17. In Camps Once Again
The people delivered by heavy lorry were carefully counted at the entrance of the camp before they
received instructions, through an interpreter in Yiddish, about medical examination, registration
and rationing in the camp.
All the arrivals were weary and in a pitiful condition following the more than two month sea journey
with its accompanying physical suffering and mental strain.
After a short medical examination and disinfection with DDT powder, names were registered by German
typists. Then each person received three blankets and a bowl of warm soup. The Nissan huts, barracks
and six man tents in the two camps were allocated so that families and groups of friends were together.
The UN International Refugee Oganization (IRO) supplied aid, and assured the refugees the status of
Displaced Persons. They totally rejected this status.
We are not DPs, we are in transit to Palestine.
was noted by the British camp command.
A protest rally took place, in opposition to the activity of the aid agencies, and in being again
accommodated
"under guard in a kind of concentration camp". As the summer night fell the demonstration ended with
Jewish songs and dances.
In the Am Stau camp a German guard on patrol, observed:
how the huge finger of a floodlight, in the main Pöppendorf Jewish camp, swept over the sleeping
barracks.
Exodus passengers in the Pöppendorf camp on 9th September 1947.
(Archiv Ursula Litzmann, Düren).
Soup being distributed after having been disinfected with DDT powder.
(United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington D.C.).
Arrival.
(Archiv Ursula Litzmann, Düren).
Filling mattresses with straw.
(Archiv Ursula Litzmann, Düren).
Bunk beds.
(Yad Vashem, Jerusalem).
German Text: Henrik Jan Fahlbusch, Sarah Haake, Felix Hurlin, Paul Kononow and Lars Krobitsch.
Section 18
