Forgotten Helpers

Displaced persons and their commitment to a critical appraisal of Nazi crimes

Walter Cieślik, Vilma Andersons and Philipp Auerbach are three of the around 11 million Displaced Persons (DPs). Most of them were former forced laborers, prisoners of war, refugees and liberated concentration camp inmates who found themselves in Germany when the Second World War drew to a close. Their fates are symptomatic of how victims of Nazi persecution contribute to a critical appraisal of National Socialist crimes after liberation by the Allies.

They secure records from the former concentration camps that document the atrocities committed by the National Socialists and facilitate the search for missing persons. They help with the recovery and identification of deceased fellow prisoners or fight for the compensation due to the survivors. Some accept political offices, while others work for aid organizations and tracing services or establish their own information centers. DPs also provide valuable services at the International Tracing Service, today’s Arolsen Archives. While broad swathes of the German population remain inactive, people like Walter, Vilma and Philipp make a vital contribution to coming to terms with the Nazi past.

Walter Cieślik

He was in charge of one of the first information centers

The International Information Office (IIO) was among the information centers founded by survivors. Former prisoners from the Dachau concentration camp established the office immediately after their liberation. One of them is Walter Cieślik, who runs the IIO.

A Polish-born bank employee, he was arrested by the Gestapo on May 25, 1940 in Zabrze, Silesia, and interned as a political prisoner in the Dachau concentration camp. Walter is assigned to work in the typing pool, which gives him insight into the camp’s prisoner records. Some of the inmates managed to secure parts of these prisoner documents shortly before liberation by the Allies on April 29, 1945. IIO employees later use these documents to prepare Certificates of Incarceration, which former prisoners and their relatives can use to apply for welfare benefits. There are plans to use remaining documents to compile a list of all Dachau concentration camp prisoners in the summer of 1946. Walter Cieślik puts these plans into practice. The resulting lists of persons imprisoned and deceased in Dachau yields not only an index of individuals, but also evidence of the atrocities committed by the National Socialists.

Walter returns to Poland in 1947 and works to support former inmates of concentration camps and ghettos until his passing in 1998.

A letter to the ITS

In 1968, Walter Cieślik contacted the ITS and asked for a certificate of his stay in the prisoners’ area, the infirmary of Dachau concentration camp. He also referred to his work at the IIO and his role in the transportation of the documents that are now kept in the Arolsen Archives.

Vilma Andersons

She remained in the land of the perpetrators in order to help

mid-October 1944, she is forced to flee her home country of Latvia after the country had been occupied alternately by the Soviets and National Socialists from 1940 onwards. Vilma’s escape ends in Stuttgart, where she is forced to work as a packer at the Hagesüd company in Stuttgart-Feuerbach. She lives in camps for Latvian DPs and becomes involved in various aid organizations after her liberation by the Allies in May 1945. From 1946 to 1949, she works initially for the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) and then for the International Refugee Organization (IRO). Both organizations took over the care and support of the millions of DPs.

In her application for support from the IRO, Vilma states that she would like to emigrate to the USA or Canada. But she ultimately decides to remain in Germany. She moves to Arolsen in northern Hesse in 1949 and starts working for the International Tracing Service (ITS). As head of the Child Tracing Department, she plays a vital role in the search for survivors and is also among the first women to hold a senior position at ITS.

From application to identity card

IRO employees conducted a review of all DPs when the organization took charge of caring for the DPs in July 1947. In order to receive support, the DPs were asked to complete a four-page form with questions about themselves, the “application for IRO assistance“. The Allies stipulated in November 1944 that DPs had to be registered with a “D.P. registration card”. The DP identity card in the US zone fulfilled an important task from January 1948: Consisting of a passport photo, fingerprints and signature, it proved that the holder was eligible to live in a DP camp

Philipp Auerbach

He was tirelessly committed to the rights of survivors

Philipp Auerbach is regarded as Germany’s most prominent Jew in the post-war period. After his liberation from the Buchenwald concentration camp on April 11, 1945, he campaigns vehemently for the support and care of Jewish DPs in particular. From September 1945, he works as a Senior Government Officer in charge of welfare for persons in Düsseldorf who had experienced political, religious or racist persecution. A year later, he is appointed Director of the Office for Reparations in Munich as Bavarian State Commissioner for Racially, Religiously and Politically Persecuted Persons. He provides the DPs with basic necessities and develops ideas on how to fund the supplies. And he neither holds his tongue, nor is he shy, and instead demands help for survivors as their right. In doing so, he fundamentally contradicts the image of how victims should behave in society, and his unconventional approach soon makes him a target of Bavarian politicians and the judiciary. The Bavarian Minister of Justice, Josef Müller, launches a sweeping campaign to discredit him in the summer of 1952. He is convicted in a controversial trial, despite a lack of evidence. Philipp Auerbach takes his own life on the same night the verdict is announced. The verdict against him is overturned and he is fully rehabilitated two years later.

A long road to liberation

The liberation of Germany from the Nazi regime was more than just a single date – it was a long, dramatic process that lasted many months. It began with the landing of Allied troops in Normandy and continued with fierce battles, while a steady stream of reports revealed the horrors of the concentration camps. As the Allies advanced, the Nazis tried to cover up their crimes – they destroyed files, cleared camps, dispatched prisoners on death marches and committed the cruelest acts of violence right up to the very end. At the end of the war, there were around 11 million displaced persons in Germany, i.e. people who had been deported by the National Socialists from their home countries for forced labor or imprisonment in concentration camps. Criminal prosecution began in the midst of this scenario. Tens of thousands of accused war criminals were tried in international, national and military courts. At the same time, numerous perpetrators of the Nazi regime sought and found ways to evade accountability.

Perspectives on liberation

Our dossier marking 80 years of liberation presents a range of perspectives on the end of Nazi rule and its aftermath.

Facing the guilt

How did Germans perceive the suffering endured by concentration camp prisoners? Civilians – children and adults alike – were confronted with the horrors of the Nazi regime not only during its rule, but also in the days following liberation.

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„It was a hunger march“

Coercion, violence and exhaustion: the death marches mark the last gruesomechapter of Nazi crimes. Petro Mishchuk survived 13 camps in total and was sent on grueling marches. He survived those as well. We summarize his story and provide a link to an interview with him as a contemporary witness.

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Beyond the limits of imagination

What did the Allied soldiers find when they reached the camps and liberated the victims of Nazi terror? The soldiers were not prepared for the horrific scenes that awaited them, and the images haunted them for the rest of their lives.

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Defeat, liberation or victory? ?

How was May 8, 1945 commemorated in the GDR, how is it remembered today in the FRG and in the countries that fought against the German Reich? How has the view of the end of the War changed and what does it look like today?

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After liberation: Nazi perpetrators on the run

With the collapse of the Nazi regime, many perpetrators fled – and many evaded accountability. Guilt was systematically concealed, prosecution avoided and trials prevented.

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