Why this question? After liberation in May 1945, between 6.5 and 11 million “Displaced Persons” (DPs) were located in the territory of the western occupation zones of Germany. This category included former forced laborers, concentration camp prisoners, prisoners of war, as well as other persons uprooted by the war and Nazi persecution. Jewish survivors of the Holocaust formed a comparatively small but significant group with an estimated 250,000 to 300,000 people. The working group on Contemporary History and Historical Migration Research at the University of Osnabrück is engaged in several projects on the history of violence-induced mobility of so-called “Displaced Persons,” their categorization as “DPs,” and the subsequent processes of this forced migration well into the post-war period.
The In-/Visibility of Camps in Osnabrück
The camp history of Osnabrück illustrates both the continuities and ruptures between the Nazi era and the post-war period, as well as the selectivity of memory and memorial sites. For Osnabrück alone, Fisser-Blömer already recorded over 50 residential and detention facilities for forced laborers and prisoners of war under National Socialist rule in 1982. Gander and Issmer expanded this list in 2015 to 169 individual camps, including detention facilities for prisoners of war, the labor education camp “Augustaschacht,” as well as numerous communal camps of small and large industrial enterprises in Osnabrück.
After liberation in early April 1945, the number of survivors of Nazi terror, who would soon be categorized as “DPs,” in camps that were now taken over or established by UNRRA, grew from about 4,500 to over 20,000 people around mid-1945. In the following years, a widely branched camp structure developed in Osnabrück, partly in the former barracks facilities like the Winkelhausen barracks as well as in the former prison camps of the Nazi state such as the Wehrmacht officers’ prison camp (OffLag VIc) in Eversheide or the former camp for forced laborers “Fernblick,” which now continued to operate under the same name at Hauswöhrmannsweg/Berningshöhe in Osnabrück for DPs.
Besides the mentioned investigations regarding forced laborers and prisoners of war, the question of what happened to these people after liberation remained largely unexplored for a long time. In recent years, individual sites have been made visible through the work of two civil society initiatives, such as the former OffLag VIc, which had served as a prisoner of war camp for the internment of Yugoslav officers, or the establishment of a memorial plaque for the “Fernblick” camp, where forced laborers were housed before 1945 and after 1945, sometimes the same persons, were accommodated as “DPs.”
If we widen our view to the broader surroundings of Osnabrück, the Documentation Center Haren/Mazków should be highlighted, which since 2020 has illuminated the unique history of a Polish enclave in the Emsland between 1945 and 1948. Overall, most sites of this episode of German post-war history, in which millions of survivors endured in Germany before they could return to their homeland, migrate to third countries, or settle permanently as “stateless foreigners” in Germany, remain rather unnoticed and invisible.
A long-time “disappeared” place from this historical context in Northern Germany is at the center of a current research project of the working group: The largest “old-age home” for DPs in all of Europe was located in Varel, Lower Saxony. The home was founded in 1950 by the Control Commission for Germany (British Element), shortly thereafter transferred to German responsibility and existed until 1960. In total, more than 1,500 elderly Eastern European DPs lived in this largest facility of its kind in the 1950s, people who had been torn from their life contexts by the Nazis or had fled from the Red Army. The barracks area, previously used by the Wehrmacht and later by the Bundeswehr, was demolished in 2017. Nothing reminds of the DP “old-age home” on site today.
A first memorial site was created in 2023 by a local initiative that had the remaining 63 gravestones of DPs who died in Varel restored and re-erected in the local cemetery. The working group on Contemporary History and Historical Migration Research is now researching in a project funded by the Lower Saxony Ministry of Science and Culture on the history of the home and on Varel as a microcosm of a migration society after World War II. Together with students from the University of Osnabrück and pupils from Varel’s Lothar-Meyer-Gymnasium, a virtual exhibition is being created that is intended to contribute to commemorating the history of “Displaced Persons” in Germany after the end of World War II.
