“Shtetls” in Postwar Germany: an Analysis of Interactions Among Jewish Displaced
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Jewish “Shtetls” in Postwar Germany: An Analysis of Interactions Among Jewish Displaced Persons, Germans, and Americans Between 1945 and 1957 in Bavaria A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in History by Kierra Mikaila Crago-Schneider 2013 © Copyright by Kierra Mikaila Crago-Schneider 2013 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Jewish “Shtetls” in Postwar Germany: An Analysis of Interactions Among Jewish Displaced Persons, Germans, and Americans Between 1945 and 1957 in Bavaria by Kierra Mikaila Crago-Schneider Doctor of Philosophy in History University of California, Los Angeles, 2013 Professor Saul P. Friedlander, Chair After the Holocaust, 250,000 Jewish survivors settled into Displaced Persons (DPs) centers throughout occupied Germany. The housing in Jewish only DP camps in the American occupation zone provided a perceived safe and protected space, attracting the majority of the Jewish Displaced Persons. In these centers survivors rebuilt their lives that were destroyed during the Shoah. DPs also developed a sense of power and entitlement that they invoked in negotiations with international aid organizations, the Office of the Military Government, United States, and later, the West German Federal Republic. Jewish DPs made their first contacts with their American overseers as well as German neighbors in the centers, usually through trade and barter. Some of these interactions grew into lasting personal, criminal, and business relationships while others led to increased anti-Semitism. The Jewish DP centers were beneficial to their ii residents. However, their extraterritorial nature, the increased and better rations received by Jewish DPs, and their exclusion from the German judicial system before 1951 acted to segregate the inhabitants from the German population. The extralegal nature of these centers threatened the sovereignty of the newly formed Federal Republic prompting the West German government to close the remaining camps. This led to tension, aggression, and conflict between these parties after the German takeover of the remaining centers. Despite this, the Jewish Displaced Persons, Federal Republic, and the Jewish aid organizations, worked together allowing the majority of Germany’s displaced Jews to resettle on their own terms even though this meant that Föhrenwald, the last camp, remained open until 1957. This dissertation uses memoirs, letters, oral histories, and reports to examine the creation of the Jewish DP centers at Landsberg, Feldafing, and Föhrenwald to better understand the role these camps played between 1945 and 1957. This work focuses on the Jewish DP centers to recreate the relationships between the Jewish DPs, Germans, and Americans in both legal and illegal activities. It also focuses on the reemergence of anti-Semitism. Finally, this narrative analyzes the arduous process of ending Jewish DP life in Germany that left more than a thousand Jews stateless for years while they awaited resettlement. iii The dissertation of Kierra Mikaila Crago-Schneider is approved. Todd S. Presner David Sabean David N. Myers Saul P. Friedlander, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2013 iv To my family and friends who supported me throughout this project, especially my mother who read every page. To Nellie and Adelaide who were born at just the right moment to motivate me to finish, and to James Jardine III who gave me nothing but unconditional love and understanding even when I did not deserve it. You are all my world. v CONTENTS Abbreviations and Terms viii Vita x Introduction 1 PART I: LIFE AFTER LIBERATION: JEWISH DISPLACED PERSONS 42 UNDER AMERICAN ADMINISTRATION, 1945-1948 I. Lost and Found: Life for DPs in the Immediate Postwar Period 43 II. A Means of Survival? Trade and Barter on the Grey Market 86 III. Crime for Profit? The Exchange of Luxury Items 144 1.1 Building up Business: The Black Market 145 1.2 Meeting at Möhlstraße: A Case Study 208 PART II: SHOULD THEY STAY OR BE FORCED TO GO? DEBATES 238 ABOUT THE FUTURE OF DP LIFE IN GERMANY, 1948-1951. IV. No Future in Germany? American-Jewish Calls for the 239 Immediate Emigration of Germany’s DPs V. Back Where We Started? German Anti-Semitism in Postwar Bavaria 301 1.1 Freedom of Speech? The Bleibtreu Letter 301 1.2 A Search for Justice? The Auerbach Affair 318 PART III: THE FIGHT FOR AUTONOMY: “HEIMATLOSE AUSLÄNDER” 350 UNDER GERMAN ADMINISTRATION, 1951-1957. VI. The Times They Are a Changing: The Transfer of Control 351 Over the Displaced Persons in Germany. VII. Troubles in Paradise: Jewish DP Attempts to Remain Autonomous 380 VIII. Farewell to Föhrenwald: The Closing of the 434 Last Jewish Only Camp in Germany vi 1.1 Illegal Chozrim: Replacing Jewish Returners to Germany 435 1.2 Föhrenwald’s Unwanted: The Fate of the Chronically Ill 470 1.3 A New Ghetto in Germany? Resettling the Orthodox in Föhrenwald 494 Conclusion 515 Bibliography 530 vii ABBREVIATIONS AJJDC American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. Shortened to the JDC or the Joint. The AJJDC was the major American charitable aid organization providing supplemental rations for the Displaced Persons in the American-run DP centers. BayHStA Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv sometimes shortened to HStA CDPX Combined Displaced Persons Executive CK Central Committee of Liberated Jews in Bavaria DP Displaced Persons. The individuals classified as DPs, and later UNDPs, had been made homeless by the war. They were evacuees, political refugees, forced laborers, and concentration camp survivors who could not or would not return to their former homes. They were labeled as stateless persons and received care and assistance from the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration and its successor, the International Refugee Organization. HIAS Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society HICOG United States High Commissioner for Germany ICD Information Control Division IfZ Institut für Zeitgeschichte IRO International Refugee Organization JTA Jewish Telegraphic Agency MG Military Government MInn Ministerium des Innern MP Military Police NACP National Archives and Record Service, College Park NARA National Archives and Records Administration OMGB Office of the Military Government, Bavaria OMGUS Office of Military Government, United States RG Record Group viii ABBREVIATIONS (CONT’D) SDP Social Democratic Party SHAEF Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force StK Bestand Bayerische Staatskanzlei TB Tuberculosis UN United Nations UNA United Nations Archive UNHCR United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees UNRRA United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration U.S.F.E.T United States Forces European Theater USNA United Services for New Americans YIVO Institute for Jewish Research ZK Zentral Komitet fun di bafreite yidn in datyshland or the Central Committee of Liberated Jews in Germany. ix VITA EDUCATION 2007 University of California, Los Angeles, M.A., Modern Jewish History 2004 University of California, Riverside, M.A., Modern European History 2002 University of California, Davis, B.A., Modern European History and Religious Studies LECTURE POSITIONS 2012 University of California, Davis, HIST. 113 – History of Modern Israel, Spring 2012. PRESENTATIONS “Forgotten or Unwanted? The Final Remnant of Jewish DPs in Germany.” Presented at The Memory of Trauma: After the Holocaust and an Era of Genocides. Davis, California. March 2013. Exploring the Plight and Path of Jewish Refugees, Survivors and Displaced Persons. USHMM Workshop. Washington D.C.. July - August 2012. “Emigration By Any Means Necessary: Jewish Displaced Persons and Their Attempts to Leave Europe, 1945-1950.” Presented at To Stay or To Go? Jews in Europe in the Immediate Aftermath of the Holocaust. Warsaw, Poland. May 2012. Bringing up Babies Behind Barbed Wire: Jewish Parenting in German Camps, 1944-1947. Presented at the International Conference on Detained Motherhoods, Fatherhoods: Parenthood in Imprisonment and Conflict Situations, Marseilles, France. October 2011. The “Decline” of Jewish Morality in Germany as Presented in Rabbi Abraham Klausner’s Report in 1948. Presented at the GSA, Louisville, Kentucky. September 2011. “Day to Day Interactions Between Jewish Survivors, Germans, and American Soldiers in Postwar Munich.” Presented at the 3rd Annual Summer Workshops for Holocaust Scholars, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, Israel. July 2011. “Separation Through Daily Interaction? Economic Competition as a Barrier to Jewish DP Integration.” Presented at the Conference of the Association for Jewish Studies, Los Angeles, California. December 2009. x PUBLICATIONS “Anti-Semitism or Competing Interests? An Examination of German and American Perceptions of Jewish Displaced Persons Active on the Black Market in Munich’s Möhlstrasse,” Spring 2010 Yad Vashem Review, v1, 38 pages (167-194). Spring 2010. FELLOWSHIPS & AWARDS 2012 & 2013 • UCLA Graduate Division Fellowship, Winter Quarter. 2010-2011 • Kagan Claims Conf. Academic Fellowship in Advanced Holocaust Studies, 2010-2011. • UCLA Jewish Studies Travel Funding, 2011. • UCLA History Department Writing Fellowship, 2010. • Jewish Studies Skirball Fellowship, 2010. • “1939” Club Fellowship, 2010. 2009-2010 • Claims Conf. Academic Fellowship in Advanced Holocaust Studies, 2009-2010. • Leo Baeck Institute Fritz Halbers Fellowship, October 2009. 2008-2009 • Mellon Program on the Holocaust in American & World Culture Fellowship, 2008-2009. • Center for European and Eurasian Studies Pre-dissertation Grant,