp, where Josef Rosensaft had been the primus motor for establishing what became the Central Committee for Displaced Persons in the British zone. In the American sector, Zalman Grinberg and Samuel Gringauz and others led the formation of the Central Committee of the Liberated Jews, which was to establish offices first in the former Deutsches Museum and then in Siebertstrasse 3 in Munich.[citation needed] The central organizations for Jewish refugees had an overwhelming number of issues to resolve, among them: Ensuring healthy and dignified living conditions for the refugees living in various camps and installations Establishing political legitimacy for themselves by establishing a constitution with a political process with debates, elections, etc. Facilitating and encouraging religious, educational, and cultural expression within the camps Arranging for employment for the refugees, though not in enterprises that would contribute to the German economy Supporting the absorption in the camp infrastructure of "new" refugees arriving from Eastern Europe Resolving acrimonious and sometimes violent disputes between the camps and German police Managing the public image of displaced persons, particularly with respect to black market activities Advocating immigration destinations for the refugees, in particular to the British Mandate in Palestine, but also the United States, Australia, and elsewhere[citation needed] Military authorities were at first reluctant to officially recognize the central committees as the official representatives of the Jewish refugees in DP camps, though cooperation and negotiations carried characteristics of a de facto acceptance of their mandate. Eventually on September 7, 1946, at a meeting in Frankfurt, the American military authorities recognized the Central Committee of the Liberated Jews as a legitimate party to the issue of the Jewish displaced persons in the American sector.[citation needed] Political activism What the people of the Sh'erit ha-Pletah had in common was what had made them victims in the first place, but other than that they were a diverse group. Their outlook, needs, and aspirations varied tremendously. There were strictly observant Jews as well as individuals that had earlier been assimilated into secular culture. Religious convictions ran from the Revisionist group to Labor Zionists and even ideological communists. Although Yiddish was the common language within the community, individuals came from virtually every corner of Europe.[citation needed] There was lively political debate, involving satire, political campaigns, and the occasional acrimony. The growth of Yiddish newspapers within the camps added fuel to the political culture.[citation needed] The political environment of the community evolved during its years of existence. In the first year or two, it was predominantly focused on improving the conditions in the camps and asserting the legitimacy of the community as an autonomous entity. Over time, the emphasis shifted to promoting the Zionist goals of allowing immigration into the British Mandate in Palestine; political divisions within the Sh'erit ha-Pletah mirrored those found in the Yishuv itself.[citation needed] At every turn, the community expressed its opposition and outrage against British restrictions on Jewish immigration to Palestine. In the British sector, the protests approached a level of civil disobedience; in the American sector, attempts were made to apply political pressure to alleviate these restrictions. The relationship between Sh'erit ha-Pletah and British authorities remained tense until the State of Israel was formed. This came to a head when Lieutenant General Sir Frederick E. Morgan – then UNRRA chief of operations in Germany – claimed that the influx of Jewish refugees from Eastern Europe as "nothing short of a skillful campaign of anti-British aggression on the part of Zion aided and abetted by Russia... [meaning] death to the British." (Morgan was allowed to remain in his post after this comment but was fired when making similar comments later).[citation needed] In late 1945, the UNRRA conducted several surveys among Jewish refugees, asking them to list their preferred destination for emigration. Among one population of 19,000, 18,700 named "Palestine" as their first choice, and 98% also named "Palestine" as their second choice. At the camp in Fürth, respondents were asked not to list Palestine as both their first and second choice, and 25% of the respondents then wrote "crematorium".[32] All the while, the Sh'erit ha-Pletah retained close relationships with the political leadership of the Yishuv, prompting several visits from David Ben-Gurion and other Zionist leaders. While officially detached from the committees, there was considerable support for clandestine immigration to Palestine through the Aliya Beth programs among the refugees; and tacit support for these activities also among American, UNRRA, Joint and other organizations. A delegation (consisting of Norbert Wollheim, Samuel Schlumowitz, Boris Pliskin, and Leon Retter flew to the United States to raise funds for the community, appealing to a sense of pride over "schools built for our children, four thousand pioneers on the farms... thousands of youths in trades schools... self-sacrifice of doctors, teachers, writers... democratization... hard-won autonomy,"[33] and also met with officials at the US War Department and Sir Raphael Salento over the formation of the International Refugee Organization.[citation needed] Over time, the Sh'erit ha-Pletah took on the characteristics of a state in its own right. It coordinated efforts with the political leadership in the Yishuv and the United States, forming a transient power triangle within the Jewish world. It sent its own delegation to the Twenty-Second Zionist Congress in Basel.[citation needed] A community dedicated to its own dissolution With the exception of 10,000–15,000 who chose to make their homes in Germany after the war (see Central Council of Jews in Germany), the vast majority of the Jewish DPs ultimately left the camps and settled elsewhere. About 136,000 settled in Israel, 80,000 in the United States, and sizeable numbers also in Canada and South Africa.[8] Although the community established many of the institutions that characterize a durable society, and indeed came to dominate an entire section of Munich, the overriding imperative was to find new homes for the refugees. To make the point, many of the leaders emigrated at the first possible opportunity. Both overt lobbying efforts and underground migration sought to open for unrestricted immigration to Palestine. And the camps largely emptied once the state of Israel was established, many of the refugees immediately joining the newly formed Israel Defense Forces to fight the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.[citation needed] The Central Committee in the American sector declared its dissolution on December 17, 1950 at the Deutsche Museum in Munich. Of the original group that founded the committee, only Rabbi Samuel Snieg remained for the dissolution. All the others had already emigrated, most of them to Israel. Rabbi Snieg had remained to complete the first full edition of the Talmud published in Europe after the Holocaust, the so-called Survivors' Talmud.[citation needed] The last DP camp, Föhrenwald, closed in February 1957, by then populated only by the so-called "hardcore" cases, elderly, and those disabled by disease.[citation needed] Legacy While most Holocaust survivors view their time in the DP camps as a transitional state, the Sh'erit ha-Pletah became an organizing force for the repatriation of the remnant in general and to Israel in particular. Its experience highlighted the challenges of ethnic groups displaced in their entirety without recourse to their original homes. It also demonstrated the resolve and ingenuity of individuals who had lost everything but made a new life for themselves.[citation needed] Some struggled with survivor guilt for decades.[34] Suicide amongst survivors has been a subject of some disagreement amongst Israeli medical professionals. In 1947, Dr. Aharon Persikovitz, a gynecologist who had survived the Dachau concentration camp gave a lecture called "The Psychological State Of the New Immigrant" in which he said: "Holocaust survivors do not commit suicide; they heroically prove the continuity of the Jewish people". According to Professor Yoram Barak this statement became "an accepted national myth". Barak says "The survivors themselves also did not want to be stigmatized as `sick, weak and broken;' rather, they wanted to join in the myth of the heroic sabra who just recently fought a glorious War of Independence against the enemy."