have to worry about is the Communists,” David Nasaw,
author of “The Last Million,” a history of the displaced
persons, told the New York Jewish week in 2020.

In 1948 and 1950, Congress grudgingly passed
legislation that allowed 50,000 Jewish survivors
and their children to come to the United States. The
rest were eventually able to go to Israel after its
independence in 1948.

The U.N. exhibit focuses less on this macro history,
which includes what became another refugee crisis
for the Palestinians displaced by Israel’s War for
Independence, than on life in the DP camps.

“The exhibition illustrates how the displaced
persons did not shrink from the task of rebuilding
both their own lives and Jewish communal life,” said
Jonathan Brent, chief executive offi cer at YIVO, in a
statement. ‘History keeps repeating itself’
Among those rebuilding their lives were Max Gitter
and his parents, Polish Jews who had the perverse
good luck of being exiled to Siberia during the war.

The family made its way to Samarkand, in Uzbekistan,
where Gitter was born in 1943. After the war ended,
his parents returned to Poland but — repelled by
antisemitism — sought refuge in the American zone
in Germany. They spent time in the Ainring DP camp,
a former Luftwaff e base on the Austrian border, and
at a small camp called Lechfeld, about 25 miles west
of Munich.

“I was there until we came to the United States
when I was 6½, so I have some very distinct
memories and some hazy memories,” said Gitter,
emeritus director and vice chair of the YIVO board.

One story he hasn’t forgotten is how his father and
a friend were walking through the camp when they
came upon a long line of people. “They were from
the Soviet Union, so they knew that when there’s a
line that it might be of interest.” It turned out to be a
line for the lottery that would allow them to get into
the United States under the Displaced Persons Act
of 1948.

The family came to the United States in 1950 to
“pretty shabby lodgings” in the Bronx before his
father bought a candy store and moved to Queens.

Max went on to attend Harvard College and Yale Law
School and became a corporate litigator.

Gitter’s brother was born in one of the camps. The
exhibit includes a poster depicting the population
increase between 1946 and 1947 at the Jewish
DP center Bad Reichenhall. The birthrate in the
camps has often been described as evidence of the
optimism and defi ance of the survivors, but Dwork
said the truth is somewhat more complicated.

“There was a very high birth rate among the Jews
in DP camps. This is the age group of reproductive
age, at 20 to 40,” she said. “However, this image of
fecundity hides what was rumored to be a signifi cant
abortion rate, too. And women had experienced
years of starvation. Menstruation had only recently
recommenced. So many women, in fact, miscarried
or had trouble conceiving to begin with.”
“There is no silver lining here,” she added. “People
live life on many levels. On the one hand, DPs look to
the future and look with hope; at the same time, they
carry tremendous burdens of pain and suff ering and
trauma, and trepidations about the future.”
Veach, a member of the YIVO board, hopes visitors
to the exhibit understand that such trauma is hardly
a thing of the past.

“I think the real lesson is that history keeps
repeating itself,” said Veach, growing emotional.

“Basically, we have DPs on our border with Mexico;
you have DPs from Ukraine. I don’t think people
realize the repercussions for these people who are
trying to fi nd a place to live. These are good people
who are just placed where they are by history.”
Gitter, who like Veach will speak at an event on
Jan. 24 at the United Nations marking the exhibit,
also hopes “After the End of the World” prods the
consciences of visitors.

“A lot of the countries, a lot of places, including
the United States, would not accept Jews after the
war,” he said. “The issue of memory, the issue of
statelessness, the issue of fi nally there was some
hope for the Jews in their immigration to Israel and
the United States — that part of the story also needs
to be told.”
“After the End of the World: Displaced Persons and
Displaced Persons Camps” will be on view Jan. 10 to
Feb. 23 at the United Nations Headquarters (405 E.

42nd St., New York, N.Y.) from Monday to Friday, 9
a.m. to 5 p.m. Entrance to the United Nations Visitor
Centre in New York is free, though there are require-
ments for all visitors. See the United Nations Visitor
Centre entry guidelines. ■
Dolls & Classroom: YIVO Institute for Jewish Research
Reaing Newspaper: U.N. Archives
Dolls made by stateless Jewish children residing in
a DP camp near Florence, Italy, known as “Kibbutz
HaOved,” with help from funds provided by the Joint
Distribution Committee. The dolls are attired in local
costumes based on the districts of the Tuscan city of
Sienna. Children’s classroom; Aschau DP camp, 1946-47
A chart by artist O. Lec depicts the natural population
increase of the Jewish Center Bad Reichenhall;
Germany, 1946-1947.

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