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Jewish Refugees Reject Repatriation

When World War II ended, there were more than 50,000 Jewish Holocaust survivors among the millions of refugees in Central Europe. During the next two years, thousands more fled anti-Semitism in Poland and Russia and were temporarily resettled in displaced persons (DP) camps in Germany, Austria, and Italy. Most were determined to leave Europe. In this passage, Joel Sack, a survivor of several concentration camps, recalls a discussion in a DP camp about statelessness and the desire for emigration.

We had been singled out, we insisted, from among the people of all those nations as Jews to be persecuted and eliminated by mass murder. Nobody had cared then about our nationalities. As survivors, we had decided to renounce our former nationalities, and to declare our Jewish Nationality. We were willing to be stateless until a Jewish homeland was created in Palestine. . . . I did not believe that it would be possible for us to live in any of our "former" European countries again. They had been so hopelessly permeated with hatred toward us and I did not believe any authority was willing to set things straight. Our problem was that we, the survivors, had been stuck in the miserable DP camps. We had to live in the midst of our former executioners who had been allowed to remain in their comfortable homes, living off blood-stained spoils all over Europe.

So far, not even the USA had volunteered to permit DP immigration. A lot of haggling was going on about how to limit immigrants to a very small number. It was terribly painful to hear that with cruel determination the English had blocked all attempts of the survivors to get to Palestine. . . . While this was happening, no country had volunteered to admit survivors. During the war years, all of them had looked with indifference at our demise. After the war had ended, there was no compassion from governments, even after the cruelties of the German concentration camps had been revealed. Let's face it, I said with conviction, it is still a hostile world we have to face, even after Nazi Germany has been defeated.

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