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Föhrenwald () was one of the largest
displaced persons camp A refugee camp is a temporary settlement built to receive refugees and people in refugee-like situations. Refugee camps usually accommodate displaced people who have fled their home country, but camps are also made for internally displace ...
s in post-
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
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and the last to close, in 1957. It was located in the section now known as Waldram in Wolfratshausen in
Bavaria Bavaria, officially the Free State of Bavaria, is a States of Germany, state in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the list of German states by area, largest German state by land area, comprising approximately 1/5 of the total l ...
,
Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
. The camp facilities were originally built in 1939 by
IG Farben I. G. Farbenindustrie AG, commonly known as IG Farben, was a German Chemical industry, chemical and Pharmaceutical industry, pharmaceutical conglomerate (company), conglomerate. It was formed on December 2, 1925 from a merger of six chemical co ...
as housing for its employees at the several munitions factories that it operated in the vicinity. During the war it was used to house
slave labor Slavery is the ownership of a person as property, especially in regards to their labour. Slavery typically involves compulsory work, with the slave's location of work and residence dictated by the party that holds them in bondage. Enslavemen ...
ers. In June 1945, the camp was appropriated by the
US Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of the United Stat ...
administration of postwar Germany's American sector, for the purpose of housing international refugees. The camp's initial population comprised refugees of
Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
,
Yugoslavia , common_name = Yugoslavia , life_span = 1918–19921941–1945: World War II in Yugoslavia#Axis invasion and dismemberment of Yugoslavia, Axis occupation , p1 = Kingdom of SerbiaSerbia , flag_p ...
n, Hungarian, and
Baltic Baltic may refer to: Peoples and languages *Baltic languages, a subfamily of Indo-European languages, including Lithuanian, Latvian and extinct Old Prussian *Balts (or Baltic peoples), ethnic groups speaking the Baltic languages and/or originatin ...
origin. On 3 October 1945 General
Dwight D. Eisenhower Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was the 34th president of the United States, serving from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, he was Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionar ...
ordered that Föhrenwald be made an exclusively Jewish DP camp, after he had found living conditions at the Feldafing DP camp unacceptable. From 1946 to 1948, Föhrenwald grew to become the third largest DP camp in the American sector, after Feldafing and Landsberg. By January 1946, its population had reached 5,600. Many couples got married there. The birth rate in 1946 stood at 70-80 births per thousand, about double that of countries in the developing world. As part of the network of Displaced Persons camps, Föhrenwald operated under the auspices of
UNRRA United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA, pronounced ) was an international relief agency founded in November 1943 on the joint initiative of the United States, United Kingdom, USSR, and the Republic of China. Its purpose ...
. The camp's director, Henry Cohen, was a young US army veteran who went to great lengths to provide for the residents' welfare. Assisting Cohen in the camp's administration and operation was a Camp Committee whose members were elected from among candidates representing a range of political parties. As director, Cohen fostered the rehabilitation of the camp's residents, encouraging adult education and vocational training. A school was established for youngsters, with extracurricular activities arranged largely through the efforts of local chapters of the Jewish youth movements. The camp's autonomous cultural life included musical and theatrical performances. It published an internal newspaper, ''Bamidbar'' ("In the wilderness", the Hebrew name for the
Book of Numbers The Book of Numbers (from Biblical Greek, Greek Ἀριθμοί, ''Arithmoi'', , ''Bəmīḏbar'', ; ) is the fourth book of the Hebrew Bible and the fourth of five books of the Jewish Torah. The book has a long and complex history; its final f ...
), that in 1947 issued a 100-page
almanac An almanac (also spelled almanack and almanach) is a regularly published listing of a set of current information about one or multiple subjects. It includes information like weather forecasting, weather forecasts, farmers' sowing, planting dates ...