[35]***** She’arit Hapleta (the Surviving Remnant) Term of biblical origin. After the war, the term "She’arit Hapleta" was used to refer to the Jewish survivors and refugees who refused to begin life again in Holocaust-devastated Europe -- especially in eastern Europe, which was infected with anti-Semitism. Most of them gathered in the DP camps and organized and demanded to leave Europe, mainly in order to immigrate to Palestine. In this sense, the term "She’arit Hapleta" describes a group that distinguished itself from the remnants of European Jewry after the war. The term is usually used in reference to the period after the war from 1945 to the dismantling of the Central Committee of She’arit Hapleta in December 1950. After the Allies' victory over Germany in May 1945, there were about eight million DPs in Europe, including 200,000 Jews: survivors of the concentration camps, the death camps and the death marches. Several thousand Jews were in a state of collapse at liberation and died from weakness, disease and the shock of liberation. Thousands returned to their lands of origin as repatriates, or travelled to southern Europe in order to immigrate to Palestine. About 50,000 were left, gathered in DP camps in the occupied zones in Germany and Austria. They were joined by many Jewish refugees who arrived from eastern Europe, particularly Poland, with the help of the Bericha organization; there were also survivors, repatriates, who returned to the west, and refugees from Hungary, Romania and Czechoslovakia. It has been estimated that the number of Jewish DPs stood at 250,000 in 1946: 185,000 of them were living in Germany, 45,000 in Austria, and about 20,000 in Italy. Most of the members of She’arit Hapleta came from eastern Europe, while most of the survivors from western countries returned to their countries of origin and renewed their lives there.**** Displaced Persons Camps General Articles Interviews Book Reviews Film Reviews When World War II ended and the German occupied territories were liberated by the Allied soldiers, those soldiers encountered hundreds of thousands of Jews who had survived the Holocaust. These people had survived years in hiding, in the ghettos or camps. Now that they were liberated many tried immediately to return to their homes. There they faced many difficulties. They suddenly realized that they had no place to go. Their homes, families, friends, entire villages and towns didn't exist anymore. In some places, particularly in Eastern Europe, survivors who had returned home encountered antisemitism and were met with violent hostility. As discussed in a different article in this newsletter issue, in Kielce, 42 Jews who had survived the Holocaust were killed by local Poles in a pogrom on July 4, 1946. Background of the DP Camps As early as 1943 the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration was created at a 44-nation conference in anticipation of the liberation of Europe and the problem of displaced persons and refugees. The UNRRA was intended to give economic and social aid to countries that had been under Nazi occupation, and to help repatriate the displaced persons. A distinction was made between “refugees” and “displaced persons.” The former were defined as those who fled from their homelands without being able to return, and were to be cared for by the Inter-Governmental Committee on Refugees (the IGCR) which was created following the Evian Conference in 1938. The latter were defined as those uprooted by the war. This included millions of people who had been deported by the Nazis to forced labor and concentration camps, or who had fled their bombed hometowns. They were expected to return to their native countries. In the meanwhile, they were to be placed in assembly centers, or displaced persons (DP) camps. These displaced persons (DP) camps were in the occupied zones of Germany, Austria and Italy. Until the second half of 1946 there was an increasing movement of refugees from east to west, and at the beginning of 1947 the number of Jewish displaced persons stabilized at around 210,000. Most of them – about 175,000 – were in Germany in the American zone. Four main stages of assistance to displaced persons were defined: rescue, relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction. These stages were not defined by sharp calendar distinctions; in some cases rehabilitation and relief began simultaneously, while in others, one phase extended into the next. European Jewry presented an acute and unique problem: Jews, who constituted twenty-five percent of the general population of displaced persons, were frozen in the period of urgent rescue operations.1 They suffered from malnutrition, from depression and from disease. Many who had narrowly escaped death when their concentration and labor camps were liberated by the Allied forces continued to remain in these camps months after liberation, still behind barbed wire, still subsisting on inadequate amounts of food and still suffering from shortages of clothing, medicine and supplies. Death rates remained high. In Bergen-Belsen, an infamous concentration camp that was transformed into a displaced persons camp, there were over 23,000 deaths within three months after liberation, 90% of them Jewish.2 Conditions in the DP Camps On June 22, 1945, U.S. President Truman requested Earl G. Harrison, dean of the University of Pennsylvania Law School and the newly-appointed American delegate to the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees, as his personal envoy to prepare a report on the situation of the displaced Jews in Europe. Harrison made a 3-week long inspection tour of the DP camps, accompanied by Dr. Joseph Schwartz, a representative of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (the Joint).3 Harrison presented his findings in a report to President Truman, quoted below. "Generally speaking [...] many Jewish displaced persons and other possibly non-repatriables are living under guard behind barbed-wire fences, in camps of several descriptions (built by the Germans for slave-laborers and Jews), including some of the most notorious of the concentration camps, amidst crowded, frequently unsanitary and generally grim conditions, in complete idleness, with no opportunity, except surreptitiously, to communicate with the outside world, waiting, hoping for some word of encouragement and action in their behalf [...] there are many pathetic malnutrition cases both among the hospitalized and in the general population of the camps [...] there is a marked and serious lack of needed medical supplies [...] many of the Jewish displaced persons, late in July, had no clothing other than their concentration camp garb […] while others, to their chagrin, were obliged to wear German S.S. uniforms. […] Beyond knowing that they are no longer in danger of the gas chambers, torture and other forms of violent death, they see – and there is – little change, the morale of those who are either stateless or who do not wish to return to their countries of nationality is very low. They have witnessed great activity and efficiency in returning people to their homes, but they hear or see nothing in the way of plans for them and consequently they wonder and frequently ask what 'liberation' means. [...] The most absorbing worry of these Nazi and war victims concerns relatives, wives, husbands, parents, children. Most of them have been separated for three, four or five years and they cannot understand why the liberators should not have undertaken immediately the organized effort to reunite family groups. Most of the very little which has been done (to reunite families) has been informal action by the displaced persons themselves with the aid of devoted Army Chaplains, frequently Rabbis, and the American Joint Distribution Committee."4 Harrison was shocked by what he saw in the DP camps. He did not mince words in his report to President Truman. The report was a ringing condemnation of the way Jewish displaced persons were being treated, and was aimed at provoking quick action by the United States. "As matters now stand, we appear to be treating the Jews as the Nazis treated them except that we do not exterminate them. They are in concentration camps in large numbers under our military guard instead of S.S. troops."5 Harrison’s report greatly influenced President Truman. It led to some improvement in the conditions in the camps. One of the first measures implemented was to separate the Jews from the rest of the population of displaced persons. The DP camps had, until then, been arranged according to nationality. Army administrators of the camps had thus forced the Jews to live in the camps together with displaced Germans and Austrians, for example, many of whom had been Nazi collaborators. In addition, despite the traumas they had lived through, Jewish displaced persons were being treated the same way as other DPs. Harrison understood that the situation of the Jews was unique, and that they needed to be treated differently than the other displaced persons. "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 and many have been through the agony of witnessing the destruction of their loved ones. Understandably, therefore, their present condition, physical and mental, is far worse than that of other groups. […] While admittedly it is not normally desirable to set aside particular racial or religious groups from their nationality categories, the plain truth is that this was done for so long by the Nazis that a group has been created which has special needs. Jews as Jews (not members of their own nationality groups) have been more severely victimized than the non-Jewish members of the same or other nationalities."6 Harrison concluded that a stronger effort needed to be made to get the Jews out of the camps, because “they are sick of living in camps.”7 In addition, he pointed out the real need for rest homes for those who needed a period of readjustment and training before living in the world. Despite the difficulties of life in the DP camps, the Jewish refugees had “an almost obsessive desire to live normal lives again.”8 This description, given by Leo Srole, the director of UNRRA activities at Landsberg, among the largest of the DP camps in the American zone of Germany, indicates the mental state of the Jewish refugees who had survived the Holocaust. Contrary to what might