Dr. Alex Grobman earned his MA and PhD in Contemporary Jewish History from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is the senior resident scholar at the John C. Danforth Society, a member of the Council of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, and a member of the advisory board of the National Christian Leadership Conference for Israel. He lives in Jerusalem.
In the first months after liberation, Jewish displaced persons faced the approaching winter without adequate clothing, shoes, or other necessities. An appeal launched during the High Holidays generated an extraordinary response from American Jewish soldiers. Yet what subsequently arrived also exposed the distance between the survivors and many of the people attempting to help them.
An Unplanned Mission
Relief work among Jewish displaced persons (DPs) was never intended to be part of the American Jewish chaplains’ assignment. Their principal responsibility was to minister to the spiritual and psychological needs of American servicemen. Nevertheless, as they traveled through Germany, Austria, and Italy during the early occupation period from April through December 1945, they became some of the first American Jews to encounter the survivors. Many felt compelled to intervene.
Their work was largely improvised and undertaken on their own initiative. The chaplains did not officially represent the American rabbinate or any American Jewish organization. Of the 311 Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox Jewish chaplains who served, more than 90 came into direct contact with DPs between 1944 and 1948.
Among the most determined was Chaplain Abraham Klausner, a Reform rabbi whose persistence and resourcefulness distinguished him from the outset. In late August 1945, he brought together seven or eight American Jewish chaplains stationed in Germany and proposed organizing a package campaign with the help of Jewish soldiers serving in the United States Army.
The urgency was unmistakable. Thousands of survivors lacked suitable housing as well as the most elementary personal necessities. With winter approaching, Dr. Zalman Grinberg, a young physician from Kovno, warned that the Jews did not have “proper clothes and footwear. Most did not have overcoats, no pullovers and no underwear."
The chaplains decided that the High Holidays offered the best opportunity to reach the largest possible number of Jewish servicemen and enlist their support.
Prayers That Demanded a Response
One American soldier described the Rosh Hashanah service he attended in Munich as providing “a negative sort of inspiration, an emotion embodying a sense of shock, futility, of need for action." Approximately 50 survivors from a nearby displaced persons camp were present, and Klausner delivered the sermon.
“The survivors’ prayers were genuine," the soldier explained, “their weeping from the soul-but without tears. Their tears had long ago become dried from years of tragedy and sorrow." He could not “possibly reduplicate the atmosphere created by this group of circumstances," but wanted to pass along the facts so that those reading his letter would not rest until they “had done something to alleviate their situation."
The encounter transformed the service from a religious gathering into a call for immediate action.
The Table Beneath the White Cloth
Klausner made an even more dramatic appeal on September 16, 1945, when he delivered his Kol Nidre address at the Munich Opera House. The auditorium was filled with American Jewish servicemen and a small number of Jewish civilians.
Erich Maier, a representative of the World Jewish Congress, described what followed:
“Before him, he had a table with something covered under a white cloth. He spoke about the suffering of our people, especially the of those placed in the US Army camps for displaced persons. But then, Klausner removed the cloth from the table and showed his audience the food the Jews in the camps have to eat. This was a moment of great dramatics, and it could be seen how deeply the audience was impressed. Continuing in his speech, Chaplain Klausner assailed the [American] Jewish Joint Distribution Committee who had failed to bring any relieve [sic] to our Jews. Chaplain Klausner ended his speech with an appeal to all for help."
By displaying the food issued to the survivors, Klausner forced his audience to confront conditions that words alone could not adequately convey.
The Appeal Reaches America
The soldiers responded by writing to relatives and friends in the United States and asking them to contribute. Before long, packages were reaching Bavaria at a rate of three to five tons a day. Most were addressed to Chaplain Max Wall, a Conservative rabbi who had become deeply involved with the survivors in the region.
Klausner himself could not officially receive the shipments because his standing within the Army was highly irregular. After arriving at Dachau with the 116th Evacuation Hospital, he had effectively turned himself into a one-man relief operation. When his unit was transferred to an Army rest camp, he initially left with it but then secretly returned to Dachau in defiance of orders. He informed the commander of the 127th Evacuation Hospital unit stationed there that he had been reassigned.
Amid the confusion of the immediate postwar period, other chaplains and sympathetic soldiers covered for him. Their assistance allowed Klausner to remain with the DPs and continue his work.
When Charity Became an Insult
The volume of packages sounded impressive, but it met only about one percent of the survivors’ needs. More troubling was the condition of much of what arrived. Instead of useful supplies, many packages contained old clothing, discarded eyeglasses, and shoes too worn to be of practical value.
Klausner stood “aghast" as he witnessed what he described as the American Jewish community “ignominiously dumping its closet rags on our proud remnant of a people." The problem extended beyond the uselessness of the articles themselves. Such shipments, he warned, created “an animosity on the part of our people for those in whom they deposited that bit of hope which the concentration camps could not destroy."
In a letter to the American Federation of Lithuanian Jews, Klausner conveyed the survivors’ reaction: “More than once did I hear our Lithuanian brethren remark when they saw some of the rags that have been arriving-‘in Lithuania we would be ashamed to give such articles to help our brethren.’"
“If nothing more," Klausner declared, “we owe our courageous brethren a respect due them for their unswerving faith that kept them alive and a zealous faith that drives them on aid we offer."
Some individuals and organizations did send new clothing and genuinely useful supplies, for which Klausner expressed his gratitude. His criticism was directed at those who treated the survivors as passive recipients of discarded possessions rather than as men and women who had endured unimaginable persecution while retaining their pride and humanity. Material assistance without respect could deepen their humiliation instead of relieving it.
“You Have Become One of Us"
The package campaign represented only a small part of Klausner’s contribution to the survivors. Chaplain Eli Bohnen, a Conservative rabbi, recognized the extraordinary scope of his work:
“The one bright gleam of hope in the whole mess [in postwar Germany] is Chaplain Klausner. He has done more for the thousands of Jews in Munich and in the surrounding camps than all the [relief] agencies combined and then some…. He has literally saved hundreds of lives…. I confess I was lost in admiration for him and his achievements. If he had the resources of the JDC [the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee] at his disposal he would have performed super miracles."
Klausner received perhaps his most meaningful tribute in the first issue of Unzer Weg, the official publication of the She’erit HaPletah-the surviving remnant of European Jewry-in the American occupation zone. Klausner had been instrumental in helping to establish the publication. Its editor addressed him directly: “Rabbi, friend, brother, you have become one of us."
At a time when survivors desperately needed someone who understood what they had endured-and recognized their determination to control their own destiny-Klausner treated them neither as helpless victims nor as objects of charity. He treated them with respect and dignity. In that most important sense, he truly had become one of them.
Note: This article is adapted from Alex Grobman’s Rekindling the Flame: American Jewish Chaplains and the Survivors of European Jewry, 1944-1948.