documenting the camp's activities. Residents enjoyed freedom to practice their religion. A
yeshiva A yeshiva (; ; pl. , or ) is a traditional Jewish educational institution focused on the study of Rabbinic literature, primarily the Talmud and halacha (Jewish law), while Torah and Jewish philosophy are studied in parallel. The stu ...
(rabbinic seminary and
Torah The Torah ( , "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The Torah is also known as the Pentateuch () ...
academy) was established within the camp. With the presence of Rabbi Yekusiel Yehudah Halberstam, founder of the Klausenburg Hasidic dynasty, and his followers, Föhrenwald became the center for Hasidic Jewry in the American sector. Streets in Föhrenwald were typically named for American states and individuals, but these have been renamed. For example, Rooseveltstrasse is now Thomasstrasse; Pennsylveniastrasse has become Faulhaberstrasse, etc. During the early years of the camp's operation, residents mounted several protest campaigns against Allied policy, particularly regarding the restrictions on Jewish immigration to
Mandatory Palestine Mandatory Palestine was a British Empire, British geopolitical entity that existed between 1920 and 1948 in the Palestine (region), region of Palestine, and after 1922, under the terms of the League of Nations's Mandate for Palestine. After ...
. The
Zionist youth movement A Zionist youth movement () is an organization formed for Jewish children and adolescents for educational, social, and ideology, ideological development, including a belief in Zionism, Jewish nationalism as represented in the State of Israel. Yout ...
s organized communal groups called ''kibbutzim'' for training young pioneers. A number of residents who attempted clandestine immigration to Mandatory Palestine in violation of British restrictions, were apprehended by the authorities and sent back to Föhrenwald. A
tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB), also known colloquially as the "white death", or historically as consumption, is a contagious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can al ...
epidemic swept the camp in the summer of 1946, prompted the establishment of a "Committee of Jewish Tubercular Patients". The committee became an advocate for those residents who were unwilling or unable to leave. By early 1950, more than 4,000 DP’s were crowded into the camp’s 300 one-family homes. In 1953, the population had dwindled to 1,400. In 1951, the West German government took over administration of the camp, while the
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maintained a presence there until 1954. By that time, the remaining residents of other camps that were closed were transferred to Föhrenwald which continued in operation until 1956. In 1956, the ''Katholisches Siedlungswerk'', a Catholic housing institution, took over the site, which then became the home of German families arriving from Eastern Europe. The last Jewish resident left on 28 February 1957. The site was renamed Waldram on 7 November 1957. Today, it is residential area of the city of Wolfratshausen. Shortly after the war, Yiddish poet H. Leivick was so stirred by his visit to the camp that he later published a literary memorial entitled “The Wedding in Foehrenwald.” In 1957, Alter Haimovitz, a native of Lodz, Poland who had survived Auschwitz, was—along with his wife and two young children—the very last family to leave Foehrenwald, the very last DP camp in Germany. They had resided there for six years, and were then settled, just 20 miles away, in an apartment in Munich.


Museum

An museum and information centre in the building of the previous
mikvah A mikveh or mikvah (,  ''mikva'ot'', ''mikvot'', or ( Ashkenazic) ''mikves'', lit., "a collection") is a bath used for ritual immersion in Judaism to achieve ritual purity. In Orthodox Judaism, these regulations are steadfastly adhered t ...
was opened in 2018. The Erinnerungsort Badehaus tells the story of Föhrenwald from its foundation until today.


See also

*
Sh'erit ha-Pletah Sh'erit ha-Pletah (, meaning surviving remnant, and is a term from the Book of Ezra and 1 Chronicles (see ; ) is a Hebrew term for the more than 250,000 Jewish Holocaust survivors living in Displaced Persons (DP) camps after the end of the Holo ...


References


External links


US Holocaust Memorial Museum article on Foehrenwald


* {{DEFAULTSORT:Fohrenwald Displaced persons camps in the aftermath of World War II IG Farben Residential buildings completed in 1939 Buildings and structures in Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen Aftermath of the Holocaust