Memorialization through Documentation: Holocaust Commemoration among Jewish Displaced Persons in Allied-Occupied Germany

Abstract

Holocaust commemoration in Germany began in the immediate wake of the Second World War. The initiative did not come from non-Jewish Germans but from Jews who had survived the cataclysm, most of whom temporarily resided in Germany as Jewish ‘Displaced Persons’ or DPs.¹ Amidst political turmoil, traumatization, and material want they commemorated the catastrophe by holding memorial gatherings, services, and celebrations, and by erecting memorials. They also documented, narrated, and chronicled the recent tragedy and established the first Holocaust archives.