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Trinity Milian
Mr. Hawkins
Modern World History P, Period 4
8 April 2016
Liberation
The liberation of those who had been imprisoned during WWII was wondrous and
horrifying at the same time. After pushing the German front back far enough, American, Soviet,
and British troops stumbled upon concentration camps full of thousands of people living in the
worst conditions possible. Many were stunned by what they found, questioning the horrendous
atrocities that had been committed. They knew of the fact that Germanys anti-Semitic standing
had caused the separation and eventual removal of Jewish people from everyday German life,
however they could not comprehend just what conditions Jews and many others lived under.
These people were humiliated, starved, and stripped of their humanity, being treated worse than
any animal. Once freed of the torturous German soldiers and rescued from these camps, many
felt unimaginable relief; and yet soon after they learned that their struggles were nowhere near
over yet. Liberation created new trials for those being freed and those attempting to assist, such
as the realization of loss, the knowledge of the Nazi's actions, and the struggle for a future plan.
No longer distracted by the constant worry for survival, many realized just how much
they had lost, people and possessions alike. In many cases, survivors were the last out of their
entire family; A survey taken by the Organization for Jewish Refugees in Italy, for
example, found that 76% of the Jewish refugees had lost all of their immediate families and

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all of their relatives, and were the sole survivors from their families. (Website #1). In a
way, the Nazi's torture of the Jewish people lived on past the defeat of Nazi Germany. Many fell
into severe depressions, feeling a greater loss than they had thought imaginable. The thing that
motivated to survive past their horrendous ordeals ended up to be a misguided dream; they
would never be able to see any of their family again. Most Jews could only find solace in
complete strangers, which did surprisingly help many, as they were able to find others who
understood the ordeals they had been through. However, not only were they stripped of their
loved ones, but many returned to their homes only find that they were unwelcome. According to
Shoshana Stark, "The gatekeeper was living in the house and wouldn't let me go in... I also
had aunts and family. I went to see all their apartments. There were non-Jews living in
every one. They wouldn't let me in." (Website #1). While Stark's case might be an extreme
case of physically not being able to return home, many others simply didn't feel welcome. Antisemitic feelings still raged throughout Europe and were perhaps even intensified, particularly in
Germany due to their humiliating loss of World War II. Many more simply felt empty upon
returning home, finding that Jewish communities were simply wiped out and that their idea of
home was killed along with their friends and family. Overall, many Jews felt a sense of
disassociation and a terrible loss, as Avraham Dobo (Dabri) could attest to when he said "This is
what I fought for? This is what I stayed alive for? Suddenly I realized that my whole
struggle had been pointless, and I didn't feel like living." (Website #1). Many of the Jews had
lived through their days in the concentration camps without much time for any emotions;
however, hope did manage to ignite the will to live in many of them. And yet, upon returning
home all that they had was in ruins. War conditions didn't simply disappear as soon as
concentration camp prisoners were set free; there was still poverty, starvation, and discrimination

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to worry about. For some, the sights of their old home reminded them of a life they would never
be able to truly return to. For others, it only signaled the fact that they were not welcome. While
these Jews went through their stages of grief, however, the rest of the world was only just
realizing what exactly had happened in the infamous concentration camps.
Liberation ended up being a particularly horrifying experience, not only for those being
liberated but also for the people doing the liberating. In fact, "Each discovery deeply
penetrated the hearts and the minds of the soldiers. Grown men and veterans of battle
broke down and wept at the horrors seen in the camps." (Website #2). Part of these reactions
can obviously be attributed to the fact that these men just saw possibly the worst thing
imaginable in their life. However, another part of it can be attributed to the fact that so few
people knew what was actually going on inside these camps, and so in addition to be absolutely
horrifying these sights were shockingly horrifying. No Jews left the camps; they either waited
until liberation or ended up being killed in a death camp. So, that leaves only the Nazi guards to
tell the tale. In addition to the bias the Nazis would have had recounting what was currently
happening in these camps, many people didn't even believe them or thought they were simply
over exaggerating. So again, finding these people like this was quite shocking to the soldiers.
However as people dug deeper into these prisons, things only became grimmer. If the evidence
of people reduced to skin and bones wasn't enough evidence that the Jewish people were abused,
soldiers found "the dead by the thousands everywhere: in mass graves, stacked as firewood,
scattered about the grounds, and even sharing bunks with the living." (Website #2). These
discoveries allowed people to understand what the Nazis had done and the trials thousands had
lived and died through. Because they were able to see these conditions, they were able to
rationalize the later actions of the liberated. Intense fear and nearly animalistic survival behaviors

