Title:
Niemals und nirgends findet er Ruhe: The Abandonment of Elderly Holocaust Survivors, 1945-1960
Author(s):
Maggie Garrett
Author Email:
mgarret4@unca.edu
Department:
HISTORY
Faculty Mentor(s):
Alvis Dunn
Abstract / Summary:
The Holocaust represents one of the largest atrocities committed in modern history, and in recent decades, it has become one of the most highly studied topics in human rights studies. Tucked away in the background, a demographic of Holocaust survivors have gone ignored by their community at the time and by scholars in the present. As the Jewish community put their efforts towards rebuilding and reviving Judaism in the years immediately following the Shoah, elderly survivors were abandoned and left without family and community. Most of them were too old to be eligible for immigration to Israel or to Western nations who maintained tight restrictions on the age and occupation of migrants. As a result, this population, most of whom felt as though their lives were already behind them, had nothing to do but “wait for the end,” forgotten in their present and our future. This project explores this demographic and how they faded into the background of what has become an infamous story.
Publication Date:
May-16-2024
Documents: