UNESCO 2014 Finding New Homes Body Text
After the ambiguous period of liberation survivors started to rebuild their lives. Many of them however, no longer felt comfortable living their lives in their own home countries and sought to build a future in other countries. Palestine (today, Israel) and the United States were the two most sought-after destinations for postwar immigration.
Many Jewish survivors fled to Palestine through the organization of the Jewish Brigade Group, and others participated in the fight for independence from Great Britain. Simon Drucker describes his journey to Palestine as a reaction to an unwelcome reception when he returned home to France from his experience in concentration camps. Through this journey to fight for Palestine’s independence from Great Britain, Simon recognized the value of rebuilding a life and was able to subsequently return to France, marry, and live a full life. Upon the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 many thousands of survivors migrated to settle there. While precise numbers aren’t known, an estimated 170,000 Jewish displaced persons and refugees from Europe had immigrated to Israel by 1973.
Immigration to the United States is a journey that many who survived the Holocaust recount in their testimonies. The USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive contains 7,417 testimonies discussing immigration to the United States. Several rounds of legislation were required to make this happen, but 137,450 Jewish refugees (including close to 100,000 displaced persons) had settled in the United States by 1952. Sonia Klein and Bella Arnett provide two examples from Germany and Poland, respectively, of what this journey looked like.
Other Jewish refugees in Europe emigrated as displaced persons or refugees to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Western Europe, Mexico, South America, and South Africa. Their journeys to these new countries were the beginning of an emotional journey back into life from the death and destruction of the Holocaust.