be expected, there was almost no talk of vengeance. Zalman Grinberg, a Holocaust survivor, said in a speech to other survivors, “We don’t want revenge.” (For the full text of the speech, click here.) For the Jewish survivors, the best revenge was to rebuild their lives. As discussed below, perhaps the most important facet of this rebuilding was to reestablish families that had been torn apart, and to have children and raise a new generation of Jews to make up for those who had been wiped out by the Nazis. Salzburg, Austria: Kindergarten in a DP Camp Salzburg, Austria: Kindergarten in a DP Camp Return to Life in the DP Camps Some survivors were not able to overcome the tragedy that had fallen upon them. Most, however, could not wait to start living and try to make up for the years they had lost. Life in the DP camps was full of vitality and intensity, as though the survivors were trying to make up all at once for lost time. Food and clothing were in short supply, space was at a premium and privacy was almost non-existent, but the Jewish refugees managed even with these limitations. There were educational activities, occupational and vocational training, for those who had missed years and years of schooling and had no marketable trades. Kindergartens and makeshift schools were set up for the few children who had survived. There were cultural activities, including newspapers and magazines published in Yiddish. Religious material was published, especially in the realms of Jewish law that concerned the survivors, such as missing spouses and ritual purity. There were theater performances and plays, where the DPs themselves performed. In addition, holidays were celebrated and even parades were organized. Holocaust survivor Paul Trepman, who was a member of the Jewish leadership in the DP camp at Bergen-Belsen, describes life there in his testimony: "Teachers established good schools, from nothing. People produced quality newspapers that were worth reading, even without a press. Actors established a theater. All of this was in addition to meeting the daily needs of the new Jewish community in the camp. Of course, over time, we received help from outside. But we laid the foundation for this new community, we built it and ran it ourselves. We received food and books from outside, but we did the work and we can be proud of our efforts. Those who survived will always remember April 15, 1945 as their second birthday - in many ways more important than their first."9 Weddings in the DP Camps More than anything else, though, the vitality of the refugees was expressed in their intense desire for human relationships. Most of them found themselves entirely alone, having lost their parents, spouses, children and siblings during the Holocaust. At first this was manifested in heartrending searches for relatives and anyone connected to their prewar lives. Individuals who came from the same town or the same city and even chance acquaintances became close friends. People from the same town grouped together, and the group became a substitute for the lost family. These searches developed from initial spontaneous initiatives by army chaplains to an organized system run by the Joint. The search for relatives, as a daily radio program broadcast in Israel, continued to function for many years. The drive to reestablish a normal life, and to banish the despair and loneliness of being a survivor, was expressed in the yearning to find love and friendship. Many of the survivors were young men and women between twenty and thirty, who were all alone in the world, their relatives having perished. Psychologically, in many cases, it was easier for survivors who had lost their spouses to understand and relate to other survivors in the same predicament. They understood each other. Forming couples led to rehabilitation and normalization in a very abnormal environment. The post-war marriages were not always based on love; fear of loneliness and the need for companionship motivated many marriages. One DP who had lost his family proposed to another DP with these words, “I am alone. I have no one, I have lost everything. You are alone. You have no one. You have lost everything. Let us be alone together.”10 "Much attention was paid to weddings, and very often they were the main agenda in the social life of the camp. During the first year after liberation there were numerous weddings, not uncommonly six or more in a single day, even fifty in a week. During 1946 there were 1,070 weddings. But statistics, as impressive as they may appear, do not convey the atmosphere surrounding the weddings. To get married had many bright, as well as sad, aspects, reflecting the essence of being a survivor in a DP camp. First there was a question of halakah (Jewish law). Most couples decided to be married in a Jewish wedding ceremony. It was not just a question of being religious. Even for the secular, it meant forming a new link with the past, overcoming the disaster and continuing the family chain, being Jewish and keeping and manifesting the Jewish tradition. […] The invitations and the descriptions of individual weddings often, however, reflect the dark side of the event. Many invitations are signed by the bride and bridegroom, with no father or mother inviting guests to their children’s wedding. Sometimes the name of a single relative – an uncle or a cousin – appears, further emphasizing the tragedy behind the scenes. The ceremony itself was painful. The mention of loved ones who were absent sadly demonstrated the dark holes in the circle of family and friends." 11 A case in point was the wedding of Abraham and Shoshana Roshkovski, one of seven couples who got married on May 19, 1945 in the Bergen-Belsen DP camp. They had not known each other for very long, but when he suggested that they marry, she agreed. Shoshana’s bridal gown was a black skirt and a borrowed shirt that was too big for her; her veil was made of a gauze bandage. “We got up to dance just to forget our sadness,”12 Shoshana remembered later. Every wedding was a celebration for the whole camp. Invitation to Devorah and Yakov's wedding, Bergen Belsen, 1948 (Hebrew original) Invitation to Devorah and Yakov's wedding, Bergen Belsen, 1948 (Hebrew original) Invitation to Fryda and Zygmunt's wedding, Bergen Belsen, 1948 (German and Yiddish original) Invitation to Golda and Menashe's wedding, Bergen Belsen, 1948 (Hebrew original) Ketubbah (Jewish marriage contract), Bergen Belsen, 1946 (Hebrew original) Ketubbah (Jewish marriage contract), Bergen Belsen (English original) Jewish marriage license, Central Jewish Committee, Bergen Belsen (English original) Athens, Greece, Postwar, Wedding of nine couples who survived the Holocaust Athens, Greece, Postwar, Wedding of nine couples who survived the Holocaust Childbirth in the DP Camps In the first months after the war there were barely any children under the age of 5 in the DP camps, and only 3% of the survivors were children and teenagers aged 6-17. Most survivors had lost their entire families, and alongside the feelings of loss and loneliness was the yearning to establish families of their own. Many women had stopped menstruating in the concentration camps. Now, they were mortified that they might never have a child. They wanted a child eagerly to prove to themselves that they were still viable human beings. Recreating a family was seen as an act of defiance against Nazi Germany. Children became the symbol of renewal and normalcy. They were seen as the continuation of the chain that had been severed with the annihilation of an entire generation of Jewish children by Nazi Germany, which saw these children as latent parasites and destructive elements who carried with them the heritage of their race. The birth rate in the camps was among the highest in the world at that time. In Bergen-Belsen alone, 555 babies were born in 1946.13 The growing rates of pregnancies and births expressed a deep-seated Jewish need; it was as if a child was the personal contribution of each survivor to the continued existence of the Jewish people. Eliezer Adler was born in 1923 in Belz, Poland. He spent most of WWII in a forced labor camp in the Soviet Union. After the war Eliezer spent three years in DP camps. He recalled: "...This issue of the rehabilitation of She'arit Hapleta ("surviving remnant"), the Jews' desire to live, is unbelievable. People got married; they would take a hut and divide it into ten tiny rooms for ten couples. The desire for life overcame everything - in spite of everything I am alive, and even living with intensity. When I look back today on those three years in Germany I am amazed. We took children and turned them into human beings, we published a newspaper; we breathed life into those bones. The great reckoning with the Holocaust? Who bothered about that... you knew the reality, you knew you had no family, that you were alone, that you had to do something. You were busy doing things. I remember that I used to tell the young people: Forgetfulness is a great thing. A person can forget, because if they couldn't forget they couldn't build a new life. After such a destruction to build a new life, to get married, to bring children into the world? In forgetfulness lay the ability to create a new life... somehow, the desire for life was so strong that it kept us alive…" 14 For some survivors, however, it was not easy to make the decision to start a new family. Women who became pregnant shortly after the Holocaust had not always regained full strength and health. They and their babies were often in danger. There was a constant shortage of proper nutrition in the DP camp, undernourished mothers found it difficult to breastfeed, and there was not enough baby food in the DP camps. The fact that new mothers did not usually have guidance from their own mothers, grandmothers, sisters, aunts, or female friends, as they would have had in previous happier times, also posed a challenge. In her testimony, Judy Rosenzweig reflects on the decision to give birth after liberation: "It was not an easy decision on my part at the very beginning of my liberation to ever bring another Jewish child to the world. But soon enough my life began to take a more normal route, so to speak. And God blessed us with two beautiful children."15 However, there were also emotional issues that made it very difficult for women to have children as Holocaust survivor Shoshana Roshkovski describes in her testimony: "During and after the war, girls didn't get their periods. I got married and became pregnant, I didn't know I was pregnant. [...] [The doctor] examined me and said, 'You're three months pregnant.' I jumped off the table like a mad woman, 'Doctor, I'm pregnant?' He said, 'You're not married?' I said, 'I'm married, but I don't want a baby, I want an abortion, I don't want a child. I can't hear a baby crying, I heard babies screaming in Auschwitz, I don't want it.' I cried terribly." 