How did Jews feel about living in Germany directly after the second World War?

by rsashe1980
BeatrixVonBourbon

There are testimonies from German Jews that settling back into life in Germany was extremely difficult, if not impossible for some.

Research by Eric A.Johnson and Karl-Heinz Reuband found that German Jews who left Germany before 1938 found it easier to resettle in their former homeland than those who stayed and survived the Holocaust. The Holocaust survivors reported feelings of great disgust and mistrust with other Germans, and a feeling that the German population were not taking responsibility for their actions during the war.

Many of the survivors Johnson and Reuband surveyed chose to leave and resettle abroad, with the majority going to either the US or Israel. Given that they would have had very little to no family or community left, and that it would be difficult to regain any housing or goods taken from them, their choice is not a surprising one.

Source: 'What We Knew' by Eric.A.Johnson and Karl-Heinz Reuband

OnkelEmil

I'm really sorry I only saw this question about three days later, I'll try to answer it anyway. Because of my focus of research I'll stay away from the psychological and sociological dimension /u/BeatrixVonBourbon mentioned.

First of all, most Jews living in Germany in the months and years following the end of World War II were put into DP Camps (Displaced Persons). Those camps were often poorly organised, some of them were even former concentration camps (not death camps!), such as Belsen.

To pretty much all Jews (as far as we have sources), it was pretty clear that any time they spent on german soil was limited, and any day they lived there was just one more day until they could migrate, mostly to the USA and Palestine (or Israel after 1948). This scheme was valid until the mid-1950s, and it's pretty telling that the most important secular german-jewish organisation is called Zentralrat der Juden in Deutschland or Central council of Jews in Germany, and not Central council of german Jews. As far as we know, the central council was meant as a temporary organisation to help the Jews still living in Germany to migrate.

This mindset is also one part of why roughly 100,000 Jews fled to Germany from Poland in 1946 because of the Kielce pogrom. These refugees were also granted the DP status.

What seemed especially frustrating was that nobody, in the eyes of the Jews living in Germany, seemed to had learned their lesson. Antisemitism was still prevalent everywhere, jewish cemeteries were desecrated, the situation in DP camps was terrible. Many DPs tried to enhance their situation by joining the Black Markets (much like everybody else in this time), which again fueled the antisemitic stereotype of the greedy Jew. Many DP camps were raided by the police, the most famous instance being especially tragic: In 1946 the police raided a DP camp in Stuttgart, thereby killing the inmate Schmul Dancyger, an Auschwitz survivor who only on the evening before had been reunited with his wife and kids he hadn't seen for years.

Those events only made the decision easier to leave Germany forever. However, it wasn't as easy. Not all countries accepted immigrants, especially not those suffering from tubercolosis. By 1949, after the foundation of the Bundesrepublik as a democratic, west-orientated state, some started believing in a better future for german Jews and, as we know today, have rebuilt a strong jewish community.