A Post-War Masquerade

In the years after the end of the Second World War, Holocaust survivors dispersed themselves widely. Although many of the small number of survivors from Western and Northern Europe went back to their previous communities, very few of the vast majority who were from Eastern Europe were able to do so. Their homes had either been destroyed or taken over by others; they were at risk of further massacres (as occurred particularly in Poland); and there was nothing and nobody to return. Homeless, penniless and often alone, up to 250,000 Jewish displaced persons gathered in refugee camps set up by the Allies in Germany, Austria and Italy. They stayed in those camps, fed and clothed first by the American and British military and then by the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, until they could get visas for such exotic destinations as Canada, the United States, Argentina, Cuba, South Africa and Australia or—depending on their political...