Ryan Perryman

Melissa Constanza
Kimberly Leiva
Mrs. Smith
English 10H - Period 6
27 February 2015
Aftermath: Holocaust
The Holocaust, which ended on April of 1945, was a traumatizing experience for Jews
and all of the victims. The victims honored the fact that they were liberated by the Triple Allies
and the Soviet Troops, but they still feared the fact of starting from the beginning. After being
liberated, the victims had a difficult time trying to manage having a normal lifestyle. The
creation of Displaced Persons Camps and Israel helped Jews begin a new life. As for the
perpetrators, some were punished for their crimes, but some were not.
The life of the victims after the Holocaust was not so pleasant because many did not even
have a home to return to. And, the victims that did were hated by their community (The Final
Stages of the War and the Aftermath). As for Blanka Rothschild, a Holocaust survivor, finding her

way home to her family was a terrifying unforgettable moment when she did not have a family to
return to (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum). For her, being liberated was not exciting.
Many of the victims of the Holocaust that survived lived in orphanages or migrated westward to

European territories (The Aftermath of the Holocaust). After suffering for three years, nothing
really matter anymore. The Holocaust was a terrifying era for survivor Ruth Webber. She was
taken from her home when she was only four years old. After she was liberated Ruth lived in a
orphanage in Krakow until she was reunited with her mother(The Aftermath of the HolocaustOral History). Ruth Webber must have felt like a lost soul without her mother after liberation.
While the survivors were trying to put their lives back together, the perpetrators were
sentenced to the Nuremberg Trials in 1945 and 1946 (The Nuremberg Dewfendants). Out of all
the perpetrators, twenty-two major Nazi criminals were charged in the Nuremberg Trials. During
the trials, twelve Nazi criminals were executed because of the authority of Great Britain, France,
the Soviet Union, and the United States. According to records, most of the defendants admitted
to the crimes of which they were accused, although most claimed that they were simply
following the orders of a higher authority (The Nuremberg Defendants). Knowing it was
wrong, they still did it. In the Nuremberg trials, the leaders of the concentration camps received
less of a penalty or no penalty at all. Many of the criminals were never even tried and some ran
away to different countries. A few days before the war ended, the leader of the Nazi Party, Adolf
Hitler, committed suicide with his right-hand men before facing their consequences. As for one
of Hitlers allies, Mussolini, him and his mistress were executed by an Italian partisan while
escaping from The British and The Americans. If Hitler had ever been tried he would have been
executed as well.
Even after being liberated, the survivors only option was to go to Austria, Italy, and the
Western occupation zones of Germany which was where the Displaced Persons Camps were
located in (Yad Vashem). The Displaced Persons Camps were the only thing that helped the Jews

avoid living on the street or getting killed. These camps were managed by Allied authorities and
the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (United States Holocaust Memorial
Museum). Even though these camps were in highly unflattering conditions that held over two

hundred thousand Jews, they gave shelter to numerous survivors (Yad Vashem). These camps
helped many Jews not only because they had somewhere to live, but somewhere they could start
a new life. Many people gave birth and got married at these Displaced Persons Camps. In 1948,
Congress passed the Displaced Persons Act that allowed two hundred thousand Displaced Camps
in the United States. By 1952, various camps were closed and that was when the survivors
actually started their new lives.
Many of the victims of the Holocaust did go to Displaced Persons Camps but then left to
Israel to start a life. After Israel was built, around "170,000 Jewish displaced persons and
refugees had immigrated to Israel" (The Aftermath of the Holocaust). Israel gave many Jews a
second chance to start a family, to start over. Jewish people called Israel the homeland because it
welcomed all Jews (Postwar Refugee Crisis and the Establishment of the State of Israel). The
Jews suffered so much for three years, but they finally found a place where they felt they
belonged."On May 19, 1948 David Ben-Gurion, the chairman of the Jewish Agency for
Palestine, announced the formation of the state of Israel"(Postwar of the State of Israel).
Holocaust victims suffered tremendously after their liberation. This had a lot of importance
because the criminals need to suffer the consequences and the victims needed justification. There
was no point in living after surviving the terrible obstacles, and at the end having nobody.