The Liberation of the Camps : The End of the Holocaust and Its Aftermath / Dan Stone.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Stone, Dan, Author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Nazi concentration camps--Europe--History--20th century.

Nazi concentration camps.

Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945).

World War, 1939-1945--Concentration camps--Liberation.

World War, 1939-1945.

World War, 1939-1945--Jews--Europe.

World War, 1939-1945--Refugees.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (288 p.) : 24 b-w illus.

Place of Publication:

New Haven, CT : Yale University Press, [2015]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

A moving, deeply researched account of survivors' experiences of liberation from Nazi death camps and the long, difficult years that followed Seventy years have passed since the tortured inmates of Hitler's concentration and extermination camps were liberated. When the horror of the atrocities came fully to light, it was easy for others to imagine the joyful relief of freed prisoners. Yet for those who had survived the unimaginable, the experience of liberation was a slow, grueling journey back to life. In this unprecedented inquiry into the days, months, and years following the arrival of Allied forces at the Nazi camps, a foremost historian of the Holocaust draws on archival sources and especially on eyewitness testimonies to reveal the complex challenges liberated victims faced and the daunting tasks their liberators undertook to help them reclaim their shattered lives. Historian Dan Stone focuses on the survivors-their feelings of guilt, exhaustion, fear, shame for having survived, and devastating grief for lost family members; their immense medical problems; and their later demands to be released from Displaced Persons camps and resettled in countries of their own choosing. Stone also tracks the efforts of British, American, Canadian, and Russian liberators as they contended with survivors' immediate needs, then grappled with longer-term issues that shaped the postwar world and ushered in the first chill of the Cold War years ahead.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Abbreviations

Maps

Introduction: Explaining Liberation

1. Liberated by the Soviets

2. The Western Allies

3. Out of the Chaos

4. Displaced Persons or Betrayed Persons? Life in the DP Camps

5. Transitions: DPs in a Changing World

Conclusion: The Sorrows of Liberation

Notes

Bibliography

Illustrations

Acknowledgements

Index

Notes:

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 29. Feb 2020)

ISBN:

0-300-21603-3

OCLC:

908252719