After the defeat of Germany in World War II, more than a hundred thousand Jewish survivors of the Holocaust were transported to camps maintained by the allies for displaced persons (DPs). In this new history, historians Angelika Königseder and Juliane Wetzel offer a social and cultural history of the post-WWII displaced persons camps.

Starting with the discovery of death camps by Allied forces, Königseder and Wetzel describe the inadequate preparations made for the survivors. The soldiers were ill equipped to deal with the physical wreckage and mental anguish of their charges, but American rabbis soon arrived to perform invaluable work helping the survivors cope. The historians also devote attention to autonomous Jewish life in and near the camps: theater groups and orchestras prospered, schools were founded, a tuberculosis hospital and clinic for DPs was established, and underground organizations handled illegal immigration to Israel and trained soldiers to fight in Palestine.

Drawing on original documents and the work of other historians, Waiting for Hope sheds light on a largely unknown period in postwar Jewish history and shows that the suffering of the survivors did not end with the war.

Wayward Threads is the story of Robert Goldmann's youth in Reinheim, a small German village; his experience in the early Nazi years in Frankfurt; his forced emigration in 1939; and his subsequent career in the United States, including service with the Voice of America, brushes with McCarthyism, and a brief tenure as head of the European bureau of the Anti-Defamation League. Goldmann also discusses his later experiences and encounters with his native Germany. Full of arresting vignettes, Wayward Threads stands out among other Holocaust memoirs for its strong American dimension.

Both survivors of the Holocaust and those who were not there agree that it is impossible to tell what happened as the Nazi Final Solution was put into effect. No writing can adequately imagine the concentration camps, ghettos, and death camps. And that is precisely why writers must tell-and retell-what happened there.

In When Night Fell: An Anthology of Holocaust Short Stories, Linda Schermer Raphael and Marc Lee Raphael have collected twenty-six short stories that tell of the human toll of the Holocaust on those who survived its horrors, as well as later generations touched by its memory. The stories are framed by discussion of the current debate about who owns the Holocaust and who is entitled to speak about it.

Some of the stories included here are by internationally acclaimed authors. Others may be new to many readers. When Night Fell is a fitting memorial to this genocidal horror, putting eloquent voice to human endurance that is-almost-beyond words.