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[Page 152]
The Jewish DP Camps in the Austrian zone of occupation
Bad Gadstein Jewish D.P. Camp in Austria
Bad Gadstein was a large Jewish D.P. camp in the American zone. It received Jews from the Ebensee D.P. Camp and other small places. It had accommodation facilities for over 2,000 inmates. The camp requisitioned hotels and homes and converted them into a D.P. camp that had an elementary school, a high school for adults and youngsters. There was also a technical training program to teach trades. The place had a synagogue and a religious school.
Ebensee Jewish D.P. Camp
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Mordechai Lustig of Nowy Sacz, Poland, was among the many Jewish survivors who refused to go home to Poland. This is what he stated: “At about 10 A.M. on May 6, 1945, the American Army entered the Ebensee concentration camp located in Austria and began to restore order. The night before and in the morning, serious disorders took place in the camp. The inmates rampaged throughout the camp and settled scores with the remaining staff of the camp. The Americans ordered all inmates, including the disabled, to assemble at the square and to align according to nationalities. Each group, such as Jews, Poles, Frenchmen, Russians, Czechs, stood with their co–nationals. I now saw the Jewish survivors at the camp, particularly the Jews of Sacz.
They were:
Chune Grinberg
Moshe Laor
Mendel Brown
Shimon Brown
Max Neuman
Itzik Goldberg
Shlomo Goldberg
Kuba Fuhrer
David Markus
Shmuel Salomon
Mendel Aftergut
Mosdhe Chayes
Nehemia Sheingit
Markus Fridenbach
Moshe Osteryoung
Romek Gut–Hollander
Asher Brandstern
Chune Elzner
Shimon Folkman
Shlomek Wolf
Mordechai Lustig
Benyamin Hausenshtock
Lulek Bittersfeld and father
I later discovered that Lulek Bittersfeld and his father were also liberated but were at the hospital in Ebensee where they were treated for typhus.“[1]
“Following the American roll call,” Lustig continued, “we all ran to the S.S. warehouses looking for food. We found small quantities of sugar and imitation coffee. We returned to the main camp and American soldiers invited us to join them in the hunt for S.S. men who had run the camp. Indeed, some of the guards were caught. One S.S. man was brought to the gate of the camp despite the fact that he had already managed to change clothes. He was recognized by one of the camp inmates. The inmates decided to kill him on the spot. They stretched him out on a board near the gate and everybody began to hit him until he died. A sign was written that read “Heil Hitler.” The sign was placed in his hand and a bayonet was placed in the other hand.
“The Americans began to organize a kitchen to cook food for the inmates. The soup was loaded with solid foods and the inmates began to gorge themselves with the food. But they were no longer accustomed to such rich foods. Some inmates died since their intestines could not absorb the rich food. I was lucky that I took small portions and managed to digest them. I looked about and saw on top of the American tanks boxes of combat rations. I took some as did other inmates. We of course did not know what they contained. Romek Gut knew a bit of English and he read the content labels on the boxes and also the instructions on how to prepare the food. We organized a group that that began to prepare our meals for the day. In the following days, we continued to live off the combat rations that we removed from the tanks.
“The Americans forced the entire population of the township including the mayor and other important officials of the nearby Ebensee city to march to the concentration camp to witness the horrible scenes of masses of dead, naked bodies scattered all over the place. They started to dig mass graves and carried the bodies and buried them outside the camp. The Americans brought nurses from the hospital of the nearby city of Shteinkugel who began to care for the sick inmates. Some of the inmates who were afflicted with typhus or other serious diseases were taken to the hospital while others began to be treated on the spot.
