The pages below examine these experiences separately so that “after the war” is not treated as one simple story. Liberation, return, displacement, migration, community rebuilding and the creation of the State of Israel overlapped, but they did not affect every survivor in the same way.

Liberation ended Nazi rule but did not restore the lives that had been destroyed. Jewish survivors faced bereavement, illness, the loss of homes and property, missing relatives, continuing antisemitism and immigration restrictions. Their postwar paths differed: some returned to former homes, some lived in displaced persons camps, some moved west through the Brihah network, and many sought emigration to Mandatory Palestine, the United States or other destinations.

After the Holocaust: Liberation, Displacement and Rebuilding