Life Between Memory and Hope

This is the remarkable story of the 250,000 Holocaust survivors who converged on the American Zone of Occupied Germany from 1945 to 1948. They envisaged themselves as the living bridge between destruction and rebirth, the last remnants of a world destroyed and the active agents of its return to life. Much of what has been written elsewhere looks at the Surviving Remnant through the eyes of others and thus has often failed to disclose the tragic complexity of their lives together with their remarkable political and social achievements. Despite having lost everyone and everything, they got on with their lives, they married, had children and worked for a better future. They did not surrender to the deformities of suffering and managed to preserve their humanity intact. Mankowitz uses largely inaccessible archival material to give a moving and sensitive account of this neglected area in the aftermath of the Holocaust.

Plates; Acknowledgements; Abbreviations and note on spelling and dates; Introduction; 1. The occupation of Germany and the survivors: an overview; 2. The formation of She'erith Hapleitah: November 1944-July 1945; 3. She'erith Hapleitah enters the international arena: July-October 1945; 4. Hopes of Zion: September 1945-January 1946; 5. In search of a new politics: unity versus division; 6. The Central Committee of the Liberated Jews in Bavaria; 7. The politics of education; 8. Two voices from Landsberg: Rudolf Valsonok and Samuel Gringauz; 9. Destruction and remembrance; 10. The surviviors confront Germany; 11. She'erith Hapleitah towards 1947; Concluding remarks; Bibliography; Index.