Guide to the Records of the Displaced Person Camps and Centers in Italy

In May 1945, around 10 million refugees inside the borders of Germany, Austria and Italy relied on the Allied Forces for their immediate needs and for assistance in resettlement. At the end of the summer, the 1.5 million refugees who refused to return to their home countries were defined as “Displaced Persons”, a term coined by the Russian sociologist Eugene M. Kulisher. Among them there were around 53,000 Jews, mainly survivors of concentration camps. This first group grew larger as refugees escaped from new outbursts of anti-Semitic violence in Poland. By 1947, the Jewish DPs in Germany, Austria and Italy numbered 250,000.

Between 1945 and 1950, around 40,000 Jewish Displaced Persons passed through the Italian peninsula. The precise number is difficult to estimate due to continuous new arrivals and departures, as Italy developed into a major assembly center for refugee emigration (both legal and clandestine) to Palestine.

The majority of refugees entered Italy from the North-East border through the mountain passes (mainly the Brenner pass), where they arrived with the help of the clandestine network Brikhah that connected Eastern Europe to the DP camps in Germany and Italy. The clandestine departures for Palestine were then organized by the Italian section of Mossad le Aliyah Bet. Between 1945 and May 1948, of the 56 boats that brought Jewish refugees from Europe to Palestine, 34 sailed from Italian shores. The Italian authorities tacitly approved the flow of refugees: they never openly supported the clandestine emigration of Jewish refugees, but, at the same time, they never implemented a strict opposition to it, relieved by the fact that the refugees did not intend to remain permanently in Italy.

The main refugee resettlement center was located in Via Unione in Milan. This center was created with the support of Raffaele Cantoni, president of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities, and it functioned from 1945 to 1947. From Via Unione, refugees were redirected to the various DP camps in Italy (including Casere, Merano, Pontebba, Chiari, Cremona, Milano, Grugliasco, Rivoli, Genova, Bologna, Modena, Reggio Emilia, Fermo, Jesi, Senigallia, Cinecitta’, Bagnoli, Bari, Barletta, Palese, Santa Cesarea, Santa Maria al Bagno, Santa Maria di Leuca, Tricase, and Trani). The DP camps were both “mixed camps”, where Jewish DPs cohabited with refugees from various nationalities, and separate Jewish camps. Many refugees also lived in kibbutzim and hakhsharoth, of which there were more than 60 in Italy. Approximately 5,000 refugees were labeled as “out of camps DPs” and lived in private homes in the main cities. In addition, a few children’s homes were created for orphans, the most well-known being Selvino.

Like in Germany and Austria, the Italian DP camps were administered by the UNRRA (United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration). In 1947 the International Refugee Organization (IRO) took over the task of caring for the DPs and assisting them with the emigration process. The primary financial support for the camps came from the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (AJDC), universally known as "the Joint." Other Jewish international organizations, such as ORT (Organization for rehabilitation through Training), the Jewish Agency and the World Jewish Congress also assisted the refugees.

The Jewish DPs remained in the camps up to five years. In this transitional location, the refugees managed to organize themselves in an active community. Every camp had its own schools, library, radio station, theatre groups and sport teams; newspapers were published in Yiddish and Hebrew and political parties and meetings were organized.

The First Conference of Jewish refugees in Italy took place in Ostia (Rome) between 26 and 28 November 1945. On this occasion, the Organization of Jewish Refugees in Italy (OJRI) received official recognition. 150 delegates from all the DP camps elected a Central Committee, which was headquartered in Rome. Four regional committees were created in Milan, Florence, Rome and Bari. The Central Committee was divided into seven specialized departments (Culture, Art, Religious Affairs, Statistics and Information, Health, Productivity, Supply). The Lithuanian lawyer and Poale Zion activist Leo Garfunkel became the President of OJRI and Leon Bernshteyn its Secretary. Besides providing a structure and administrative supervision for the camps in Italy, OJRI also aimed at enriching the cultural life of refugees, organizing schools for children and professional training for adults. Moreover, OJRI functioned as a mediator between UNRRA and the refugees supporting their claims for emigration and resettlement in Palestine.

