gay00front.i_xvi 4/22/02 12:34 AM Page i Safe Among the Germans gay00front.i_xvi 4/22/02 12:34 AM Page ii gay00front.i_xvi 4/22/02 12:34 AM Page iii Safe Among the Germans Liberated Jews After World War II Ruth Gay Yale University Press New Haven and London gay00front.i_xvi 4/22/02 12:34 AM Page iv Copyright © by Ruth Gay. All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced,in whole or in part, including illustrations,in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections and of the U.S.Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press),without written permission from the publishers. Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Gay,Ruth. Safe among the Germans : liberatedJews after World War II / Ruth Gay. p. cm. Includes bibliographic references (p. ) and index. ISBN ---(cloth : alk.paper) .Jews—Germany—History—‒. .Holocaust survivors—Germany. .Refugees, Jewish—Germany—History—th century..Jews,East European— Germany—History—th century..Holocaust, Jewish (‒)—Influence. .Germany—Ethnic relations.I.Title. .   ′.—  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.  gay00front.i_xvi 4/22/02 12:34 AM Page v To my wonderful daughters, Sarah,Sophie,and Lizzie, with all my love gay00front.i_xvi 4/22/02 12:34 AM Page vi gay00front.i_xvi 4/22/02 12:34 AM Page vii Contents Introduction ix  Where They Came From   Return to the World   The Last German Jews   Jews Again in Berlin: The Gemeinde,the Camps   Jews in East Berlin   New Generations in Germany  Notes  Acknowledgments  Index  gay00front.i_xvi 4/22/02 12:34 AM Page viii gay00front.i_xvi 4/22/02 12:34 AM Page ix Introduction T his book is about what happened to the Jews afterward— after the killings in the death camps had stopped,after the slave laborers had been freed,after the deportees to the So- viet Union had come home. These moments of release and deliverance are so powerful that most of the survivors who have told their stories stop and draw breath at that endlessly longed-for mo- ment.When danger ends and life begins again,there no longer seems any reason to go on with the story. Most of the Jews who survived had experienced not only physical suffering but the dehumanization so thoroughly practiced by the Nazis. The pendant to that moment of liberation was then the critical inci- dent during which they felt their dignity restored.One woman whose camp was liberated by Americans described her first encounter with an American soldier,who held open a door for her as they left a build- ing.That simple,conventional action overwhelmed her.“It gave me back my humanity,”she said.Gita Glazer,who returned to her native Lodz after years in a forced-labor camp,was overjoyed to discover that several members of her family had also come back and were living to- gether in an apartment.When she appeared at the door,emaciated ix