A moving, deeply researched account of survivors' experiences of
liberation from Nazi death camps and the long, difficult years that
followed
When tortured inmates of Hitler's concentration and extermination camps
were liberated in 1944 and 1945, 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.