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would normally be seen as unusual; however the soldiers mere glimpse at the torture the Nazis
enforced allowed them to sympathize and get those affected the proper care that they needed,
medically and emotionally. Finally, these soldiers learned of the mental scarring the Nazis had
inflicted upon the Jews that would not only affect them for the rest of their lives, but everyone
around them too. Soldiers found that the Jews and others "had been stripped of their humanity
as well as their personal identities, and what remained was merely a shell of a human
being" and many reacted with "tears, horror, denial, patriotism, and hatred for the Nazis."
(Website #2). These emotions would later go on to affect the punishments for SS officers and
other correlating things, however directly in that moment of physically liberating those
concentration camps many lives would be changed drastically. The soldiers working to free those
camps would later describe the images haunting them for decades afterwards and stating how
they would never be able to forget the horrid smell. Back home, these stories and images
(photographed and recorded for the whole world to see) were of course not well received. But
perhaps most importantly people learned how far a simple thing such as prejudice could go and
how willing people would be to play their part in it. The monstrosities served as a lingering
warning of what could come out of uncontrollable hatred and bias. However, liberation was no
walk-off-into-the-sunset movie ending. Despite all the sympathy and empathy people had for
these survivors, they still went through many struggles after being freed due to the slow spread
of information and support.
The Displaced Persons camps the Allied forces created to attempt to aid those who did
not return home, although excellent in theory, turned out to be quite another disastrous event
Jewish people would have to endure. DP camps dealt with "1,000,000 [who] refused or were
unable to return to their homes." (Website #3). These included people from all kinds of

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different countries, including Jews and other survivors in addition to anti-communists or fascists
who would also be persecuted upon arrival home. These numbers served to be quite important
however, as the U.S. took on the responsibility of tending to these DP camps with extremely
limited resources. In the end the DP camps managed only slightly better conditions than the
concentration camps; there was little to no food, medical care, or supplies of which the survivors
desperately needed. In addition to this, Jews who fled their homes due to fear of prevailing antisemitic beliefs were still unable to escape, as "they were living among anti-semites who had
hostility toward them." (Website #3). Poor planning and no preparation led to hastily
constructed plans for the DP camps that ended up hurting the Jewish people even more than what
they had already suffered. In attempts to remain anti-discriminatory, the U.S. decided it would be
best to simply keep everyone together in equal conditions. They did not decide to factor in,
however, that the Jews would still face consequences because of these actions. However, it only
gets worse from there; not only were the living conditions and neighbors within the DP camps
awful, but the new soldiers put within these camps to help the survivors ended up making things
quite worse. "[T]hey had little or no sympathy for the Jews" which was worsened by the fact
that "some American commanders suspected that the DPs from Eastern Europe included
Soviet agents, and that Jews had a predisposition to communist beliefs." (Website #3). The
previous soldiers, having seen firsthand what the living conditions had been inside the
concentration camps were of course sympathetic and more than willing to help; however, new
soldiers who had no idea what had happened saw only the odd behaviors of the Jewish people.
Their torture obviously affected them, making them acquire odd habits that the new soldiers
didn't agree with and would not tolerate. Fears of communism were targeted onto these people as
well, leading the U.S. soldiers to like the Jews even less. So, what was supposed to be a helping

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hand ended up becoming more of a slap in the face to survivors. Earl G. Harrison even compares
the DP camps to the concentration camps with the exception of extermination. And so, in the end
liberation ended up having many layers to it: the positives of freedom for those imprisoned and
knowledge that would be passed down for generations, and the negatives of further suffering and
hatred.
Overall, liberation did many things that ranged greatly on a scale of negative to positive,
ranging from causing many Jews to go into a deep and horrible depression to informing the rest
of the world and changing the way people had originally viewed the Holocaust. Thanks to
liberation, people can hear the stories of the survivors and use it as a reminder to never let
something like this happen ever again. However, most of the effects of liberation can be found
directly at the time of the liberation itself. Most of these effects were emotional, especially for
those being liberated. The emotional high of finally being released of the burden of the Nazis,
quickly followed by the depression that is the knowledge that one's entire family has been killed,
further followed by the despair of losing one's home and being given the worst substitute
imaginable all serves as a part of these survivors' stories. It's important to remember the entire
story through to the end, especially when the end involves the neglect of the U.S. and other
Allied forces leading to more unnecessary tribulations to an already grieving group of people.