“A few of the Sacz survivors organized themselves into a small group that functioned as a unit. I took upon myself the position of cook and began to prepare the meals. Other members began to search the area for food. I cooked many soups and other items to help build the strength of the survivors. We then moved as a group to the Polish section of the camp. There were many civilian Polish citizens in the camp. They were brought to work mainly in agriculture. Of course there were also many Polish inmates who survived the war in the camp. We all began to travel in all directions to see the area. Once, my friend and I reached the city of Wels near Linz where the American military police arrested us. We had no papers or identification. We looked suspicious or perhaps they did not like us or our clothing. We wore ‘Hitler Jugend’ or Nazi youth clothing. We spent the night in jail and the next morning, we were freed by the officer who might have been Jewish. We returned to the camp and I went to the office to get some identification.”
Haid Jewish D.P. Camp
The Haid D.P. camp, officially Wohnsiedlung, was a camp for displaced persons, first under the American administration, then the Upper Austrian administration. It was located in the district of Haid, Ansfelden in Upper Austria.
After the Second World War Ansfelden belonged to the American occupation zone. The camp was set up by the American military administration at the existing labor camp of the Wehrmacht from 1945. In September the same year, between 8,000 and 9,000 captured S.S. men were guarded by American soldiers in the camp, who had to continue efforts to expand. In the following years, the camp was populated with displaced Jews from Poland and the homeless from Yugoslavia, Romania, Hungary, Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Transylvania, Sudentenland, Germany and Croatia. In October, 1956, when in Hungary the uprising against Communist rule was crushed by Soviet armored troops, some 700 refugees arrived in the camp.
Ennis Jewish D.P. camp
According to Mordechai Lustig, the camp had a large Jewish population of Shoah survivors from the nearby concentration camps. The number was increased with the arrival of the Jewish refugees from Eastern Europe.
Innsbruck Jewish D.P. Camp
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| Major Abraham Silberstein of the Jewish Brigade checking the Innsbruck D.P. camp list during his search for his brother, Haim, Austria 1945. The brother was supposed to be in the D.P. camp of Innsbruck. |
Mauthausen Jewish D.P. Camp in Austria
Leon Rosner was a survivor of Mauthausen.[2] He was born in Nowy Zmigrod, near Jaslo, Poland. He survived many camps and found himself in Mauthausen when the camp was liberated[3]. This is what he had to say: “We were several hundred Jewish survivors.
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Most of the Jewish survivors left the Mauthausen concentration camp,” Rosner continued, “and headed to the large convoy of trucks. Once we were loaded on the trucks, Jewish soldiers placed empty oil barrels and boxes of ammunition to block the view of the inside of the trucks. The soldiers then covered the trucks and we moved. We traveled toward the Italian border for hours. We crossed into Italy escorted by military police provided by the Jewish Brigade, ultimately reaching the Brigade headquarters in Treviso. Our presence at the base was highly illegal since it was an army base. The Jewish soldiers smuggled us into the nearby Italy.”
Salzburg Jewish D.P. Camps in Austria
Salzburg was a focal point of the exodus. The destiny of the flight of the Jews, which continued for over two years, was partly dependent on the general political climate. The Soviet Union favored the Jewish refugees in their occupation zone, in order to weaken the power of Britain in the Near East. France on the other hand, the occupying power in Tyrol and Vorarlberg, remained non–committal. On one occasion they allowed a convoy of refugees to cross the border into Italy, but the next time they blocked it. The Brichah was able to rely on the United States. Altogether, 63,000 Jewish refugees traveled through Salzburg between May, 1946 and January, 1947. The “Polish Exodus” was followed by the “Romanian Exodus” of April, 1947. The Brichah, which originally tried to stop the flow of people, did nothing to help the 30,000 Romanian Jews who were fleeing. They proved, however, to be unstoppable. 19,000 refugees arrived in Austria via Hungary between April and November, 1947. Most of these remained in Vienna until the Brichah commenced their illegal transport to the U.S. zone. In total, about 4,000 mostly Romanian Jews managed to reach the American occupation zone in August, 1947 through one means or another. The remaining refugees were brought from Vienna to the U.S. zone that autumn.