16 She remembers how everything changed when her son was born: "[W]hen they brought him to me, and I saw him alive, I thought of how I had wanted to kill him. I thought about it all the time and prayed that God would let me keep him, that he wouldn't get sick." 17 The Displaced Persons' Camps: Abraham and Shoshana Roshkovski Conclusion In April 1948, one month before the establishment of the State of Israel, there were still 165,000 Jewish DPs in Germany. With the establishment of the State of Israel about two-thirds of the DPs emigrated to Israel, while most of the others moved to the United States of America. Within five months the number dropped to 30,000. Most DPs followed in the next years; only a small minority stayed behind, unable or unwilling to leave. The last DP camp, in Fohrenwald, closed in February 1957. ****** American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, also known as Joint or JDC, is a Jewish relief organization based in New York City.[1] Since 1914 the organisation has supported Jewish people living in Israel and throughout the world. The organization is active in more than 70 countries. The JDC offers aid to Jewish populations in central and eastern Europe as well as the Middle East through a network of social and community assistance programs. In addition, the JDC contributes millions of dollars in disaster relief and development assistance to non-Jewish communities.[2] History The JDC was founded in 1914, initially to provide assistance to Jews living in Palestine under Turkish rule.[3][4] The JDC began its efforts to save Jews with a donation of $50,000 from Jacob Schiff, a wealthy Jewish entrepreneur and philanthropist. He was the main funder of the organization and helped raise funds to save and aid Jews around the world. Additionally, the American Jewish Relief Committee helped collect funds for the JDC. Several wealthy, Reform Jews founded the American Jewish Relief Committee on October 25, 1914. Jacob Schiff was one of these men, along with Louis Marshall, the president of the committee, and Felix M. Warburg. The Central Relief Committee, founded on October 4, 1914, also helped provide funds to the JDC. Eastern European, Orthodox Jews, such as Leon Kamaiky, founded this organization. Almost one year later, in August 1915, the socialist People's Relief Committee, headed by Meyer London, joined in to provide funds to the JDC. After a few years, the JDC and the organizations assisting it had raised significant funds and were able to make a noteworthy impact. By the end of 1917, the JDC had transferred $76,000 to Romania, $1,532,300 to Galicia, $2,5532,000 to Russia, and $3,000,000 to a German-occupied Poland and Lithuania. By 1920, the JDC had set nearly $5,000,000 to assist the Jews in Poland. Between 1919 and 1920, during the emergency relief period, the JDC had disbursed over $22,000,000 to help in restoration and relief across Europe.[5] By 1914, approximately 59,000 Jews were living in Palestine under Ottoman rule. The settlement—the Yishuv—was largely made up of Jews that had emigrated from Europe and were largely dependent on sources outside of Palestine for their income. The outbreak of World War I destroyed those channels, leaving the community isolated and destitute. With disaster looming, the Yishuv’s leaders appealed to Henry Morgenthau, Sr., then the U.S. ambassador to Turkey. Morgenthau was moved and appalled by the misery he witnessed. Soon after seeing what he did, Morgenthau sent an urgent cable to New York-based Jewish philanthropist Jacob Schiff, requesting $50,000 of aid to keep the Jews of Palestine from starvation and death.[2] Dated August 31, 1914, the  cablegram read, in part: The 1914 telegram that prompted the establishment of the Joint Distribution Committee. PALESTINIAN JEWS FACING TERRIBLE CRISIS … BELLIGERENT COUNTRIES STOPPING THEIR ASSISTANCE … SERIOUS DESTRUCTION THREATENS THRIVING COLONIES … FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS NEEDED. The plea found concerned ears in the U.S. In a month, $50,000 (the equivalent of $1 million in the year 2000) was raised through the efforts of what was intended to be an ad hoc and temporary collective of three existing religious and secular Jewish organizations: the American Jewish Relief Committee, the Central Committee for the Relief of Jews Suffering Through the War, and People's Relief Committee. In 1915, a greater crisis arose when the Jewish communities of the Pale of Settlement in Russia became caught up in the fighting along the World War I Eastern Front. Under the leadership of Judah Magnes the Committee was able to raise another five million dollars by the end of the year. In 1921, following the post-revolutionary civil war of Russia, the Committee was one of only two organizations left in America sending aid to combat the famine.[6] JDC fulfills its mission on four fronts: Rescue of Jews at risk. JDC's expertise is crisis response. JDC works with local partner agencies to address immediate needs. Relief for Jews in need. In addition to emergency aid, JDC support builds the capacity of local agencies to sustain and enhance quality of life for struggling communities. Renewal of Jewish community life. Israel. JDC works in partnership with the Israeli government and other local organizations to improve the lives of the elderly, immigrants, children at risk, the disabled, and the chronically unemployed. In 2007, the JDC was awarded the Israel Prize for its lifetime achievements and special contribution to society and the State of Israel.[7][8] Leadership The organisation was led by Moses A. Leavitt until his death in 1965; Leavitt was then succeeded by Charles H. Jordan.[9] Jordan died in Prague in 1967. His death was declared suicide by Czechoslovak government, in the context of communist denouncements of the JDC at the time, The New York Times reported his death as mysterious.[10] In 1974, Czechoslovak defector Josef Frolik advised the Central Intelligence Agency in 1974 that Jordan had been abducted by Arab agents and died during interrogation by Palestinians at the Egyptian embassy in Prague.[11] Projects The Joint Distribution Committee finances programs to assist impoverished Jews in the former Soviet Union and Central and Eastern Europe, providing food, medicine, home care, and other critical aid to elderly Jews and children in need. The JDC also enables small Jewish populations in Latin American, African, and Asian countries to maintain essential social services and help ensure a Jewish future for their youth and youth to come. In Israel, JDC responds to crisis-related needs while helping to improve services to the elderly, children and youth, new immigrants, the disabled, and other vulnerable populations. In the spirit of tikkun olam, a Hebrew phrase referring to the moral responsibility to repair the world and alleviate suffering, the JDC has contributed funding and expertise in humanitarian crises such as the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the Myanmar cyclone of 2008, the genocide in Darfur, the escalating violence in Georgia and the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. When millions of Jews in Eastern Europe and Palestine faced starvation in the wake of the First World War, JDC fed the hungry, provided medical care to the ailing, and supported programs to help stabilize the region's fragile economy. With the rise of Hitler's Nazi regime, JDC supported efforts that enabled 110,000 Jews to leave Germany prior to 1939. After the establishment of the state of Israel, JDC supported tens of thousands of Jews as they made the difficult transition from refugee status to citizenship. JDC played a central role in Operation Solomon, which airlifted more than 14,000 Ethiopian Jews to Israel in the span of 36 hours. Agro-Joint In the 1920s, the Soviet government wanted to control the JDC and how it was working with the Jews living in the Soviet Union. The JDC had agreed to work with an organization known as the Jewish Public Committee, which was controlled by the Bolsheviks. By agreeing to do this, the JDC was able to assist Jews, while being supervised by the Bolsheviks, which appeased the Soviet Union. World War I