When in May l945, the war finally ended in Europe, the world discovered with horror the pictures of the Nazi extermination camps: emaciated bodies, eyes vacant from unspeakable suffering... No one has forgotten those pictures. But who remembers today that, for the great majority of survivors, the horror was not over? For, immediately, the pragmatism that had dominated the war effort took over again. For the Allied troops that were occupying Germany, it was necessary to collaborate with the local population to govern the country, while the camp survivors, totally dependent and seriously affected both physically and mentally, appeared to be a burden. More often than not, then, the attitude of the liberators was to do as little as possible, especially in the American occupation zone¹.

In the Stables
Thus, the victims often remained in the same camps where the Nazis had dumped them. Sometimes they were moved a short distance away, for example to Celle, near Bergen-Belsen, where some were lodged in stables, or to Mauthausen, where they were locked up in a prison. All the camps were overpopulated, families were not reunited, there was no privacy whatever, and sanitary conditions were deplorable. The barbed-wire remained in place, and so did the armed guards, but now they were wearing American uniforms.
Sometimes, most notably at Landsberg, the survivors were obliged to wear German uniforms, or, as at Buchenwald, they simply kept wearing their concentration camp uniforms. At Wildflecken, the compulsory work was carried out under the surveillance of armed guards, and those who didn't comply with the regimen were locked up without food.

"Not better than the Nazis"
The Jews were merely 20% of the "displaced persons" gathered in the camps, the majority of which - some 100 - were in the American occupation zone. Often the Jews were mixed in with Nazi collaborators who had willingly come to Germany and who were trying to obtain refugee status. Thus, at Dachau, Polish Jews were daily subjected to violence from their pro-Nazi compatriots. Far from trying to unmask these former Nazi auxiliaries, the American troops considered them "élite refugees". Accordingly, they were often entrusted with responsibilities within the camps².

For three months following the liberation, the American army refused to allow into the camps any humanitarian organizations. In any event, these latter were not tripping over each other in their efforts to gain access. Only the Americans Jewish organizations hastened to do so. The others were to come in later, and only when they realized that not all the displaced persons were Jews...

Nonetheless, the rumors concerning the treatment of the refugees became more and more widespread, to such an extent that the United States president, Harry Truman, appointed one Earl Harrison to investigate. This he did, turning in a pellucid report on 24 August l945. In it he stated: "The present situation is such that we seem to be treating the Jews just as the Nazis did, except that we are not exterminating them."

Patton the Anti-Semite
The report triggered an immediate reaction from President Truman, who, contrary to his predecessor, actually tried to come to the aid of the victims (3). But in the field, the situation was a long time improving owing to the virulent anti-Semitism propounded often at the highest levels of the army. General Lucius Clay reckoned thus that "the DPs [displaced persons] should obey the German laws" and that "It is only with the efficient help of the German police forces that this little occupation army can control Germany". The famous General George S. Patton went even further. In his diary he castigated those who "think that the displaced person is a human being, which he isn't, and this applies especially to the Jews, who are inferior to animals". Until his transfer form the occupation zone, the Jews were subjected to Patton's exactions, which included beating Polish Jews and locking them in trains in order to forcibly repatriate them.

The Impossible Palestine
As for the possibility of immigration, the only real hope for the survivors to build a future, it remained tenuous in the extreme. The British had firmly restricted access to Palestine, and the United States remained implacably steadfast in its enforcement of the l924 immigration quotas, in spite of numerous efforts in support of a policy of increased immigration. Hence, more than half of the entry visas available were reserved for people from countries which had not been under enemy occupation and which, as a result, contained no refugees. Further, the criteria for selection clearly favored non-Jews, making it well nigh impossible for the camp survivors to immigrate to the United States.

Between the end of the war and the first of July l948, the United States gave out only 28,000 entry visas to Jews. At the same time, a special quota classification was established at the insistence of the newly created Defense Department and CIA, to allow entry into the country of former Nazis, owing to their importance to national security...
When, in l948, and especially in l950, the United States cautiously opened it doors to the victims, the majority of them preferred immigration to the state of Israel.

Manuel Grandjean