In contrast to the American Zone where, from August 1945, Jewish DPs were recognized as an autonomous group, and who from then on lived in their own separate Jewish DP Camps, in the British Zone they were only permitted to live in separate blocks within DP Camps. In the British Zone the Bergen-Belsen Hohne DP Camp developed into the centre of Jewish life. The prisoners liberated from the nearby Bergen-Belsen concentration camp were accommodated here. There was also a large DP Camp, with initially over 600 Jewish DPs, in Neustadt, on the Baltic coast of Schleswig-Holstein.
The holocaust survivors were initially numbed immediately following their liberation:
We had forgotten how to laugh; we could no longer weep; we did not understand what it meant
to be free. [...] We were not alive, we were still dead!
Many were suffering from despondency and melancholy. The courage to live life again developed only
gradually between those who had experienced and suffered a similar fate. The survivors soon called
themselves, She aerith Hapletah, "the remainder, who escaped."
Initially, the military authorities were responsible for the organization and administration of
the DP Camps, within which the United Nations aid organisations worked. The latter assumed
responsibility for the internal administration of the camps, medical care, and in supervising
the work of other aid agencies. The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (AJJDC), known
simply as "Joint", provided special aid . They collected food, to supplement the sparse military
rations, and clothing, but also organized cultural events, and financial and practical support for
a school system.