plunged Eastern Europe into chaos and subjected Jewish communities across the region to intense poverty, famine, and inflamed anti-Semitism. The Russian Revolution and other subsequent conflicts fanned the flames further, and pleas for JDC's humanitarian intervention increased. Therefore, the Soviet Union allowed the JDC to work with the American Relief Aid (ARA), instead of the Jewish Public Committee, in order to help those living in famine. This went on from 1921 to 1923, and during this time the JDC and ARA were able to use nearly $4 million to feed 2 million people in both Belorussia and the Ukraine. The JDC went further to improve conditions for the Jews living in the Ukraine by bringing 86 tractors from America to the Ukraine. They used these tractors to help reconstruct Jewish agricultural colonies. Many of these colonies in which Jews were living had been destroyed during the war, and were not of optimal living conditions. Furthermore, Dr Joseph Rosen, the director of the Russian branch of the JDC, devised a plan to further assist Jews living in shtetls, Jewish towns where the majority of the population speaks Yiddish. The communist leadership outlawed businesses upon which Jews were largely dependent, forcing families into poverty. All of these acts lead the creation of the American Jewish Joint Agricultural Corporation (Agro-Joint), in 1924. JDC appointed a New York lawyer, James N. Rosenberg, to head its European Executive Council and oversee Agro-Joint operations.[12] He was later named President of the American Society for Jewish Farm Settlements in Russia, Inc.[13] One innovation was the establishment of loan kassas, cooperative credit institutions that issued low interest loans to Jewish craftsmen and small business owners. From 1924 until 1938, the capital from kassa loans help revitalize villages and towns throughout Eastern Europe. With the support of the Soviet government, JDC pushed forward with this bold initiative to settle so-called “nonproductive” Jews as farmers on vast agricultural settlements in Ukraine, Belarus, and Crimea, as well as an attempt to grant Soviet Jews autonomy in Crimea. A special public organization, the Society for Settling Toiling Jews on the Land, or OZET, was established in the Soviet Union for this purpose; it functioned from 1925 to 1938. There was also a special government committee set up, called Komzet. Its function was to contribute and distribute the land for the Jewish collective farms, and to work jointly with OZET. The United States delivered updated agricultural equipment to the Jewish colonies in the USSR. The JDC also had agronomists teach the Jewish colonists how to do agricultural work.[14] This helped over 150,00 Jews and improved over 250 settlements. The number of Jewish peasants was greatly reduced because unemployment was down and the colonies were more successful. Agro-Joint was also active, during these years, in helping with the resettlement of refugee Jewish doctors from Germany.[15] The success of the Agro-Joint initiative would turn tragic just two years later. Joseph Stalin's government had grown increasingly hostile to foreign organizations. Agro-Joint worker soon became targets for Stalinist purges under the National Operations of the NKVD. Operational Order No. 00439, entitled “On the Arrest of German Subjects Suspected of Espionage against the USSR” was issued on July 25, 1937, and mandated the arrest of current and former German citizens who had taken up Soviet citizenship. Later in the year, the order was expanded to include others suspected of collaborating or spying for Germany. Agro-Joint workers, and the doctors it had helped to resettle, became targets. Many of those who assisted in Agro-Joint - including its 17 staff - were arrested, were accused of espionage and counterrevolutionary activities, and were killed.[15] By 1941, all the settlers who had not already fled were killed by the Nazis.[16] The JDC during The Great Depression During October 1929, the Great Depression began in America, and most American citizens began to face a financial hardship. Shortly after, the JDC felt the effect of the Great Depression. Their funding began to dwindle, as people had a hard time donating money to the organization. Due to their lessened resources, the JDC focused its efforts on the Jews who remained in Germany. In addition to their financial difficulties, Nazis pillaged the JDC European headquarters, which caused them to move their headquarters from Berlin to Paris. Despite the continuing depression in America, American Jews began to donate more money to the JDC as they became more aware of the grave situation and danger that their fellow Jews were in. During these seven years, 1933–1939, in which America was in the Great Depression, the JDC was able to aid over 190,000 Jews in their escape from a Nazi-occupied Germany. Of the 190,000 Jews, 80,000 were able to escape Europe completely.[17] Before World War II Hitler's rise to power in 1933 was followed closely by passage of Germany's Nuremberg Laws, a set of onerous restrictions that stripped Jews of their basic human rights and livelihoods. JDC's support became critical to the survival of the Jews. Channeling funds through local Jewish relief organizations, JDC subsidized medical care, schools, vocational training, welfare programs, and early emigration efforts. JDC support would eventually be extended to Jewish communities in Nazi-annexed Austria and occupied Czechoslovakia. It was not long before the escalation of Hitler's persecution of the Jews made emigration aid from the JDC a priority. JDC provided emergency aid for stranded refugees; covered travel expenses and landing fees; and secured travel accommodations and all-important visas for countries of refuge. Hitler invaded Poland on September 1, 1939 and World War II was declared by England and France on Sept 3, 1939. This immediately increased the need for help for Jewish emigration. During the period 1933 to the end of 1939, JDC-supported organizations had helped some 110,000 Jews emigrate from Germany; in 1939 alone it helped some 30,000. Securing Safe Havens The Evian Conference was organized in 1938 to find solutions to the growing Jewish refugee crisis in Nazi Germany. The Dominican Republic and its dictatorial leader Rafael Trujillo agreed to accept 100,000 refugees, the only country, of 32 countries attending the conference, willing to increase their immigration limits.[18][19] The Dominican Republic Settlement Association, or DORSA, a project of the JDC, was initiated to resettle Jewish refugees from Europe into an agricultural settlement in Sosua, in the Dominican Republic. Leon Falk Jr. served as president of the association from 1941 - 1942.[20][21] The first group of refugees arrived at the 26,000 acre colony in Sosua Bay on May 11, 1940. By January 1941, 300 refugees had immigrated to the colony.[22] Falk Jr and his wife Katherine were very active in the association, including sponsoring some of the trips, arranging grants from the Falk Foundation and visiting the colony several times.[22] By 1940, JDC was still able to help refugees in transit in more than 40 countries. The Joint opened shelters and soup kitchens for thousands of Jewish refugees in Poland, aiding some 600,000 in 1940. It also subsidized hospitals, child care centers, and educational and cultural programs. Even Passover supplies were shipped in. The goal of this was to provide refugees life-sustaining aid while trying to secure permanent refuge for them in the United States, Palestine, and Latin America. The American Declaration of War in Dec 1941: JDC Becomes a Clandestine Organization With U.S. entry into the war following Pearl Harbor in Dec. 1941, JDC had to drastically shift gears. No longer permitted to operate legally in enemy countries, JDC representatives exploited a variety of international connections to channel aid to Jews living in desperate conditions in Nazis-controlled areas. Wartime headquarters were set up in neutral Lisbon, Portugal. From Lisbon, JDC chartered ships and funded rescue missions that successfully moved thousands of refugees out of harm's way. Some made it to Shanghai, China, where JDC sponsored a relief program for 15,000 refugees from Central and Eastern Europe. In Europe, JDC directed funds to support 7,000 Jewish children in hiding. The Joint also worked with Œuvre de secours aux enfants (OSE) to support and rescue children. For instance, it helped more than 1,000 children emigrate to Switzerland and Spain. Other children fled to America, with help from the Joint and other organizations, such as HIAS. Many of those children who were able to make it to America came without parents, making them part of the "One Thousand Children(OTC). American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and the MS St. Louis On May 13, 1939, the ocean liner MS St. Louis left Germany and headed to Havana Cuba. On the ship, there were 937 passengers, most of which were Jews fleeing a Nazi-occupied Germany. Nearly all the Jewish passengers had applied for U.S. visas, and planned to stay in Cuba only until they obtained U.S. visas. However, the Cuban government "revoked" the Cuban visas, and only granted entry to Cuba to 28 of the 937 passengers. Furthermore, the U.S. refused to provide entry visas to America. Once this news reached Europe and the United States, an attorney, Lawrence Berenson, who worked with the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee decided to intervene on behalf of the passengers being denied entry to Cuba. During this time, the JDC was striving to help Jewish immigrants find a home, so the goal of Berenson was to help these passengers find a home. Berenson met and negotiated with Cuban President Federico Laredo Brú; however the negotiations were unsuccessful. On June 2, Bru demanded the St. Louis leave Cuban waters. The ship sailed close to Florida's borders, and asked President Roosevelt to grant them access into the United States. They never received a response. The ship returned to Europe and the JDC continued to negotiate on behalf of the passengers. Morris C. Troper as well as other individuals of the JDC appealed to European governments to secure entry visas for those with nowhere to go. Due to the efforts of the JDC, 288 passengers were admitted to Great Britain, 181 to the Netherlands, 214 to Belgium, and 224 to France. When Hitler and the Nazis overran the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and France, those passengers who had been admitted by those countries were at risk. Tragically, in fact 254 of these St. Louis Passengers were killed in the Holocaust. Due to the JDC active efforts and connections, JDC was able to save most of the Jewish passengers aboard the St. Louis.