Displaced Persons in the American Zone After the Hungarian Holocaust: Literature By, About, and For Youth in the USA

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Focus is Hungarian Jews in Displaced Persons camps in the aftermath of the Holocaust and Jewish youth ( ages 12-21) in the camps liberated by Americans or who voluntarily moved to DP camps in the American zone and later emigrated to the USA. Post-Holocaust experiences from 1945-1952 found in the literature of those in their formative and young adult years will be presented and include topics pertaining to Allied liberators, locating family/friends, interrupted education, support systems, interaction with US military, camp conditions, attempts to return home, options for emigration, immigration difficulties, and establishing a new life in the USA.

At the end of WWII in Europe May 8, 1945, over seven million people had been displaced from their native lands, including some 100,000 Jewish camp survivors from locales such as Buchenwald April 11, Dachau April 29, and Mauthausen May 5-6, one of the last liberated. The number of Jewish DP's increased as those in hiding emerged, partisans stepped forward, and those who would not or could not return home and had nowhere to go were identified.
The Allies helped the surviving remnant reunite with families through the Red Cross, which provided housing, food, and Medical care, and the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration and various Jewish agencies provided other needed assistance. DP camps originally housed on nationality divisions were changed to accommodate Jews only, thereby preventing Jews from living with perpetrators or collaborators, with Feldafing becoming the first all-Jewish facility.
Emigration to the USA was hampered by a quota system. By 1950, more than 100,000 Jews had entered the United States. Leonard Dinnerstein in his book on America and the Survivors of the Holocaust stated that little was known about the DP's after they left the camps, therefore, the literature noted in this presentation provides invaluable insights into the tribulations, adjustments, and accomplishments they experienced and the study model devised offers interesting points of comparison and contrast with other Hungarian Holocaust accounts. Memoirs and autobiographical works by Bitton-Jackson, Hersh, Isaacson, Orenstein, Roszner, and Singer will be described and several other author/DP emigres who experienced the American Zone and resulted in the USA will be mentioned. These and other Hungarians residing in their transplanted land of the USA were soon to greet the next wave of emigres from the Hungarian Revolution of 1956.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Ruth G. Biro, retired from Duquesne University, taught courses in children's and adolescent literature, multicultural and international literature, and an interdisciplinary course on Perspectives on the Holocaust, among others. Earned two certificates from the International School for Holocaust Studies at Yad Vahem in Jerusalem, where she studied selected rescuers of Jews in the Hungarian Holocaust from documentation in the Department of the Righteous. Dr. Biro also has investigated youth resistance against the Nazis in Budapest, resiliency of Hungarian teenagers caught in the Holocaust, Holocaust literature by women emigres to the USA, role of the neutral nationsnin Hungary in 1944-1945, and other topics. Inspired by the moral courage and leadership of Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg sent to Hungary under the auspices of the US War Refugee Board of President Roosevelt's administration to save Hungarian Jews, she studies the personal attributes and other factors of influence deemed relevant to the prosocial action of rescuers. She is a founding member of the AHEA.

Christina Levicky served as a research assistant on Hungarian children's literature and on youth in the Hungarian Holocaust whilma staff member in the Department of Instruction and Leadership in the School of Education at Duquesne University, where she earned her M.S. Ed. In 2006 she conducted research in Budapest, Hungary which generated presentations and published papers regarding resources on the Hungarian Holocaust for K-12 and college education programs, Hungary as a refuge for Polish Jews prior to the Nazi occupation of Hungary, and literature on Budapest youth in the Holocaust. With Dr. Biro, Levicky coordinated materials on Raoul Wallenberg for the International Reading Association Conference at Eotvos Lorand University in Budapest. She also researches relevant statements by theorists Kohlber(moral reasoning), Maslow (self-actualization), Bandura (modeling), Likona (character education), and Eisenberg (prosocial development) as they relate to actions by Hungarian Holocaust rescuers and provide strategies for Holocaust education. Levicky, former administrative assistant at the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh, teacher in the gifted program at Pine Trail Elementary School in Ormond Beach, Florida.