Elyezer Yerushalmi, who had been the director of the folkshul in the Shavler ghetto and later a partisan, became director of the Cultural Department. The first urgent issue he addressed was education. Schools and kindergarten were opened in every camp and in many kibbutzim. Seminars for teachers were organized about Hebrew language, Jewish History, the Bible and Geography of Palestine. Adults could participate in professional training workshops organized by ORT, which started to operate in Italy in 1946: different projects were instituted, including sewing, carpentry, blacksmith, electrician training, typewriting and fishing. Other DPs found employment in the administration of the camps or with IRO, AJDC and other agencies.

Refugees actively participated in theatre groups. Some of these groups (like the Ufboy group in Santa Maria di Bagni, or the group organized in Milan by Yonas Turkov) went on tour in the various camps in Italy. In November 1945, an Artistic Ensemble (Kinstlerisher Kolectiv) was created under the direction of the poet Menakhem Riger. The Ensemble performed in many concerts and other shows all over Italy. In March 1946, the Union of Jewish Writers, Journalists and Artists (Fareyn fun yidishe literatn, zhurnalistn un kinstler in Italye) was established; it organized frequent literary and artistic evenings and a literary contest, which took place in summer 1946.

From August 1945 to February 1949, the Central Committee published its official weekly (and later biweekly) newspaper, Baderekh, which was distributed in every camp and kibbutz. The various political parties and groups also published their own newspapers, bulletins and brochures. A few DP camps (like Rivoli and Santa Maraia di Bagni) had their own newspapers as well. The Union of Jewish Writers, Journalists and Artists published a monthly literary periodical, In gang: khoydesh-zhurnal far literature un kunst, from March 1947 to February 1949. The vast majority of the newspapers were written in Yiddish, with some in Hebrew and a few in Polish and Hungarian.

In autumn 1945, a Jewish Historical Commission was established in Rome, with a second branch in Milan. Unlike the historical commissions in DP centers in Germany and Austria, the Italian commission was not an emanation of the Central Committee of the Organization of refugees. Rather, it was the commission of a specific organization, Pakhakh (Partizaner, Khayolim un khalutzim, Partisans, Soldiers and Pioneers), a Union of ex-ghetto fighters and partisans. Pakhakh had been created in Poland in May 1945 by Antek Zukerman, one of the leaders of the Warsaw uprising. There were 4,500 members in the DP camps in Germany, 2,000 in Austria, and 1,000 in Italy. The commission in Italy became the Tsentrale historishe komisye bay Pakhakh (Central Historical Commission of Pakhakh) and it had the very specific aim to collect records and materials concerning the Jewish participation in partisan units in the territories of the Soviet Union. Testimonies from former partisans were transcribed and many questionnaires were distributed to refugees. Moyshe Kaganovitsh, a journalist and partisan, was appointed director of the commission. The majority of the materials collected by the commission were published in the book written by Kaganovitsh, Der Yidisher onteyl in der partizaner-bavegung fun Sovet-Rusland (Rome, 1948). The commission also published a Yiddish monthly periodical, Farn Folk.

By the end of 1948, a year in which 20,000 Jews left Italy for Israel, the DP era in Italy was drawing to a close. Only seven Jewish DP camps were still open, and only approximately 5,580 Jewish DPs still remained in Italy. Because many of the leaders of the refugees’ organizations had already emigrated to Israel, the Central Committee of OJRI was renewed and Leon Bernshteyn was appointed the new President. In 1948 IRO and the Italian government requested that the refugees be moved from the Northern camps to the Southern one. 1949 saw the number of camps drop to five. By June 1950, there was only one camp left in operation and the DPs numbered 2,177. Only one newspaper, Tsum Tsig, was still being published, and most DP organizations, including the Union of Jewish Writers, Journalists and Artists, Hechalutz, and all the Zionist parties were no longer in existence. The Central Committee of OJRI ceased activity on October 1, 1950. This resolution marked the end of Jewish DP organizational life in Italy.

The last Jewish refugee left Italy in 1951.