The Return to Life in the Displaced Persons Camps, 1945-1956
A Visual Retrospective
Family
Photo Gallery
An infant being weighed by a nurse in a DP camp, Munich
Wedding at Mittenwald Displaced Persons Camp, 1946
Pocking, Germany, Perl and Yehoshua Glik at their wedding in the DP camp.
Babies born after World War II at the Bad Reichenhall DP camp
Postwar wedding of two couples in a DP camp, Santa Maria di Leuca, Italy
Newborns with hospital staff at the Pocking DP camp, Germany, 1947
Festive gathering marking the birth of the thousandth baby in the Bergen-Belsen DP camp, Germany. In the photograph: the baby, Chana Mincer (Simmonds), born 9 January 1948, her parents, and nurses.
Ritual circumcision of Josef Lichtensztein, the first baby born at the Heidenheim DP camp, Germany, 1946
Parents with their children during the festival of Shavuot (Pentecost) in a DP camp, 1947
Women and children at the Feldafing DP camp, Germany
Artist Musia Diecher’s twins
Wedding at the Bergen-Belsen DP camp, 1948
Louis Boyarsky and his wife Rose Nelkin with their son Harold in the Freimann DP camp, Germany, August 1947
In the first months after the war there were barely any children under the age of 5 in the DP camps, and only 3% of the survivors were children and teenagers aged 6-17. Most survivors had lost their entire families, and alongside the feelings of loss and loneliness was the yearning to establish families of their own, resulting in a marriage boom after liberation. In some of the camps there even were group weddings, and it was not uncommon for the newlyweds to hail from different countries.
In the years 1946-1948, the birth rate in the DP camps was the highest in the world. Medical care for newborns and their young mothers, provided in cooperation with relief organizations, was one of the foremost challenges.