Feldafing displaced persons camp
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Feldafing displaced persons camp in Bavaria was the first DP camp exclusively for use by liberated Jewish concentration camp prisoners. It was later used by Jewish refugees from the Russian-controlled Jewish areas. The camp was located in Feldafing's Höhenberg area and beyond.
Overview
The camp was opened by the
The Feldafing DP camp was formed in the grounds of the
Educational and religious life flourished in Feldafing. In addition to Feldafing's secular elementary and high school systems, the camp's religious community founded several schools, including a Talmud Torah (religious elementary school), a yeshiva (religious academy), and several seminaries including Bet Medrash Lita (Lithuania) and Bet Medrash Ungarn (Hungary). Feldafing also had a rabbinical council that supported its religious office, an agency that held considerable influence within the camp. The camp's extensive library also had a noteworthy religious book collection. Secular instruction was available for adults at an evening school, an ORT vocational training school, and a nursing school.
Housed in a separate kinderblock of 450 children and adolescents, many of Feldafing's youngsters organized into "
General Dwight D. Eisenhower personally inspected the living conditions of Feldafing in September 1945. The hospital, as well as additional housing, was a direct result of the Harrison report and Eisenhower's visit to the camp. Footage of Eisenhower's visit shows crowds of survivors surrounding Eisenhower, much as they did when Zionist leaders like David Ben-Gurion visited the camp. Ben-Gurion's initial visit to the camp in October 1945 was an important boost of confidence to the population of Feldafing and its central committee. As the first all-Jewish DP camp in the U.S. zone, Feldafing also marked the site of the first elected Jewish camp committee.
Feldafing's camp committee was subdivided into several offices, including staffs for housing, provisions, economics, sanitation, culture, and legal matters. The strong camp court launched a project to codify laws for the camp in 1946 and led a movement to standardize law for all the Sh'erit ha-Pletah in the U.S. zone of Germany. The court also issued decisions concerning several former
Notes
This article incorporates text from the
Readings
- Haia Karni (Korman), Embers Of Hope, Life at the Feldafing, Germany displaced persons camp 1945–1952, Printed USA, 2009, ISBN 978-0-578-13593-9
External links
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum - Feldafing
- Ursula Neudorfer; Eberhard Köstler. "Villenkolonie am Höhenberg" (in German). Gemeinde Feldafing. Archived from the original on January 13, 2016. Retrieved 2008-02-08.
- Fraye vorṭ (Feldafing, Germany) is a digitized periodical at the Leo Baeck Institute, New York
References
- ^ Holdings Registry file No. 20826, Jonas Turkow collection, Ghetto Fighters' House Archives