[23] The Holocaust During the Holocaust, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee was the main financial benefactor towards Jewish emigration from Europe and rescue attempts of Jews from Nazi-controlled territories.[24] From the outbreak of World War II through 1944, JDC made it possible for more than 81,000 Jews to emigrate out of Nazi-occupied Europe to safety. JDC also smuggled aid to Jewish prisoners in labor camps and helped finance the Polish Jewish underground in preparations for the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto revolt. In addition, JDC was a major channel keeping American Jewish leaders informed—often in detail—about the holocaust. Post World War II Rescue of Holocaust Survivors Allied victory offered no guarantee that the tens of thousands of newly liberated Jews (Sh'erit ha-Pletah) would survive to enjoy the fruits of freedom. To stave off mass starvation, JDC marshaled its resources, instituting an ambitious purchasing and shipping program to provide urgent necessities for Holocaust survivors facing critical local shortages. More than 227 million pounds of food, medicine, clothing, and other supplies were shipped to Europe from U.S. ports. By late 1945, 75,000 Jewish survivors of the Nazi horrors had crowded into hastily set up displaced person camps throughout Germany, Austria, and Italy. Conditions were abominable. Earl Harrison, dean of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, asked Joseph Schwartz, JDC's European director, to accompany him on his official tour of the camps. His landmark report called for separate Jewish camps and for United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) participation in administering them—with JDC's help. In response, Schwartz virtually re-created JDC, putting together a field organization that covered Europe and later North Africa and designing a more proactive operational strategy. Supplementing the relief supplied by the army, by UNRRA, and by UNRRA's successor agency—the International Refugee Organization—JDC distributed emergency aid, but also fed the educational and cultural needs of the displaced, providing typewriters, books, Torah scrolls, ritual articles, and holiday provisions. JDC funds were directed at restoring a sense of community and normalcy in the camps with new medical facilities, schools, synagogues, and cultural activities. Over the next two years, the influx of refugees from all over Central and Eastern Europe would more than triple the number of Jews in the DP camps. Their number included Polish Jews who had returned from their wartime refuge in the Soviet Union only to flee once again (westward, this time) from renewed anti-Semitism and pogroms. During the immediate post-war period, the JDC also worked closely with organizations focused on Jewish cultural property (much of it heirless), such as the Jewish Cultural Reconstruction and the Jewish Restitution Successor Organization.[25] At the same time, JDC was helping sustain tens of thousands of Jews who remained in Eastern Europe, as well as thousands of others living in the West outside the DP camps in Jewish communities also receiving reconstruction assistance from JDC. In 1946, an estimated 120,000 Jews in Hungary, 65,000 in Poland, and more than half of Romania's 380,000 Jews, depended on JDC for food and other basic needs. By 1947, JDC was supporting 380 medical facilities across the continent, and some 137,000 Jewish children were receiving some form of JDC aid. Falling victim to Cold War tensions, JDC was expelled from Romania, Poland, and Bulgaria in 1949, from Czechoslovakia in 1950, and from Hungary in 1953. Resettlement in Israel The time came for JDC to shift its focus in Europe from emergency relief to long-term rehabilitation. A large part of its evolving mission involved preparing the Jewish refugee population for new lives in Palestine, soon to be the Jewish state of Israel. Vocational training and hachsharot (agricultural training) centers were established for this purpose. The goal of resettlement carried its own hurdles. Since before the war, Palestine had been under control of Great Britain, which severely restricted the immigration of Europe's Jewish refugees. Clandestine immigration went on in spite of the blockades, largely because of the work of Bricha and Aliyah Bet, two organized movements partially financed and supplied by JDC. When the British began interning illegal Jewish immigrants in detention camps on Cyprus, JDC furnished medical, educational, and social services for the detainees. Britain's eventual withdrawal from Palestine set the stage for the May 15, 1948, birth of the State of Israel, which quickly drew waves of Jews not only from Europe, but from across the Arab world. North Africa became an especially dangerous place for Jews following World War II. Jews in Libya suffered a devastating pogrom in 1945. The 1948 Arab–Israeli War in Palestine set off a wave of nationalist fervor in the region, leading to anti-Jewish riots in Aden, Morocco, and Tripoli. Nearly the entire Jewish population of Libya, 31,000 persons, immigrated to Israel within a few years. The JDC and Israel organized Operation Magic Carpet, the June 1948 airlift of 50,000 Yemenite Jews to Israel. In all, more than 300,000 Jews left North Africa for Israel. Thousands more Iraqi and Kurdish Jews were transported through Operation Ezra, also funded by JDC. The influx was so massive—and the capacity of the newborn nation to provide for its burgeoning citizenry so limited—that the dream of statehood could have died before it had taken root. Among the new arrivals were 100,000 veterans of Europe's DP camps, less than half able-bodied adults. The remainder included the aged, sick, or disabled survivors of concentration camps. Tuberculosis was rampant. The Israeli government in late 1949 invited JDC to join with the Jewish Agency for Israel to confront these challenges. The outcome was MALBEN—a Hebrew acronym for Organization for the Care of Handicapped Immigrants. Over the next few years, MALBEN rushed to convert former British Army barracks and any other available building into hundreds of hospitals, homes for the aged, TB sanitariums, sheltered workshops, and rehabilitation centers. MALBEN also funded the training of nurses and rehabilitation workers. By 1951, JDC assumed full responsibility for MALBEN. Its many rehabilitation programs opened new worlds to the disadvantaged, enabling them to contribute to the building of the new country. At the same time, Israel's local and national government agencies were building capacity. With the need for emergency aid receding, by the end of the decade, JDC developed more long-term community-based programs aimed at Israel's most vulnerable citizens. In the coming years, JDC would become a social catalyst by encouraging and guiding collaborations between the Israeli government and private agencies to identify, evaluate, and address unmet needs in Israeli society. Social welfare As its record of accomplishment in Israel makes clear, JDC helped Israel develop social welfare methods and policy, with many of its programs having served as models for government and non-governmental agencies around the world. In the 1950s, institutional care for the aged was replaced whenever practicable with JDC initiatives that enabled older people to live at home in their communities. The Ministry of Health was established in collaboration with the Psychiatric Trust Fund to develop modern, integrated mental health services and to train qualified staff. The Paul Baerwald School of Social Work, first created by JDC in France to train professionals working with refugees from many diverse cultures, was reestablished at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem to professionalize social services. JDC's social work innovations continued into the 1960s with the founding of Israel's first Child Development and Assessment Center, which put into practice the then-emerging idea that early detection and treatment optimize outcomes for children with disabilities. A success, Child Development Centers soon spread across the country. JDC during this period also worked closely with Israeli voluntary agencies that served children with physical and mental disabilities, helping them set up therapy programs, kindergartens, day centers, counseling services for parents, and