This post was automatically translated from the German original at
NGHM fragt | Wo sind eigentlich Gedenkorte für Displaced Persons in Deutschland zu finden?.
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 labourers, concentration camp prisoners, prisoners of war, and other persons uprooted by the war and Nazi persecution. Jewish survivors of the Holocaust formed a comparatively small but significant group of an estimated 250,000 to 300,000 people.
The Research Group for Contemporary History and Historical Migration Research at the University of Osnabrück is engaged in several projects examining the history of violence-induced mobility of so-called “Displaced Persons”, their categorisation as “DPs”, and the subsequent processes of this forced migration well into the post-war period.
The Visibility/Invisibility 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 documented over 50 residential and detention facilities for forced labourers and prisoners of war under National Socialist rule as early as 1982. Gander and Issmer expanded this list in 2015 to 169 individual camps, including detention facilities for prisoners of war, the labour education camp “Augustaschacht“, and 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 categorised as “DPs”, grew from approximately 4,500 to over 20,000 people by mid-1945 in camps that were now taken over or established by UNRRA. In the following years, an extensive camp structure developed in Osnabrück, partly in former barracks facilities such as the Winkelhausen barracks and in former prisoner camps of the Nazi state such as the Wehrmacht Officers’ Prisoner Camp (OffLag VIc) in Eversheide or the former camp for forced labourers “Fernblick”, which continued to operate under the same name at Hauswöhrmannsweg/Berningshöhe in Osnabrück for DPs.
Besides the aforementioned studies focusing on forced labourers 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 labourers were housed before 1945 and, after 1945, partly the same persons were accommodated as “DPs”.
Expanding our view to the wider surroundings of Osnabrück, the Documentation Centre 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 onwards to third countries, or settle permanently as “stateless foreigners” in Germany, remain rather unnoticed and invisible.
A long-time “disappeared” site from this historical context in Northern Germany is at the centre of a current research project by the research group: The largest “old people’s 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 afterwards 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 during the 1950s—people who had been torn from their life contexts by the Nazis or had fled from the Red Army. The barracks site, previously used by the Wehrmacht and later by the Bundeswehr, was demolished in 2017. Nothing remains today to commemorate the DP “old people’s home” on site. 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 Research Group for Contemporary History and Historical Migration Research is now conducting research in a project on the history of the home funded by the Lower Saxony Ministry of Science and Culture and on Varel as a microcosm of a migration society after the Second World War. Together with students from the University of Osnabrück and pupils from Varel’s Lothar-Meyer-Gymnasium, a virtual exhibition is being created that aims to contribute to commemorating the history of “Displaced Persons” in Germany after the end of the Second World War.
The memorial landscape on this topic remains fragmentary in Germany. Many former DP camps are today barely recognisable 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.
As part of our digital history work, we have created an interactive map HERE on which some memorial and commemorative sites for the history of Displaced Persons in Germany after 1945 are recorded. Is a historical site missing? Please feel free to write an email to nghm@uos.de.
Memorial Site Badehaus, Waldram (formerly Föhrenwald)
Location: Kolpingplatz, 82515 Wolfratshausen-Waldram, Bavaria
Type of facility: Museum, memorial site and educational centre
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 armaments workers, it served after the war’s end as a refuge for up to 6,000 Jewish Holocaust survivors at times. The residents developed autonomous administration with schools, synagogues, mikvaot, theatre, sports clubs, and Yiddish-language newspapers. Föhrenwald became an Eastern European Jewish shtetl in the land of the perpetrators.
Memorial work:
The association “Citizens for the Badehaus Waldram-Föhrenwald e.V.“, founded in 2012, saved the historic bathhouse from demolition and opened a multi-award-winning museum in 2018 (including the Obermayer Award 2022). The multimedia permanent exhibition covering over 900 square metres documents the three temporal layers: Nazi armaments settlement, Jewish DP camp, and homeland expellee settlement. The museum is based on over 90 witness interviews and extensive source work. The memorial site is operated by volunteers.
Academic 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 and didactically accessible.
