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Magazine Featured
No Balm for their Wounds
Elderly Survivors in the Wake of the Holocaust
Leah Goldstein
As part of the "Zoom into Research" ongoing online lecture series presented by Yad Vashem's International Institute for Holocaust Research, Prof. Dan Stone of Royal Holloway, University of London, gave a fascinating presentation of a topic relatively under-investigated in Holocaust historiography: "Elderly Survivors in the Wake of the Holocaust."
83-year old Simon Trampetter cutting off the yellow Star of David from the jacket of his 84-year old friend and fellow survivor Joseph Keller on 27 January 1945, Kerkrade, [Limburg] The Netherlands. Courtesy: USHMM
List of people who returned to Kassel from concentration camps, labor camps, etc., 31 May 1947. ITS Digital Archive, Wiener Holocaust Library, London
Prof. Dan Stone
"The young persons will push their way out in to the world; the early middle-aged will make the best of what life has to bring them with some remains of energy. But those over sixty, who really look over eighty and ninety, are facing an endless wait for their end."
"Report of Visit to Berlin, 19- 22 October 1945," 24 October 1945. Wiener Holocaust Library, Henriques Papers
When one speaks of survivors today, the image that comes to mind is of the very old, in their twilight years, the majority struggling with physical and/or cognitive challenges. However, at the end of the war, most survivors of the Holocaust were in the 18-40-year age bracket, given the unprecedented life-threatening hardships they were forced to endure.
But the end of the war also saw certain groups of older survivors who had managed to survive in hiding – for example, as spouses of non-Jewish citizens, or passing as Aryans in Germany. Some also remained alive after fleeing to the Soviet interior, or as inmates of the Theresienstadt ghetto, where they were allowed to work until the age of 65. As in many other survival stories, luck played a major part in being able to live out the war years.
But what happened to this group of refugees after the war? Did they encounter different challenges to their younger peers? How did the Jewish and other support organizations relate to them? And which paths were open to them for the next stages in their lives?
As part of the "Zoom into Research" ongoing online lecture series presented by Yad Vashem's International Institute for Holocaust Research, Prof. Dan Stone of Royal Holloway, University of London, gave a fascinating presentation of a topic relatively under-investigated in Holocaust historiography: "Elderly Survivors in the Wake of the Holocaust." Prof. Stone's interest in the topic stemmed from research he has undertaken for many years on the International Tracing Service (ITS – now the Arolsen Archives), and he was invited by the Research Institute's Diana and Eli Zborowski's Center for the Study of the Aftermath of the Holocaust to speak about his findings.
Prof. Stone began by outlining what he defined as "the elderly" after the Holocaust. Based on life expectancy at that time, as well as recorded testimonies, photographs and self-descriptions, he arrived at the figure of 55 years or older. Interestingly, many of the photographs captioned "elderly man/woman" in a DP camp, for example, may not have actually indicated precise age, but rather the shocking appearance of younger adults who had undergone extreme physical deprivation. As one survivor described himself: "I am a homeless old man, without a roof over my head, without a family, without any next of kin. Do I look like a human being? No, definitely not. Disheveled, untidy, destroyed." Nevertheless, records kept by refugee organizations do indicate that there were a number of refugees, in particular from Germany, with dates of birth between 1870 and the 1880s.
Like the documentation on children after the war, it is relatively easy to find material concerning their care, but rarer to read how the elderly survivors themselves viewed their survival, and their future. One of the best sources in this regard is the Rose Henriques Archive at London's Wiener Holocaust Library. From an eminent London Jewish family, Henriques volunteered for the Jewish Relief Unit, part of the Jewish Committee for Relief Abroad (JCRA), which carried out vital relief work amongst the surviving remnant of Jewry in Germany after the war. Travelling to Germany at the war's end, she wrote of the appalling lack of care for the elderly survivors:
While varying psychological and physical rehabilitation therapies for survivor children were debated, and young adults took advantage of visas to the Land of Israel and the West to begin their new lives, the older-aged group of survivors engendered very little interest or funding.
Many elderly survivors had neither the inclination nor the energy to begin life anew abroad, and for lack of an alternative, were institutionalized in nursing homes that struggled to provide even the most basic necessities. By the early 1950s, care for them became even more urgent, as DP camps began to close. The refugee issue now became one more concerned with Gemeinde – the communities of so-called "free livers," endeavoring to settle down in Germany. "Unless there is a miraculous change in their composition and disposition," Henriques warned, "they are not fated for a very long life… For all their days, I am afraid, the Gemeinde will need the help and encouragement of their more fortunate Jewish brethren abroad." In another missive, she delivered a stern caution:
"These pitiful remnants of thriving communities are quite unable, for the most part, to make both ends meet and our work in Germany cannot conclude until they are properly cared for."
Holocaust survivor Rabbi Richard Feder, who would later become Chief Rabbi of Bohemia and Moravia, recorded some of the saddest testimony as to the emotional state of the elderly survivors after the Holocaust. "We old people are completely desolate," he wrote in his book Jewish Tragedy: The Last Act, published in Czech in 1947. "We have lost our brothers and sisters, children, grandchildren – everything that was dear to us, everything that made life beautiful… there is no balm that could heal these wounds."
Desolation and loneliness, concluded Prof. Stone, is what comes through the most when investigating this group, despite efforts like that of the JRU to care for them. They may not have been the largest section of the survivor population, but they did exist and deserved the most devoted attention and support after the war – which all too often they did not receive.
This event was held as part of the activity of the Diana and Eli Zborowski's Center for the Study of the Aftermath of the Holocaust.
The 50th volume of "Yad Vashem Studies" (due out in 2022) will be dedicated to the experience and fate of the Jewish elderly before, during and after the Holocaust. The volume will include contributions from scholars in a range of fields, including history, psychology, sociology, anthropology, literary studies and gerontology.
This article originally appeared in the "Yad Vashem Jerusalem Magazine," volume 93.
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