"We seem to treat Jews the same way as the Nazis, except that we do not exterminate them," wrote President Truman's special envoy in late August 1945. He spoke about the situation of camp prisoners who ... were still in them. And he was not exaggerating at all.
During the last weeks of World War II, hundreds of thousands of people were still held in concentration camps in Germany. It would seem that the moment when the Allied soldiers reached a given camp was the end of their ordeal. None of these things.
For thousands of so-called DPs (from displaced person ) who could not return to their country, the future looked darkest.
In striped uniforms behind camp wires
As he emphasizes in his book Neighbors, Nazis. How America Became a Safe Shelter for Hitler's People ”Eric Lichtblau, the Allies had absolutely no idea what to do with the former prisoners. As a result:
Thousands of people still stuck in the camps died of disease and malnutrition long after the defeat of Germany . They remained trapped behind the fencing of Hitler's Dachau camps in Bergen-Belsen and dozens of similar places turned into DP camps. The survivors were surrounded by the stench of death and poverty ...
Women and children detained in Bergen Belsen concentration camp. Such a sight must have shocked the Allied soldiers. Photo taken on the day the camp was liberated (source:public domain).
Although it is difficult for us to imagine it today crowded, malnourished prisoners who survived the war still had to wear camp striped uniforms . As if that was not enough, in some camps the victims of the brown regime stayed in the same barracks as the captured Nazis! There were even cases when the latter was entrusted with the task: guarding the Jews placed in the Allied camps, so that they ruled over them even after their own defeat.
The whole picture was completed by the fact that Jews from Germany, Italy, Austria and other countries cooperating with Hitler did not enjoy the status of victims at all! They were automatically considered citizens of hostile countries . As a result - as Eric Lichtblau emphasizes - they were equated with Nazi prisoners imprisoned in the same place .
It is also a grim joke that the medical service in the DP camps was supplemented by thousands of doctors and nurses who until recently: practiced criminal Nazi medicine in concentration camps .
Even months after liberation, Holocaust victims had to continue to wear camp striped uniforms. In the photo, the military chaplain, Rabbi Hershel Schaecter, is celebrating a service for former prisoners of the Buchenwald camp (source:public domain).
We treat Jews the same as the Nazis
Anyone who thinks that DPs were at least provided with decent food is wrong. In this respect, the situation also left a lot to be desired. In many camps, the menu was still based on black, loamy bread that was hard to eat. It is not surprising, then, that illegal trade was flourishing. This, in turn, was very displeasing to the Americans, who were outraged that:
Jews are "preferentially" treated and use the black market systems in the camps to buy more food than their rations were given.
Eventually, the Yankees in early 1946 authorized the German police to conduct a raid on the Stuttgart and Landsberg camps. This, in turn, led to the outbreak of riots. The blood was shed. One of the ex-concentration camp prisoners died. He survived the Holocaust to die in a free Europe. This filled the cup of bitterness.
President Truman had previously decided to send a special envoy to Europe to investigate the conditions in which DPs live. Earl Grant Harrison, former Commissioner for Immigration and Naturalization Affairs, and Dean of Law at the University of Pennsylvania, was elected.
His findings shocked America, disturbing post-war euphoria. In the report quoted by Eric Lichtblau, he wrote, inter alia: at present it seems that we treat Jews in the same way as the Nazis , with the only difference that we do not exterminate them .
Jews stand lower than animals
Not all were of the same opinion. The famous General George Patton, after hearing the position of Truman's envoy, noted in his diary: Harrison and his ilk believe a DPE is a human being, which is not true. This is especially true of Jews who stand lower than animals . And it was a man with such views who managed DP camps!
General George Patton (left), who was in charge of the DP camps, had a very clear opinion about them (source:public domain).
His attitude was by no means isolated. For example, President Truman's wife avoided accepting Jews at home like fire, and the leader of the United States himself had privately ridiculed "Jews" and "chackers."
The Dipisis were well aware of the general dislike of them. One commented sadly:
As we realized how indifferent the world was to our tragedy, a general impotence began to build up within us. We soon began to see people who had survived the worst possible tragedies during the war years and now suddenly committed suicide, often by hanging.
Earl Grant Harrison (right), author of the report in which he described the tragic fate of DPs (source:public domain).
There was no place for thousands of people like him in the United States and other countries of the winning coalition. They had to wait months for permission to leave the camps. At the same time, hundreds of ex-Nazis were completely legally overseas.
They were welcomed there with open arms as specialists in various fields. It was they who were to provide the Americans with an advantage in the beginning of the arms race with the Soviet Union. But that's a story for a completely different article.
Source:
Eric Lichtblau, Nazi Neighbors. How America became a safe haven for Hitler's people , Wydawnictwo Literackie 2015