After the Shoah

Life after liberation and the fragility of freedom.

“On Victory Day, when the Allies defeated the Nazi regime in Europe, there was dancing in the streets of New York. In Moscow, victory cannons were fired. However, there was no dancing in the Nazi camps. For many inmates liberation came too late; their strength failed them after long years of suffering.”[1].

Nearly 80 years on from the Holocaust/Shoah[2], the misconception that ‘liberation ensured freedom for Holocaust Survivors’ still exists. This is partly due to the connotations underlying the word ‘liberation’ and the narrative Britain and its Allies perpetuate regarding their role during World War II to maintain their image as a saviour. In maintaining this depiction and their role in liberation, the Allies continue to ignore Survivors lived experiences of freedom after the Shoah. As we mark Holocaust Memorial Day this year, I turn to voicing Survivor’s experiences of life after liberation to challenge misconceptions of freedom. 

The word “liberation” has often been associated with freedom. Particularly as liberation is often used as a call for freedom from oppression – to no longer be limited or confined to dehumanised conditions. And there is nothing wrong with using the word this way.

 However these connotations of liberation are harmful when understanding what liberation meant for Holocaust Survivors. To assume that all Survivors once liberated were free to do and be as they were once before the Shoah ignores the reality of what freedom was like post-Holocaust.

“For many prisoners, liberation was only the beginning of their journey to freedom”[3].

Embarking on a path to freedom cannot be characterised as the reality of liberation for all Survivors. This current understanding of liberation derives from the Allies and Liberators narrative. As addressed by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the narrative of liberation is one where Soviet, American, and British forces made their way across Europe, uncovering the crimes and horrors that the Nazi Party inflicted upon the Jewish and marginalised communities and becoming the pinnacle in the liberation of Survivors[4]. This narrative has allowed for the Allies to portray themselves as defenders of humanity and saviours from evil, which we are reminded of annually on Armistice Day.

While the role the Allies played in World War II was necessary, this depiction of the Liberators and Allies impacts our perceptions of the lived experiences of liberation for Survivors. The impact of liberation should not only be marked by what the Liberators did and discovered, but it should also include the trauma that the Shoah left on Survivors. A trauma that is rarely discussed, yet shaped Survivors experiences of liberation after the Holocaust. It therefore must be questioned why it is that the Liberators only talk of what they discovered. Why is the trauma of Survivors ignored in this narrative of liberation? Is it because it deviates from the Allies narrative of a happy ending of ‘saving’ the Jewish community?

For many Survivors, the trauma from the Holocaust does not only derive from the dehumanisation during the Nazi era, but from the humiliation Allies inflicted upon them during liberation.

“It’s hard to imagine that Survivors could have suffered further humiliation on their passage to freedom. But the portrayal of liberation in some of their memoirs reveals that the end of the Holocaust opened new wounds”[5].

From the New York Times analysis, liberators, including General George S. Patton blamed Survivors for the squalor and dreadful conditions in displacement camps. Major Irving Heymont wrote in his letters that “some [American soldiers] proclaimed that they preferred German civilians, who seemed normal, to the Jewish Survivors, whom they characterised as animals undeserving of special treatment”[6]. From witnessing the conditions that Survivors had been placed in by their liberators, Earl G. Harrison, a lawyer and American representative to the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees), claimed “we [Allies] appear to be treating the Jews as the Nazis treated them except that we do not exterminate them”[7].

Accounts from Survivors themselves reinforce the degradation they experienced when being liberated by the Allies. Primo Levi reveals that when being liberated by the Allies, a feeling of shame manifested. This was comparable to the same feeling of shame that German captors instilled to humiliate and enforce the idea that Jews had no place in society.  In her memoir, Survivor Ruth Kluger recalls an American Soldier covering his ears when she was looking for help after escaping from a concentration camp in Christianstadt in Poland. In Ruth’s own words, “Here was my first American, and he deliberately closed his ears…One thing I figured, was certain: this war hadn’t been fought for our sake”[8].

Though liberation inflicted harm onto Survivors, it would be morally wrong to ignore the healing liberation brought. For many Survivors, the way liberators handled their body with care restored a sense of humanity, particularly as it meant life or death for Survivors in the most critical condition[9]. By handling their body with such care liberators treated Survivors as humans of value, giving them back their dignity and ending their treatment as objects.

Nonetheless, the New York Times analysis highlights that liberation was not a catalyst for freedom. Many Survivors were placed in refugee camps, also known as displaced persons camps[10],  and parts of liberation maintained antisemitism and efforts to continue degrading the Jewish body.

“It is a misconception that liberation…means the end of suffering and the start of a free life. Whilst allied liberators freed Holocaust Survivors from the physical imprisonment of concentration camps, and dreadful conditions, the prisoners then found themselves alone, often unable to return home, and having to move to a new country, learn a new language and rebuild their lives from scratch. They had to rebuild new lives with the painful absence of family members and friends. Many have described the years post-liberation as ‘being physically free, but not mentally free’”[11].

