In what condition were the Jews in Germany and Poland after the liberation? How did their rehabilitation start?

Germany – Immediately after the liberation, there were 50,000–75,000 Jews in the western part of occupied Germany. In the first few weeks after the war, hundreds of displaced-persons camps were set up provisionally in this area for people who did not want to return to their countries of residence, among them many Jews.

In August 1945, the Harrison Committee (appointed by President Truman to investigate the plight of the displaced persons) reported to the American Army on the desperate condition of Jews in the displaced-persons camps. As a result of the report, special camps with improved conditions were set up for Jews in the American occupation zone and, some time later, in the British zone as well. The Soviets, for their part, persistently refused to recognize the Jews as a distinct group and did not establish special camps for them.

The population of the displaced-persons camps in Germany, in Austria, and also in Italy kept growing, mainly because Jewish refugees from Eastern Europe continued to arrive. At the end of 1946, as a result of a mass flight of Jews from Poland (in the wake of the Kielce pogrom), there were about 15,000 Jews in the British occupation zone, 140,000 in the American occupation zone (mostly in Bavaria), and 1,500 in the French zone. In all, about 700 displaced-persons camps were active; among the best known were Landsberg, Pocking, Feldafing, and Bergen-Belsen. Notwithstanding the survivors' many problems, an intense and active lifestyle came into being in these camps – an educational and vocational system, cultural creativity, journalism, and even political life.

Most Jews in displaced-persons camps in Central Europe left the camps by 1950. Most emigrated to Israel; others emigrated to the United States, Canada, Australia, and other localities. Some stayed in Germany.

Poland – About 300,000 Polish Jews survived: 25,000 who survived in Poland, 30,000 who returned from labor camps, and the rest, who repatriated from the Soviet Union. The destruction of Jewish life, the harsh economic situation, and eruptions of anti-Semitism – peaking in the Kielce pogrom of July 1946 – caused the majority of Polish Jews to leave this country (clandestinely, for the most part), usually in the direction of Central Europe. Only 50,000 Jews chose to stay in Poland after 1946.

Under the Central Committee of the Polish Jews, an effort was made to revive various aspects of Jewish life in Poland. Most attempts to resettle Jews focused on the former German areas that had been annexed to Poland in the west.