The Central Committee of the Liberated Jews (ZK) was an organization which represented

Jew Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""T ...

ish

displaced person Forced displacement (also forced migration) is an involuntary or coerced movement of a person or people away from their home or home region. The UNHCR defines 'forced displacement' as follows: displaced "as a result of persecution, conflict, g ...

s in the

American Zone Germany was already de facto occupied by the Allies from the real fall of Nazi Germany in World War II on 8 May 1945 to the establishment of the East Germany on 7 October 1949. The Allies (United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union, and Franc ...

of the post-

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

, during 1945–1950."The Central Committee of the Liberated Jews (1945-1950)"
/ref> The organization was founded on July 1, 1945, through the efforts of Dr. Zalman Grinberg, former director of the

Kovno ghetto The Kovno Ghetto was a ghetto established by Nazi Germany to hold the Lithuanian Jews of Kaunas during the Holocaust. At its peak, the Ghetto held 29,000 people, most of whom were later sent to concentration and extermination camps, or were sho ...

hospital; rabbi Abraham Klausner, a chaplain of the US Army; and others. On September 7, 1946, the committee was recognized as "the legal and democratic representation of the liberated Jews in the American zone" by the American military government in Germany. The first chairman was Zalman Gringberg, succeeded by David Treger (in 1946) after Grinberg's emigration to Palestine and then by Abraham Treger. Abraham Treger served as the committee's chairman between 1946 and 1948 and then emigrated with his wife Ida to Haifa, Israel.

History

In the American sector, the Jewish community across many

Displaced Persons camp A refugee camp is a temporary settlement built to receive refugees and people in refugee-like situations. Refugee camps usually accommodate displaced people who have fled their home country, but camps are also made for internally displaced peop ...

s organized itself rapidly for purposes of representation and advocacy. Working committees were established in each DP camp, and on July 1, 1945, the committees met for a founding session of a federation for Jewish DP camp committees in Feldafing. The session also included representatives of the

Jewish Brigade The Jewish Infantry Brigade Group, more commonly known as the Jewish Brigade Group or Jewish Brigade, was a military formation of the British Army in the World War II, Second World War. It was formed in late 1944 and was recruited among Yishuv, Y ...

and the Allied military administration. It resulted in the formation of a provisional council and an executive committee chaired by Zalman Grinberg. The Central Committee declared its dissolution on December 17, 1950, at its headquarters, the

Deutsches Museum The Deutsches Museum (''German Museum'', officially (English: ''German Museum of Masterpieces of Science and Technology'')) in Munich, Germany, is the world's largest museum of science and technology, with about 28,000 exhibited objects from ...

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...

. Of the original group that founded the committee, only rabbi Samuel Snieg remained for the dissolution. All the others had already emigrated, most of them to Israel. Rabbi Snieg had remained to complete the first full edition of the

Talmud The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law ('' halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the ce ...

published in Europe after the Holocaust, the so-called Survivors' Talmud.

References

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History

See also

References

Further reading