Salzburg was the U.S. headquarters in Austria and thus held a decisive advantage as the focal point of the exodus. The exodus route went via Czechoslovakia and Hungary to Austria, and via the Soviet occupation zone to the American zone. It was the Brichah's responsibility in Salzburg to shelter the Jewish D.P.s and refugees, and to send them on the next stage of their journey. To begin with, the Brichah's headquarters in Salzburg were in the Augustiner Brewery in the district of Mülln. Later they moved next door to the D.P. camp Riedenburg in the Neutorstraße 25. The Brichah guides had to procure forged documents, possess local geographical knowledge and know how best to avoid or bribe policemen, customs officers and border guards, or how to persuade them to cooperate with, or at least tolerate their activities. After the war, the city of Salzburg was laced with a network of refugee camps; some of them were Jewish while others contained Poles, Hungarians, Ukrainians, Russians, South Tyroleans, ethnic Germans. These camps, under the command of the American occupying power, were self–administering. The U.S. Army and UNRRA provided supplies. Camp committees organized accommodation, food, education, religious activities and security. There were workshops for apprentice cobblers, carpenters and mechanics as well as schools and kindergartens. Most of the Jewish D.P. camps were transit camps. Only one camp was permanent, where the Jewish D.P.'s remained. The number of Jewish D.P.s whose escape route passed through Salzburg varied considerably. 25,000 arrived in Salzburg between May, 1945 and May, 1946. They were allocated to various D.P. camps and subsequently transported illegally to Italy, primarily via Germany and Tyrol, as soon as the opportunity arose. Altogether 63,000 Jewish refugees travelled through Salzburg between May, 1946 und January, 1947.
The Salzburg D.P. Hospital
The camp received the sick and disabled D.P. refugees.
Riedenburg D.P. Camp was known as Machne Yehuda.
It was located on the Neutorstrasse, Ecke Moosstrasse.
Camp Mülln 6 D.P. camp at Müllner Hauptstrasse 38.
Camp Maxglan.
Camp also known as Beth Bialik Salzburg,
Camp GNIGI
Camp also known as Beth Trumpeldor in Salzburg,
Camp Parsche
New Palestine (later called Parsch) in the Wiesbauerstrasse 9 in Salzburg–Parsch (Parsch is also part of Salzburg)
Other D.P. camps in the country (province) of Salzburg, outside the city of Salzburg were called:
Puch bei Hallein and
Lager Givat Avoda (in the Wallnerkaserne) opened
Herzl (Franz–Josefs–Kaserne) between Schrannengasse and Paris–London–Strasse.
Vienna Jewish D.P. Camps
Vienna had the largest number of camps that absorbed Jewish D.P.s from the East. Most of them came from Bratislava, Czechoslovakia, directly to Vienna and entered the compound of the Vienna Rothschild refugee center.
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The Rothschild Spital (Rothschild Hospital) was the biggest and most important Jewish D.P. camp hospital, located at Waehringerguertel Ring Road in the 18th district in the U.S. sector. The hospital was a huge complex with some dilapidated sections. The main section was used as a detention camp for Nazis. The American army handed over the complex to the Jewish organizations that began to assemble medical staff and personnel. Extensive repairs had to be made to restore the place. The Brichah started to bring Jewish transports from Poland on their way to Germany. The Rothschild Hospital, with a capacity of 600, had inadequate sanitary facilities, no hot water, no heating and no dining room.
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Windows were missing; the roof leaked, and, as soon became obvious, its absorption capacity was far from adequate, particularly during the period of first the Polish and later the Romanian exodus. Thus at peak times more than 8,000 people had to be accommodated on a short–term basis, far exceeding the camp's facilities and capacity. Until August, 1946, the camp housed Jewish refugees spending an extended period in Vienna; after that, it served as a transit camp. In the summer and autumn of 1945, some 100 refugees a day arrived at the Rothschild Hospital, but with the beginning of the flight of Polish Jews, numbers swelled, peaking in the summer of 1946 after the Kielce pogroms, when some 52,000 individuals passed through this camp. In order to keep the increasing overcrowding under control, refugees were sent to other Jewish D.P. camps in Vienna and other D.P. camps in Austria.
