After enduring and suffering a devastating war that saw the most casualties of any war to date, Europe was for the most part, reduced to rubble. Therefore, this postwar era in Europe is incredibly significant in the structure of today’s society, and life as we know it. One aspect of the rebuilding process in this era was addressing the issue of displaced persons (DP), and figuring out where these millions of people truly belong. In order to further analyze this, I’ll be referencing our class readings, ‘In Wars Wake: Europe’s Displaced Persons in the Postwar Order’, by Gerard Daniel Cohen, and ‘A Human Treasure’ by Tara Zahra.
After the war, given that the majority of Europe was destroyed by the war, this left two major global superpowers who took on the responsibility of rebuilding Europe. These countries were obviously the United States and the USSR. Additionally, the opposing approaches that these countries adapted led them to ultimately engaging in the Cold War. More specifically, these countries differed in their approach to handling displaced persons. This is quite clearly seen in a quote from Cohen’s article which includes quotations from people involved in the discussions between these countries, stating, “Other contemporary analysts, such as the New York Times diplomatic correspondent James Reston, emphasized in similar terms the ideological cleavage revealed by this confrontation:‘It began to settle in the minds of the negotiators on both sides that what they were really seeking were two different worlds of the mind and the spirit.’” (Cohen, pp. 19). With this quote, the reader is able to better understand why exactly these two countries were incapable of reaching any form of agreement. Continuing on in the paragraph, Cohen includes another quotation, which states, “Students of Soviet interventions at the United Nations shared the same view: ‘There has been little evidence that the Soviet Union shares the humanitarian concern for refugees which is so widely felt in the West.’” (Cohen, pp. 19). Again, this quote provides further evidence and emphasis on the idea that the USSR and US had fundamentally different beliefs on how to handle the issues of displaced persons, and ultimately rebuild all of Europe. This perspective is not one that personally I have ever encountered or even fathomed before this class. With this newfound knowledge on not only the severe issue of displaced persons in the postwar era, but also the disputes that were occurring on this topic between the USSR and US, I feel I have a more clear and concise understanding of the true history that took place.
One aspect I found particularly interesting in the reading was in Zahra’s article, as it was discussing and providing examples of family reunions that took place in this era. In addition to this, I was previously unaware of the recognition that was possible from this, as Zahra’s article states, “Real-life family reunions were major media events” (Zahra, pp. 343). This topic is particularly interesting to me because I believe that focusing on these small positives is important. Although the widened perspective and reality that there were a very large number of families who were forcibly torn apart and displaced, these families who were able to persevere and ultimately reunite deserve to be celebrated. Although there are too many families to have each one of their stories told, taking the time to stop and learn about some of them is well worth the experience.
For example, look at this group portrait of a Jewish DP family in the Gabersee displaced persons camp. In this picture seated from left to right are Czarna, Bronia and Simon Spielman and his niece, Miriam Galitzer, and those standing are Arthur and Henia Spielman. This picture and many others can be found on the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum website. The link to this family’s story is: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1151021
Bibliography:
Gerard Daniel Cohen, In War’s Wake: Europe’s Displaced Persons in the Postwar Order, 2011.
Zahra, Tara. ‘A Human Treasure’ – Europe’s Displaced Children Between Nationalism and Internationalism, 2011.
I find it really interesting how intertwined the issue of DP’s and the start of the cold war are. Everyone knows the Cold War and what it was about, but before this class I didn’t really understand why it started at all beyond the US and USSR having tensions after WWII. The image you provided of the German family being reunited after being displaced is really heartwarming to see, and while obviously most families were lost to each other forever its nice to know that things worked out, even if it was just for a few families.
I really enjoyed reading your take on these readings and I found it especially interesting the emphasis on the U.S. and the Societ Union and how they chose to do things differently in order to try and get ahead of one another. I liked how you ended the post with a reference to the reuniting families as told by Zahra, were there any connections that you discovered/ found to be interesting that take the U.S. and the Soviet Union into account when it came to the families reuniting? In other words, was the reconnection of families a part of a particular plan in place by either of those groups?
I really like your choice in quotes they really exemplified you point about the fundamental differences between the two blocks. I think that did a really good job synthesizing the information and thesis from the articles, especially with the Cohen article.