garments. Shoes were harder to produce in the camps, so DPs acutely felt any shortage of seasonal footwear. Soldiers from the Second Corps organized clothing and shoe drives and shipped the shoes to the impoverished camps in Austria.41 American Relief for Poland and the NCWC sent parcels from the United States. Despite all these efforts, the condition of the DP wardrobe remained below reasonable standards and became a source of frustration for those who were getting ready to emigrate. “I took a coat, a radio, and clothes on credit, not to look like a DP from Europe,” wrote one Polish DP already resettled in the United States, expressing a widespread feeling that DP clothing had become a visible symbol of their misfortune and poverty.42
In the period directly following liberation, the health needs of the displaced persons became particularly pressing. A very high percentage of DPs suffered from malnutrition and exhaustion, and many children were affected by anemia and rickets. There were numerous cases of tuberculosis, venereal disease, heart disease, dental problems, and outbreaks of typhus. In time these health problems diminished, in large part due to an effectively functioning network of UNRRA health care centers and hospitals, as well as the efforts of the Polish Red Cross.43 Other types of care, such as counseling and intervention for crisis situations, depression, and posttraumatic disorders that required professional attention, were mostly unavailable. Some dangers to the refugee psyche stemmed from the prolonged sojourn in the camps: the lack of privacy, the paternalism of charitable organizations, idleness, and uncertainty about the future.44 Many contemporary witnesses reflected on the mood of discouragement and melancholy prevalent in the camps. The collective symptoms observed in the European DP camps after the summer of 1947 (when the major repatriation action was already finished, but resettlement schemes were not yet fully developed) were described as “DP apathy.” It manifested itself in various neurotic behaviors, a rising crime rate, absenteeism from work, procrastination, and a decreasing interest in camp affairs, entertainment, and cultural events.45 The UNRRA personnel, for the most part not qualified for this type of social work and preoccupied with the problems of day-to-day existence, were not able to address such problems.46
The DPs themselves had to transform the camps into communities. Concerns about peace and morality in the camps remained high on the agenda. In the first few months following liberation, some DPs, acting on long-repressed feelings of hatred, took justice into their own hands, meting out revenge to the oppressors and killing at least several dozen Germans. Cases of plunder and theft from German businesses (mainly food and clothing), underground production of illegal papers and moonshine, and trade on the black market usually received disproportionate attention from the German authorities and press. Polish DPs often protested against German accusations and stereotyping of the DPs as a criminal element, and objected to particularly harsh prison sentences for minor crimes.47
The truth of the matter was, however, that within the camps violence, petty crime, and the abuse of alcohol, were on the rise, especially during the first two years after the end of the war. The number of extramarital relationships and births of children out of wedlock also increased. Concerns about morality led the clergy, schools, and social organizations to sponsor campaigns under the banner of the “struggle with crime and demoralization.” Both the Polish DP press and social organizations signaled the urgent need to counteract individual behaviors that hurt the image of the community and presented it in an unfavorable light to outsiders.48
Personal conflicts and infighting particularly plagued camp life. Unavoidable in any large population, they thrived among people suffering from a lack of meaningful occupation and frustrated by their ambiguous situation. In DP camps, gossip that would be totally harmless in a different place and time could turn deadly. Because qualification for emigration depended on multiple and detailed screenings by the immigration authorities, allegations of collaboration or an unfounded denunciation from an undisclosed source could block a DP’s chances for emigration.49 The Polish DP councils tried to deal with the inundation of accusations in their own way. Special disciplinary committees, which included persons of uncompromising character, remained busy with investigations of malevolent charges.50 Okólnik (Circular), a publication of the Polish Union in the U.S. zone of Germany, recommended as a good example the policies of one DP camp council president who demanded that accusers repeat and support their charges during public meetings for everyone to judge: “Very shameful moments: a gossiper, ‘pressed to the wall,’ twists and fidgets, trying to find justification, but the pillory of public opinion is terrible. There is no mercy, and memory is long. When a gossiper is identified, he has to work on righting [his] wrongs in order to regain his good name. Nothing goes unpunished.”51 In Ludwigsburg the disciplinary committee issued statements that announced the results of investigations and required false accusers to retract their accusations publicly.52 Ill will, revenge, jealousy, or bitterness caused by the accuser’s own misfortune stood behind most cases of unfounded incriminations.
Although conditions of life in the camps were the first concern of the DPs, the camps were gradually transformed into communities, and DP organizations took on new functions. DP leaders consciously politicized the DP masses and prepared them to embrace the exile mission.
Building the Community
Following the concept of Little Poland in exile, the Polish government in London strongly discouraged repatriation and tried to retain abroad as large a representation of the Polish nation as possible. Liaison officers were first charged with the task of carrying out antirepatriation propaganda on behalf of the government. These officers were recruited from the Polish forces under British command stationed on German territory.53 Later, after these positions had been eliminated, London Poles communicated directly with DP leaders, sending them instructions and directives, and assuming supervision over DP organizations.54 Camp governments and a multitude of DP organizations played major roles in the transformation of coincidental groups of refugees into effectively functioning communities. Many individuals were motivated in their activities by a conscious sense of responsibility for the displaced Polish masses. The nineteenth-century exile mission called for work for Poland and for the preservation of all things Polish by Poles abroad; DP leaders invoked and revived this mission in the conditions of postwar displacement. Work that initially aimed at making the difficult life in the DP camps more tolerable, gradually acquired historical significance as the political situation put the displaced population at the forefront of the struggle between communism and the free world. The exile of Polish refugees became their symbolic statement to the international community.
The leaders of the displaced Polish community were mostly surviving members of the inteligencja. The Nazi authorities had targeted that social stratum during the war because they understood its leadership tradition embedded in Polish history. Members of the inteligencja, particularly those who participated in the resistance movement, were prosecuted vigorously and placed in German prisons and concentration camps as political prisoners. The Oflagen supplied a large group of commissioned officers, as well as draftees and volunteers of 1939 who in civilian life had worked in the professions. The creative energy that had been pent up during years of submission and slave labor could finally be released and put to good use. Lack of employment and the boredom of DP camp life were trying for individuals used to being active and productive. Their abilities and leadership skills could be utilized for the good of the community, so they threw themselves into organizing groups of refugee Poles into Polish communities in exile. Their activity brought a sense of normalcy after the nightmare of the war and helped to relieve the grief, frustration, and loneliness of the postwar period.
When the newly approved komendant, Jan Michalski, arrived in Geesthacht, his camp at Sandstrasse already had elected a camp committee to serve as an executive body. Only reluctantly did the council give up its authority to the new military commander and accept a more limited role as a camp council, an advisory body to the komendant and his deputy. In the following months, the power struggle between the camp council and the officers in charge abounded in drama.55 The authority of the komendant, however, was supported both by the Allied military government of the occupation zones and by the Polish liaison officers. In the American zone