Website: https://erinnerungsort-badehaus.de
Bergen-Belsen Memorial
Location: Anne-Frank-Platz, 29303 Lohheide, Lower Saxony
Type of facility: Memorial site with documentation centre
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 persons, dissolved in 1946) and one for Jewish survivors (up to 12,000 persons, existing until 1950). Bergen-Belsen was the largest Jewish DP camp in Germany and the centre of Jewish life in the British zone. Under the leadership 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 site, inaugurated in 1952, was expanded in 2007 with a new documentation centre. The permanent exhibition addresses 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 there are two historic cemeteries for deceased DPs.
Academic Significance:
Bergen-Belsen is well documented in international research. The memorial site belongs to the Foundation of Lower Saxony Memorial Sites and offers extensive educational programmes.
Website: https://www.bergen-belsen.de
Memorial Sites in Berlin (Ron Golz Project)
Location: Various sites in Berlin (Skutaristraße/Mariendorf, Kurstraße/Zehlendorf)
Type of Institution: 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:
Since 1998, artist Ron Golz has created memorial sites in public space in cooperation with Wall AG. Information panels were installed at bus shelters to commemorate the DP camps. In September 2010, two additional sites were inaugurated in Mariendorf and Zehlendorf.
Academic Significance:
This form of remembrance in public space is accessible, but the historical treatment is limited. A systematic academic documentation of Berlin’s DP camps is still lacking.
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 Institution: Historic 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, primarily from Radom, was located in upper Reinsburgstraße. 39 multi-storey residential buildings were requisitioned. The camp had schools, a mikvah and kosher kitchens. In March 1946, a German policeman shot the Auschwitz survivor Samuel Danziger during a raid – an internationally noted scandal that was never resolved.
Memorial Work:
The buildings are completely preserved, but there is no memorial site or marking on location. City tours and initiatives (Buch & Plakat, Die AnStifter) occasionally offer historical walks. The lack of memorial culture at this significant site is problematic.
Academic Significance:
The source situation is good (Yad Vashem, Stuttgart City Archive), but systematic treatment and public visibility are largely absent.
Website: https://www.landeskunde-baden-wuerttemberg.de/displaced-persons-im-deutschen-suedwesten
DP Camp Frankfurt-Zeilsheim
Location: Frankfurt am Main-Zeilsheim
Type of Institution: Historic site (now residential area, no memorial)
Historical Context:
In 1945, the American military government requisitioned an I.G. Farben company settlement with over 200 houses. Zeilsheim developed into an important DP camp with comprehensive infrastructure: synagogue, yeshiva, schools, kindergarten, theatre, sports clubs, newspaper “Untervegs”. There was its own football league. The renowned historian Arno Lustiger gained his first journalistic experience here.
Memorial Work:
No institutionalised memorial site. The Nuremberg Institute for NS Research and Jewish History of the 20th Century has undertaken documentary work.
Academic Significance:
Well documented through American and Israeli archival holdings. The history has been academically 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 treatment of DP history in public space is lacking.
Missing Markers: Most former DP camps are invisible today. Buildings were demolished or repurposed without any indication of their history being installed.
Multiple Occupancy: Many sites have multiple layers of meaning (NS camps, concentration camps, DP camps), with the DP phase frequently receding into the background.
Regional Disparities: Bavaria and Hesse have better documentation than other federal states.
Limited Academic Treatment: 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 inadequately 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. (Hrsg.): Displaced Persons-Forschung in Deutschland und Österreich. Eine Bestandsaufnahme zu Beginn des 21. Jahrhunderts, Berlin 2022
Arolsen Archives: Alphabetisches Verzeichnis der DP-Lager in der US Besatzungszone: https://digital-library.arolsen-archives.org/content/thumbview/7261971
Arolsen Archives: Register der DP Lager (mit Suchfunktion zum 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 fragmentary and bears no relation to the historical significance of this chapter of post-war history. While Föhrenwald/Waldram and Bergen-Belsen are already undertaking sustainable memorial work, most former DP camps remain invisible in public space. A systematic recording, marking and academic treatment of a growing number of DP camp sites constitutes an urgent desideratum of memorial culture in Germany.