The Exile Mission. Anna D. Jaroszyńska-Kirchmann
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Problems with the quantity and quality of food remained high on the agenda of all DPs, whether they lived inside or outside the camps. The average daily calorie intake for DPs fluctuated between two thousand and twenty-five hundred in 1945; it dipped to less than sixteen hundred in 1947 and 1948 and increased again to two thousand the following year.36 The undernourished DP population often received food that included only small amounts of meat and shortening and an inadequate supply of vegetables. Fruit was virtually unobtainable. Complaints about shipments of rotten food or of just one type of food for an entire week echoed throughout all the camps.37 Parcels from the Red Cross and CARE, an international humanitarian organization, improved the situation slightly, and were distributed to the DPs either in full or after being divided into separate products.38 Despite a ban on black market activities and the prosecution of those apprehended, many DPs traded food products with the local German population. Theft of food from German farms also became a problem in some areas.39 Some smaller camps with land available for cultivation established little gardens to supplement the DP diet. In later periods of the camps’ existence, DPs were allowed and encouraged to establish their own cooperatives to improve the food situation. Camp inhabitants also focused a lot of attention on the proper functioning of the camp kitchens. For example, during a meeting in the Polish camp at Altenhagen on August 8, 1945, nearly two hundred people participated in a “kitchen crisis” that investigated the honesty and qualifications of the cook and the camp director.40
Clothing was yet another nagging problem for the Polish DP population. Most slave laborers had only rags at the time of liberation, and concentration camp prisoners had only pasiaki, the striped camp uniform. UNRRA/IRO provided a certain amount of secondhand clothing for their charges (in part confiscated from the German population), but the supply never came close to the demand. The DPs themselves had to improvise. The skilled hands of Polish women dyed and fitted German military coats, converted sheets and blankets into usable outfits, and used any other available piece of fabric, including parachute silk, for children’s or adults’ 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