The Rothschild Hospital was not only a D.P. camp, however. The building also housed the UNRRA head office in Vienna. The hospital received medical care or at least initial treatment, for reportedly close to 300,000 in 1946 and 1947 alone. Most of the personnel responsible for this care were sent to Vienna by the Joint Distribution Committee or were recruited from among the D.P.s. The medical facilities consisted of a dental clinic, a hospital and an outpatient clinic where all the Jewish D.P.s housed in the Vienna camps were treated by the camp doctor or an UNRRA medical team. At the recommendation of UNRRA, a number of workshops were set up in the camp for tailors, shoemakers, hairdressers and sewing machine repairs. This provided an opportunity for the D.P.s to acquire skills. The idea was that their new qualifications would be useful for them later when establishing a new life for themselves.
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About 130,000 Jewish refugees reached Austria between 1945 and 1949. Waves of Jews poured into Vienna, especially Polish and then Romanian Jews. The JDC bore the brunt of providing the Jewish newcomers with provisions and subsistence, since the International Refugee Organization (IRO) – UNRRA's successor as the U.N. refugee organization from July, 1946 – refused responsibility for the Romanian refugees because of its regulations. Despite the Americans' decision that they would not look after refugees who arrived after April 21, 1947, more than 500 Romanian Jews had come to Vienna by the end of April, 1947. In May, the numbers rose by 650 every week, and by the second week of June, their numbers swelled to 2,400. At the end of June the number of refugees in Vienna had reached 3,000. The flow of refugees continued daily and by the end of August, reached 10,000.
Vienna's Jewish D.P. Camps
Rothschild Hospital, Severingasse, Stadtteil Alsergrund, UNRRA Camp 350, Durchgangslager, Wien IX
Alserbachstrasse: Hotel Alserbach, Alserbachstrasse 23 (US Sector in Berlin); March, 1946 through July,1948.
Arzbergerstrasse: Arzbergerstrasse 2 (US Sector); August, 1946 through May, 1951.
Frankgasse: Frankgasse 2 (US Sector); October, 1945 through 1949.
Goldschlagstrasse: Goldschlagstrasse (French Sector in Berlin).
Malzgasse: Malzgasse 7 (Russian Sector);
Pezzlgasse: Jewish hospital. Pezzlgasse (US Sector); 1947 through August, 1948.
Rothschildspital:
Roetzergasse: Roetzergasse (US Sector);
Rupertusplatz: Rupertusplatz (US Sector); April, 1946 through August, 1948.
Harmoniegasse 5; from 1945
Strudelhofgasse:
List of DP camps in the British zone of Austria
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Admont Jewish DP camp
Camp Admont, the only DP camp in the British Zone. It had 750 people and was “quite isolated” from any community. There was a question concerning the fate of a small number of ‘Palestine certificates’ issued to them when the camp was closed and residents were moved to Belsen in Germany.
Hörsching DP camp
Following medical care for Jewish survivors of concentration camps, German–speaking refugees from Eastern Europe arrived in the camp. Two of the shacks had burnt down in May, 1945; roughly 2000 were in the camp.
Judenburg Jewish DP camp in Austria
Judenburg was a Jewish Transient Camp, .It had a population of about 2,000 Jews. It was in the British zone of occupation in Austria's British zone)
Judenburg consisted of a number of camps including: Dietersdorf, Kaserne, Kobenz, Liechtenstein and Murdorf. The camp was well equipped with carpentry, painting, shoemaking, and metalworking shops. Both UNRRA and the AJDC helped to administer the camp. See USHMM Projekt Life
Kapfenberg Jewish DP camp in the British zone of Austria
Kapfenberg was a Jewish DP camp in the Steiermark district, in the British occupied zone of Austria. In the fall of 1945, the camp housed approximately 600 Jewish DPs. The accommodations consisted of wooden barracks, typical of such camps. Due to the British plan to use the camp as a transient center, the occupiers transferred the Jewish DPs to an all–Jewish camp: Trofaiach.”
Footnotes
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