summer camps. It also advised these organizations on fundraising strategies to help them become financially independent. In 1969, JDC and the government of Israel inaugurated ESHEL—the Association for the Planning and Development of Services for the Aged—to extend a network of coordinated local, regional, and national services to underserved elderly. Still active today, ESHEL is credited with improving the quality of life of Israel's seniors. With these and other like-minded projects, JDC underwent an important transition with regard to its role in Israel. Initially engaged by the government to provide emergency aid to a traumatized and impoverished population of former refugees, JDC had redirected its efforts toward advising and subsidizing a broad spectrum of community based public and volunteer service providers. The evolution was a reflection of a new reality: Israel had come into its own as a nation and had successfully achieved an infrastructure with the capacity to address the needs of its most vulnerable citizens. By the end of 1975, JDC had transferred its MALBEN facilities to the government and divested itself of all direct services. Diaspora work The 1980s and 1990s saw JDC expand both its reach and the scope of its mission. Under the banner of “Rescue, Relief, and Renewal,” the organization responded to the challenges that faced Jewish communities around the world, its emphasis on building the capacity of local partners to be self-sustaining. The thawing of the Cold War and subsequent break up of the Soviet Union yielded a formal invitation from Mikhail Gorbachev for JDC's return to the region in 1989; 50 years after Joseph Stalin brutally expelled the organization, killing several JDC members in the process. The former Soviet Union and its largely isolated and destitute community of elderly Jewish populations quickly became—and remain—the organization's priority. A growing network of Heseds, or Hesed (FSU Jewish Community Welfare Centers), that JDC helped establish in local communities provided welfare assistance to a peak caseload of 250,000 elderly Jews. According to a JDC publication, "The first Hesed Center was established in 1993 in St. Petersburg by Dr. Amos Avgar of the AJJDC."[26] Dr. Avgar began developing the Hesed Model in 1992 while leading a work of experts who sought to create "a multi-functional service model."[27] It was Avgar who set the foundations of the Hesed Model that operates according to three main principles: Jewish values, community orientation, and voluntarism.[28] Hesed Centers have left a profound impact on both Jewish communities and on non-Jewish circles in the FSU. To publicly and formally acknowledge this impact, the Russian Academy of Languages added in March 2000 the Hebrew word "Hesed" (хесед) to the Russian language.[29] Today, the Hesed Community Welfare Centers is still serving 168,000 of the world's poorest Jews in the former Soviet Union (December 2008). JDC has also been instrumental in the rescue of Jews fleeing famine, violence, and other dangers around the world. The saga of Ethiopia's Jews was perhaps the most dramatic, culminating in Operation Solomon, the massive 36-hour airlift of 14,000 Jews from Addis Ababa to Israel on May 24 and 25, 1991, just as the city was about to come under rebel attack. JDC assisted in the negotiation and planning of that rescue effort, which came on the heels of the comprehensive health and welfare program it had been operating for the thousands of Jews who had gathered in Addis Ababa in preparation for the departure. Equally compelling were the 11 rescue convoys that JDC operated from war-ravaged Sarajevo during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The convoys succeeded in transporting 2,300 Serbs, Croats, Muslims, and Jews to safety in other parts of the former Yugoslavia and beyond. JDC also supported the Sarajevo Jewish community's non-sectarian relief efforts in that besieged city, and helped the Belgrade community assist the many Jews affected by Serbia's economic difficulties as UN-mandated trade sanctions took a growing toll. Wherever JDC has become active, emergency aid has gone hand-in-hand with local institution-building for the long term. In India, home to an indigenous Bene Israel community, JDC in the 1960s channeled funding to the rehabilitation of local schools and included support for food programs and capital upgrades. It also helped underwrite tuition for teachers and student leaders to study in Israel. In Latin America, where Jews fleeing the Nazis had settled decades earlier (with JDC's assistance), the organization in the late ’80s created Leatid, a program that trains local lay and professional Jewish leaders to ensure that communities are self-sustaining. The formalization of JDC's non-sectarian work under its International Development Program in 1986 marked another milestone. While JDC had always offered assistance to non-Jews in crisis since the organization's founding in 1914, the formation of the new program was done to ensure a unified Jewish response to global disasters—both natural and manmade—on behalf of U.S. and foreign Jewish agencies. Since then, JDC relief and recovery efforts have assisted tens of thousands of people left vulnerable in the wake of the mid-90s civil war in Rwanda, the Kosovo refugee crisis, the devastating 1999 earthquake in Turkey, and the 2004 tsunami in South Asia. As in its Jewish-specific projects, JDC's non-sectarian work includes both emergency disaster relief and the building of local institutional capacity to ensure that people at risk continue to be served long after the disaster has passed. 21st century operations JDC has operated in 85 countries at one time or another in the course of its 100-year history. As of early 2009, JDC is conducting projects in 71 countries, including Argentina, Croatia, Ethiopia, Poland, Morocco, Cuba, and throughout the former Soviet Union. JDC also maintains a focus on Israel and has been a humanitarian presence in the Middle East since its founding in 1914. JDC Entwine JDC Entwine, the young adult leadership platform of JDC, was launched in 2007 under the name JDC Next Gen, with the goal of empowering young Jewish leaders to continue JDC's legacy. According to their website, "Entwine is a one-of-a-kind movement for young Jewish leaders, influencers, and advocates who seek to make a meaningful impact on global Jewish needs and international humanitarian issues."[30] The name comes from a quote by JDC leader and Honorary Executive Vice President Ralph I. Goldman: "There is a single Jewish world: intertwined, interconnected”.[31] Entwine engages Jewish young professionals and college students through its annual series of overseas immersive experiences (Insider Trips), Multi-Week Services Corps, and year-long Jewish Service Corps Fellowship (JSC).[32] Partners In its mission to support communities in developing their own resources in ways that are both culturally sensitive and organic, JDC partners with local organizations in creating and implementing all JDC projects worldwide. These partnerships enable JDC to most effectively address the unique needs of the communities where it operates and to build the capacity of all of the institutions, professionals, and volunteers so they become equipped with the skills needed to serve their own communities.[citation needed] Programs and priorities Relief, Rescue, Renewal –Aiding Jewry Worldwide is JDC's mission to alleviate suffering and enhance the lives of Jews has taken it across geographic, cultural, and political borders on five continents. Currently, the regions drawing the greatest amount of JDC effort include the following: The Former Soviet Union. The upheaval caused by the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 brought both crisis and opportunity to Jews living there. All religions and minorities suffered under communism, and so fractured communities of Jews were suddenly confronted with a collapsed infrastructure and an uncertain future, but also the hope that it might now be possible to assert and reclaim a heritage long denied them. JDC, which had only recently begun to reestablish a presence in the region after being violently expelled by Stalin in 1938, poured its resources into the relief, rescue, and restoration of Jewish populations fighting for survival. Today, JDC provides food, medical care, home care, and winter relief to 168,000 elderly Jews, largely through 175 Hesed welfare centers throughout the region. JDC also provides nutritional, medical, and other assistance to 25,000 children at risk and their families. In addition to life-sustaining aid, JDC helps Jews reclaim their heritage and build vibrant self-sustaining Jewish communities through Jewish Community Centers, libraries, Hillel youth centers, family retreats, Jewish education, and local leadership development. Central and Eastern Europe. As in the former Soviet Union, social and economic shifts threaten the stability of the many diverse Jewish communities throughout Central and Eastern Europe and the Baltic countries. JDC's social welfare and community development approaches are as varied as the communities they assist. JDC relief programs for Holocaust survivors reach 26,000 elderly, while the organization works with local partners to ensure that impoverished children's basic needs are met. The overarching goal is self-sustainability and shifting welfare responsibilities to local entities. To achieve this, JDC provides consultation to communities in the areas of leadership training, strategic