The aftermath of the Holocaust and its effects on Central Europe

¶ … holocaust and its effect on central Europe

The aftermath of the Holocaust in Central Europe had profound economic, social, demographic and cultural effects, showing the degree to which the Holocaust had influenced the continent and, at a bigger scale, the developments in other parts of the world. This paper will aim to look at some of the consequences of the Holocaust and its effects on Central Europe.

The first effect that comes to mind is the demographic effect. Central Europe had certainly participated with a significant number to the horrors of the 6 million Jewish individuals who were killed by the Nazis. The immediate effects were translated into a decrease of the populations in these countries, where the Holocaust had contributed and had added to the other losses of population caused by war, disease or lack of food and resources.

However, from a demographic perspective, a decrease in population was not the only effect: there was also a gross redistribution of the demographics in different countries in Central Europe. With the Holocaust, the Jews from Central Europe were either exterminated or had to emigrate to other countries in the world. The aftermath was not that they returned to their houses and resumed their life and existence. In fact, sources show that the Anti-Semitic feelings continued in Central Europe even after the war.

In several countries, pogroms existed in the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust. Countries such as Poland encountered such new events of Anti-Semitic violence in 1946, in the town of Kielce, when "Polish rioters killed at least 42 Jews and beat many others"

. At the same time, many of the Jews who returned to their homes faced people who had occupied their properties during the Holocaust and who "many of those who did return home found their property destroyed or occupied by others who would not give it up"

did not consider giving these back.

As a direct effect of the Holocaust, but also of the pogroms and attitudes after the War, the distribution of the Jewish population in Europe changed in the period after the War. Many of the Jews migrated first towards Western Europe, but absorption was difficult in these countries, especially given the economic situation after the war. Others subsequently emigrated to the newly formed State of Israel and to the United States. The first consequence was, however, noticeable for Central Europe: while before the war, the Jewish population was consistent in all of these countries, the aftermath of the Holocaust significantly decreased the number of Jews living in this region of Europe. The number of Jews in Poland decreased from 200,000 after the war to 50,000 in 1950

The second consequence was an economic one. There are several perspectives to this problem. On one hand, the Jewish population had had a strong involvement in the economic (not to mention the cultural or political) life of the countries in Central Europe. Jews were active in the financial sector, in the manufacturing industries and several other economic sectors. Their innovative approaches had often helped with the development of the economies of these countries. After the Holocaust and the emigration of many of the Jews, these businesses were abandoned or, given the fact that in all of the countries in Central Europe, the Communist parties took over, they were replaced with state economies. However, the lack of the Jewish schooled management and businesses were a significant problem for the economies of these countries.

Perhaps none of the effects were as dramatic as the social effects. By social effects, one would tend to approach less the effects at a societal level, although these are worth mentioning as well, but rather the deep effects on individual relationships between the Jews and the others. In many ways, the Holocaust had been possible not only because of the Nazi war machine and the horrifically rigorous approach towards the extermination of the Jews, but also because of the population in many of the countries in Central Europe had provided the necessary layer of Anti-Semitism on which this extermination machine could work.

As such, the Holocaust had an impact on how the survivors related to the society after the end of the War. Inevitably, there was a significant amount of frustration, both on the other members of society and on the institutional framework that had allowed for such an event to occur. As previously mentioned, in addition, the events of the Holocaust were followed by similar manifestations after the War and the Jewish population simply lost its trust towards the other inhabitants of the countries in Central Europe. This triggered the mass emigration of Jews to Israel and to other countries that has been discussed in the paragraphs above. Most likely, the trust had never existed to the fullest degree, but the Holocaust and its impact assured that it would be difficult to regain it in the future.

Culturally, in all of Europe, but more notably in Central Europe, the effect of the Holocaust in its aftermath was remarkable. Starting with Theodor Adorno's mention that "writing poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric," many Jewish and non-Jewish inhabitants of Central Europe continued to create often based on the experience of the Holocaust or, in many cases, with direct descriptions of their own experiences as part of the Holocaust. The emotional impact that the Holocaust had on people in Central Europe was often expressed in art and culture. At the same time, the weight of the conscience for the event that had occurred was also transformed in many valuable works of art.

On another hand, however, the Holocaust left many of the sites of Jewish cultural heritage in countries such as Poland, Hungary or Romania abandoned, with a great impact on the role and implication of the Jewish culture in Central Europe. Examples are numerous, with travelers and theoreticians mentioning that "many synagogues and study houses still stand on Jazefa Street, but they have been converted into private homes" and that "the renowned Cracow Yeshiva still stands on Esther Street, but is totally abandoned"

Putting all of these elements together, one can point out that the effects of the aftermath of the Holocaust on Central Europe, as well as of the Holocaust itself, were numerous and, in many ways, similar to those in Western Europe. There is, however, one important element that significantly differentiates the two: the scale of the Holocaust in Central Europe. Indeed, as previously shown, in many of the countries in Central Europe, the Jewish minority simply disappeared and was exterminated. From the Jews in Western Europe, the emigration option exacted before the War and was exercised by many who were then able to return to these countries after the War ended.