The memorial landscape on this topic remains fragmentary in Germany. Many former DP camps are today hardly recognizable or have disappeared due to later construction. Some examples illustrate both the diversity of memorial sites and the existing gaps.
Are there other significant memorial sites of DP history? Of course, here are some examples:
Erinnerungsort Badehaus, Waldram (formerly Föhrenwald)
Location: Kolpingplatz, 82515 Wolfratshausen-Waldram, Bavaria
Type of facility: Museum, memorial site and educational center
Historical context:
Föhrenwald was the longest-existing Jewish DP camp in Europe (October 1945 to February 1957). Originally built in 1939/40 as a Nazi model settlement for armament workers, it served after the end of the war as a refuge for up to 6,000 Jewish Holocaust survivors at times. The residents developed autonomous administration with schools, synagogues, mikvaot, theater, sports clubs and Yiddish-language newspapers. Föhrenwald became an Eastern European Jewish shtetl in the land of the perpetrators.
Memorial work:
The association “Bürger fürs Badehaus Waldram-Föhrenwald e.V.” founded in 2012 saved the historical bathhouse from demolition and opened a multiple award-winning museum in 2018 (including Obermayer Award 2022). The multimedia permanent exhibition over 900 sqm documents the three time layers: Nazi armament settlement, Jewish DP camp and displaced persons settlement. The museum is based on over 90 witness interviews and extensive source work. The memorial site is operated by volunteers.
Scientific significance:
Föhrenwald is well documented in research (Königseder/Wetzel, Brenner, Krafft). The memorial site offers one of the few places in Germany where DP history is comprehensively accessible and didactically prepared.
Website: https://erinnerungsort-badehaus.de
Bergen-Belsen Memorial
Location: Anne-Frank-Platz, 29303 Lohheide, Lower Saxony
Type of facility: Memorial with documentation center
Historical context:
In July 1945, two DP camps were established in the former Wehrmacht barracks near the liberated Bergen-Belsen concentration camp: one for Polish DPs (up to 10,000 people, dissolved in 1946) and one for Jewish survivors (up to 12,000 people, existing until 1950). Bergen-Belsen was the largest Jewish DP camp in Germany and center of Jewish life in the British zone. Under the chairmanship of Josef Rosensaft, the “Central Committee of Liberated Jews in the British Zone” was established here. The DPs developed political, cultural and religious structures and fought for emigration to Palestine.
Memorial work:
The memorial inaugurated in 1952 was expanded in 2007 with a new documentation center. The permanent exhibition treats the history of the prisoner of war camp, the concentration camp and the DP camp from multiple perspectives. Video interviews with survivors form a focal point. On the barracks grounds are two historical cemeteries for deceased DPs.
Scientific significance:
Bergen-Belsen is well developed in international research. The memorial belongs to the Foundation of Lower Saxony Memorials and offers extensive educational programs.
Website: https://www.bergen-belsen.de
Memorial Sites in Berlin (Ron Golz Project)
Location: Various locations in Berlin (Skutaristraße/Mariendorf, Kurstraße/Zehlendorf)
Type of facility: Information panels in public space
Historical context:
Numerous DP camps existed in Berlin, including camps in Mariendorf and in the Schlachtensee/Zehlendorf area, which housed Jewish “Displaced Persons” from 1946 to 1948.
Memorial work:
Artist Ron Golz has created memorial sites in public space since 1998 in cooperation with Wall AG. Information panels were installed at bus stops that commemorate the DP camps. In September 2010, two additional sites in Mariendorf and Zehlendorf were inaugurated.
Scientific significance:
This form of memory in public space is low-threshold, but the historical treatment is limited. A systematic scientific documentation of Berlin’s DP camps is still pending.
