The Second World War was over and the Jewish survivors came out of the concentration camps and their hiding - places in the year 1945. Most of the survivors had the conviction that the dimension of the crimes had put an end to anti-Semitism in both German states. However the reality looked different: In the first decade of the post - war period in Germany, a virulent anti-Semitism in society as well as in politics existed in both German states.
The average reaction of society and of the representatives of the bureaucracy towards the Jews was incurious. The German population acted in an extremely hostile manner towards the Jewish people, who had to suffer besetment, deportation, exile and assassination of their families. The suffering of the non-Jewish society due to the war was of far more interest for the German population than the happenings in the concentration camps. The suffering of the victims of the war and of the veterans overlaid the suffering of the Jewish victims. The German population made no more differences between victims and committer.
This essay aims to describe the obstacles to the re-establishment of Jewish life in occupied Germany and to what extent they were overcome. …
