Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Plates
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations and note on spelling and dates
- Introduction
- 1 The occupation of Germany and the survivors: an overview
- 2 The formation of She'erith Hapleitah: November 1944 – July 1945
- 3 She'erith Hapleitah enters the international arena: July–October 1945
- 4 Hopes of Zion: September 1945 – January 1946
- 5 In search of a new politics: unity versus division
- 6 The Central Committee of the Liberated Jews in Bavaria
- 7 The politics of education
- 8 Two voices from Landsberg: Rudolf Valsonok and Samuel Gringauz
- 9 Destruction and remembrance
- 10 The survivors confront Germany
- 11 She'erith Hapleitah towards 1947
- Concluding remarks
- Bibliography
- Index
- Studies in the Social and Cultural History of Modern Warfare
1 - The occupation of Germany and the survivors: an overview
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 August 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Plates
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations and note on spelling and dates
- Introduction
- 1 The occupation of Germany and the survivors: an overview
- 2 The formation of She'erith Hapleitah: November 1944 – July 1945
- 3 She'erith Hapleitah enters the international arena: July–October 1945
- 4 Hopes of Zion: September 1945 – January 1946
- 5 In search of a new politics: unity versus division
- 6 The Central Committee of the Liberated Jews in Bavaria
- 7 The politics of education
- 8 Two voices from Landsberg: Rudolf Valsonok and Samuel Gringauz
- 9 Destruction and remembrance
- 10 The survivors confront Germany
- 11 She'erith Hapleitah towards 1947
- Concluding remarks
- Bibliography
- Index
- Studies in the Social and Cultural History of Modern Warfare
Summary
In February 1945 the Allied armies began their full-scale invasion of Germany and on 9 May 1945, after the unconditional German surrender, declared that the war in Europe had come to an end. A month later the Allied Control Commission began administering the country and divided it into four occupation zones in accordance with the principles agreed upon at the Yalta Conference earlier in the year. Germany was in almost total disarray: its large cities had been laid waste, vital services were paralyzed, transport and communications were virtually non-existent and governmental activity had ground to a halt. Returning these vital public services to a minimal level of operation placed an enormous burden on the Allied forces and seriously hindered them in giving their full attention to more than 9 million forced laborers from various countries and 80,000 concentration camp inmates they liberated as they advanced into Germany.
The Allies were fully aware of the large number of forced laborers they would uncover with the conquest of Germany and prepared in advance for the complex problems they expected to encounter. The forty-four states that comprised the United Nations set up UNRRA in November of 1943 and its leaders were party to the discussions of the Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) as it planned the invasion of Europe. In November 1944 General Dwight Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander of SHAEF, and Herbert Lehman, the Director General of UNRRA, agreed to a division of labor between the two bodies in overseeing the treatment of displaced persons.
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- Life between Memory and HopeThe Survivors of the Holocaust in Occupied Germany, pp. 11 - 23Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2002
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