Website: https://lernen-aus-der-geschichte.de/Online-Lernen/content/9174
DP Camp Stuttgart (Reinsburgstraße)
Location: Obere Reinsburgstraße (house numbers 189-224), Stuttgart-West
Type of facility: Historical site without memorial (buildings preserved)
Historical context:
From autumn 1945 to June 1949, one of the largest DP camps in the American zone for Jewish survivors, mainly from Radom, was located in upper Reinsburgstraße. 39 multi-story residential buildings were confiscated. The camp had schools, mikveh and kosher kitchens. In March 1946, a German police officer shot Auschwitz survivor Samuel Danziger during a raid – an internationally noted scandal that was never solved.
Memorial work:
The buildings are completely preserved, but no memorial or marking exists on site. City tours and initiatives (Buch & Plakat, Die AnStifter) occasionally offer historical tours. The lack of memorial culture at this significant site is problematic.
Scientific significance:
The source situation is good (Yad Vashem, Stuttgart City Archive), but systematic processing and public visibility are largely missing.
Website: https://www.landeskunde-baden-wuerttemberg.de/displaced-persons-im-deutschen-suedwesten
DP Camp Frankfurt-Zeilsheim
Location: Frankfurt am Main-Zeilsheim
Type of facility: Historical site (today residential area, no memorial)
Historical context:
The American military government confiscated an I.G. Farben company settlement with over 200 houses in 1945. Zeilsheim developed into an important DP camp with comprehensive infrastructure: synagogue, yeshiva, schools, kindergarten, theater, sports clubs, newspaper “Untervegs.” Its own football league existed. The renowned historian Arno Lustiger gained his first journalistic experience here.
Memorial work:
No institutionalized memorial. The Nuremberg Institute for NS Research and Jewish History of the 20th Century has conducted documentary work.
Scientific significance:
Well documented through American and Israeli archive holdings. The history was scientifically processed by the Nuremberg Institute.
Website: https://www.nurinst.org/das-displaced-persons-lager-zeilsheim/
Research Desiderata
The fragmented memorial landscape raises central questions:
Fragmented memorial landscape: In contrast to the comprehensive concentration camp memorial landscape, systematic processing of DP history in public space is lacking.
Missing markings: Most former DP camps are invisible today. Buildings were demolished or repurposed without references to their history being installed.
Multiple occupancy: Many places have multiple layers of meaning (Nazi camps, concentration camps, DP camps), whereby the DP phase frequently recedes into the background.
Regional disparities: Bavaria and Hesse have better documentation than other federal states.
Limited scientific processing: Wolfgang Jacobmeyer’s standard work (1985) had already identified the research deficit. Despite newer works (Königseder/Wetzel, Brenner, Hagen et al. 2022), DP history remains insufficiently processed in many fields.
Further Reading
Königseder, Angelika/Wetzel, Juliane: Lebensmut im Wartesaal. Die jüdischen DPs im Nachkriegsdeutschland, Frankfurt a.M. 2004
Hagen, Nikolaus et al. (eds.): Displaced Persons-Forschung in Deutschland und Österreich. Eine Bestandsaufnahme zu Beginn des 21. Jahrhunderts, Berlin 2022
Arolsen Archives: Alphabetical directory of DP camps in the US occupation zone: https://digital-library.arolsen-archives.org/content/thumbview/7261971
Arolsen Archives: Register of DP camps (with search function for download): https://arolsen-archives.org/aroa/documents/dp-camp_inventory_2023-10-26.xlsx
An Answer?
The memorial landscape for “Displaced Persons” in Germany is incomplete and bears no relation to the historical significance of this chapter of post-war history. While Föhrenwald/Waldram and Bergen-Belsen are already sustainably conducting memorial work, most former DP camps remain invisible in public space. A systematic recording, marking and scientific processing of a growing number of DP camp sites represents an urgent desideratum of memorial culture in Germany.
This article is an English translation of the original German post: NGHM fragt | Wo sind eigentlich Gedenkorte für Displaced Persons in Deutschland zu finden?