planning, fundraising, property management, and networking, helping local professionals to develop the skills to serve the larger community. Africa and Asia. It terms of sheer numbers, Jewish communities in Africa and the Far East range from sizable (upwards of 25,000 in Turkey) to small (as of this writing, Algeria is home to only a handful of Jews, because of the Islamist governments of the 1990s). Jewish populations on both continents are diminishing, either through emigration or because the elderly are all that remain. But wherever there is a Jew and a desire to maintain the trappings and traditions of Jewish life, JDC strives to ensure that basic needs are met and Jewish institutions continue. JDC supports local Jewish education and training efforts and puts special emphasis on international programs that bridge isolated Jewish populations with Jews all over the world. The Americas. There are nearly a quarter million Jews in Argentina, more than in any other nation in the Western hemisphere after the United States. That number included a vibrant, emerging middle class. But much of that progress was thrown in turmoil by a nationwide financial crisis in 2001 that plunged thousands into economic despair and entrenched the pull of poverty for those already living in it. JDC responded, providing critical assistance to 36,000 Argentine Jews. Since then, JDC has begun to cede its assistance role to its local partners while continuing to ensure that basic food and medical needs of the most vulnerable citizens are met. Israel. JDC's relationship with Israel is unique. While the organization works with the cooperation of the governments of other nations where it has a presence, with Israel the relationship is more of a direct partnership. Working together, JDC and the Israeli government strengthen the capacity of local agencies to address the immediate and long-term needs of the elderly, at-risk youth, the chronically under employed, and new immigrants. JDC assists in building and maintaining Israel's social strengths—including management of the public sector, governance and management of nonprofit organizations, volunteerism, and philanthropy—so that the society as a whole is more able to meet its own needs. JDC also helps those Jews and non-Jews living under fire in southern Israel. JDC Israel In 1976, JDC Global established JDC Israel (also known as "The Joint", הג'וינט [he]) with its headquarters in Jerusalem. Since then, JDC Israel has been developing programs and services for Israel's most vulnerable populations through its partnerships with the Israeli government, associations and non-profit organizations. JDC Israel operates through several departments: ASHALIM – Advancing Social Mobility ELKA – System Efficiency and Effectiveness ESHEL – Optimal Aging Israel Unlimited – Independent Living for People with Disabilities TEVET – Workforce Integration and Productivity Institutions In the course of its long history, JDC has helped create lasting institutions that do much of the research and policy development that inform JDC programs and advance its goals. In fact, the work of the institutions is highly regarded well beyond the Jewish community and can arguably be said to have raised the bar on social service delivery, globally. Public policy making The Myers-JDC-Brookdale Institute, a partnership between the JDC, the Government of Israel, and the David and Inez Myers Foundation, was established in 1974. Its role is to conduct applied social research on the scope and causes of social needs, specifically those related to aging, health policy, children and youth, people with disabilities, employment, and quality in the social services, and assesses various approaches to addressing them. The information produced by researchers has proven a powerful tool for Israel's policy makers and social service practitioners. Among other examples, MJB researchers: Revealed the dramatic increase in the number of Israel's disabled elderly and helped develop strategies to expand community services for them. Helped to expand and improve national education policy for Ethiopian children in the 1990s, which resulted in improved high school achievements and greater participation in higher education. Facilitated the implementation of Israel's Special Education Law, which markedly expanded services for disabled children in the 1990s. Helped to introduce and effectively implement the National Health Insurance Law (1995), which provides universal and more equitable coverage to all of Israel's citizens. Other JDC-affiliated institutions include The Taub Center for Social Policy Studies in Israel, an independent think tank that analyzes and develops social policy alternatives, and the recently established JDC International Centre for Community Development, which supports JDC's efforts worldwide to enhance and support Jewish communal life. Training Leadership training is a JDC core value. To that end, JDC founded Leatid, the European center for Jewish leadership. The Leatid training program, with its focus on management and community planning, helps expand the pool of outstanding professional Jewish men and women committed to the continued well being of their communities. Jewish leaders from all parts of Europe have taken part in Leatid training seminars, including most of the current presidents of European Jewish communities, executive directors, key board members and rabbis. Indeed, those leaders who aren't Leatid alumnus almost certainly underwent Buncher Community Leadership Training, another JDC effort in partnership with the Buncher Family Foundation and the United Jewish Federation of Pittsburgh. Since its start in 1989, Buncher Leadership Training has conducted seminars in the former Soviet Union, the Baltic States, Poland, Germany, Former Yugoslavia, Romania, Hungary, and Bulgaria as well as India and Latin America. Finally, the Moscow NGO Management School, founded by JDC in 2005, effectively strengthens the Russian nonprofit sector by providing professional training to managers of nonprofit organizations. The curriculum is crafted to provide opportunities for nonprofit leaders to gain skills to help their organizations succeed. Disaster relief JDC's role as a non-sectarian disaster relief agency is motivated by the spirit of tikkun olam, the traditional moral obligation of Jews to improve conditions for the entire human family. Working with local partners, JDC has provided emergency aid and long-term development assistance to communities devastated by such catastrophic events as the Kashmir earthquake in 2005, and the South Asia tsunami in 2004. More recent relief efforts include: 2008 Ziarat earthquake. On October 29, 2008, a 6.5-magnitude earthquake struck southwest Pakistan, northeast of the provincial capital Quetta. JDC collected funds to directly assist victims of the quake and partnered with the International Blue Crescent to deliver much-need food, bedding, hygiene kits, and warm clothing to those hardest hit. Russia-Georgia conflict. Following the eruption of hostilities on August 7, 2008, JDC partnered with the Georgian Red Cross and MASHAV, the Center for International Development of Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to coordinate the shipment and deployment of critical medical supplies and other emergency assistance. JDC continues to assess the needs of the region and develop a strategy for long-term assistance to those displaced by the conflict. 2008 China earthquake. China's worst earthquake in more than 30 years devastated Sichuan and eight additional provinces on May 12, 2008, killing more than 70,000 people and leaving 1.39 million homeless. JDC is supporting a partnership between The All China Federation of Supply and Marketing Cooperatives (ACFSMC) and the Negev Institute for Strategies of Peace and Development (NISPED) that is leading an ambitious reconstruction effort in the region. 2008 Myanmar cyclone. JDC was among the only aid organizations to enter Myanmar's Irrawaddy Delta following Cyclone Nargis, which struck on May 2, 2008. The disaster affected an estimated 2.4 million people. JDC coordinated with other nongovernmental organizations to immediately provide water, food, and medical supplies and is now supporting efforts to rebuild schools, homes, and embankments destroyed by the cyclone. April 2015 Nepal earthquake. Following the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that had devastated the country of Nepal, the JDC is looking to leverage its expert disaster response team and coordinate with the local authorities in order to assess the situation and provide for survivors' needs. They are aiming to bring medical supplies, distribute shelter supplies, food kits and oral rehydration salts as well as address the needs of children, providing them with shelter, water and nutrition.[33] See also Jewish charities Jewish refugees Judah Leon Magnes Felix M. Warburg Joseph A. Rosen United Jewish Appeal[9].    ebay6098 folder 211

  • Condition: Used
  • Condition: Pristine MINT condition. Tightly bound. Perfectly clean. ( Pls look at scan for accurate AS IS images ) .
  • Religion: Judaism
  • Country/Region of Manufacture: Israel

PicClick Insights - 1947 Jewish HOLOCAUST JOINT HAGGADAH Israel SHERIT HAPLETA Hebrew DP CAMP SEDDER PicClick Exclusive

  •  Popularity - 0 watchers, 0.0 new watchers per day, 115 days for sale on eBay. 0 sold, 1 available.
  •  Best Price -
  •  Seller - 2,805+ items sold. 0% negative feedback. Great seller with very good positive feedback and over 50 ratings.

People Also Loved PicClick Exclusive