From Survivor’s accounts, particularly Primo Levi’s, they were never truly liberated. The psychological toll of being dehumanised still remained with them.

“it took me two months to abandon the habit of walking with my eyes fixed on the ground, as if seeking something to eat or slip rapidly into my pocket to sell for bread”[12].

In Levi’s ‘The Truce’, he mentions even though liberation allowed him to regain parts of himself he lost such as his name, clothes and shoes, Auschwitz was always there with him.

“A terrifying dream still visits me from time to time: a dream within a dream, varying in detail but unvarying in content. I am still at the table with my family or with friends…in a clam and tranquil atmosphere, ostensibly free of tension and pain. Yet I feel a subtle and profound terror, a definite sense of latent threat. As the dream proceeds, slowly or brutally, each time in different fashion, everything falls and disintegrates around me…Everything is now enveloped in chaos…Now this internal dream, the peaceful dream, is over, but the external dream continues…I hear a familiar voice echoing again, uttering a single word tersely and softly. It is the dawn command at Auschwitz, a foreign word, terrifying and anticipated: Get up – “Wstawàch”[13].

In this passage Levi details a dream within a dream. He is dreaming about being able to live his life with freedom, only to dream about waking up in Auschwitz. Even after rebuilding his life post-liberation, Levi still feared that it was merely a dream, and that one day he will wake up in Auschwitz again. The trauma of Auschwitz never left Levi, or other Survivors from other concentration camps. It was a trauma they carried with them through liberation.

Having been physically liberated does not equate to, nor result in being liberated from the trauma that Nazi captors and collaborators inflicted upon Survivors. It cannot therefore be assumed that liberation will result in freedom. Even after being liberated, the dehumanisation inflicted upon the Jewish community remained in the consciousness of Holocaust Survivors. As the trauma of oppression remained with them, it can be said that Survivors were not entirely free from oppression.

In so far as our understanding of liberation goes, the trauma of the Shoah must not be ignored. Particularly as it influences how freedom for Survivors manifested after being liberated. We must therefore acknowledge that the narrative of liberation perpetuated by the Allies/Liberators distorts the reality of liberation for Survivors. The trauma of the Holocaust shaped Survivors experiences of liberation, which is why we must continue to question why the trauma of Survivors is ignored in this narrative of liberation. Is it because it deviates from the Allies narrative of a happy ending with ‘saving’ the Jewish community? And is it right for the Allies/Liberators to maintain their reputation as a saviour when they inflicted additional harm onto Survivors whilst liberating them?

“That day, January 17 [1945], was the saddest day of my life. I wanted to weep, not from joy but from sorrow. I am no saying that I wept, but that I wanted to shed tears – for the first time. The tank crews blowing kisses, the flowers hurled at them , the elation of the crowd, the sense of freedom and liberation, and we – Zivia, and I and the dog – standing there among the crowd, lonely, orphaned, lost, and only too well aware that there was no longer a Jewish people”[14] - Yitzhak (Antek) Zuckerman’s account post-liberation.

Bibliography

[1] Yad Vashem, ‘The Anguish of Liberation and Return to Life’, 2024, https://www.yadvashem.org/articles/general/anguish-of-liberation-and-return-to-life.html.

[2] The Holocaust is an English term to describe the mass murder of six million men, women and children, primarily Jewish. Shoah is a Hebrew term and the preferred word to use when discussing the Holocaust.

[3] The Weiner Holocaust Library, ‘How and Why Did the Holocaust Happen?’, The Holocaust Explained, 2024, https://www.theholocaustexplained.org/how-and-why/how/liberation-1944-1945/.

[4] United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, ‘Liberation of Nazi Camps’, 2021, https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/liberation-of-nazi-camps.

[5] Jennifer Orth-Veillon, ‘For Some Holocaust Survivors, Even Liberation Was Dehumanizing’, Beyond the World War II we know, 28 April 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/28/magazine/for-some-holocaust-survivors-even-liberation-was-dehumanizing.html.

[6] Orth-Veillon.

[7] Orth-Veillon.

[8] Orth-Veillon.

[9] Orth-Veillon.

[10] Bergen Belson, a concentration camp liberated by British forces, became a displaced persons camp and was officially closed six years after Survivors liberated.

[11] Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, ‘HMD 2024 Theme’, Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, 2024, https://www.hmd.org.uk/what-is-holocaust-memorial-day/this-years-theme/.

[12] Primo Levi, Ha-hafuga (The Truce), Sifriyat Hapoalim, Tel Aviv, 1979

[13] Primo Levi, Ha-hafuga (The Truce), Sifriyat Hapoalim, Tel Aviv, 1979

[14] Yad Vashem, ‘The Anguish of Liberation and Return to Life’.