Our Lives Berlin as Refuge

After the end of the Second World War, Berlin became a place of refuge for Jewish Displaced Persons (DP). They called themselves she’erit hapletah, “the last survivors”. For most of them, Germany – as the country of the perpetrators – was the last place they wanted to stay. In Mariendorf, Zehlendorf and Reinickendorf camps were established in which Jewish DPs often lived for several years.

Johanna Blender

Johanna Blender is currently working on her M.A. thesis in Public History at the Freie Universität Berlin. After two years of volunteering for Action Reconciliation Service for Peace in Berlin and Tel Aviv, she studied History and Anglistics at Humboldt University and University College Dublin. Recently, she curated an exhibition on Berlin as a city of refuge for Jewish Displaced Persons after 1945.

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