At the Feldafing camp, conditions are terrible, not much better than in Dachau. The Allies had not expected to have the job of housing the pitiful survivors of the concentration camps, and they were unprepared. They try to clothe you in an old German army uniform. You refuse; you would rather be naked than wear that hated uniform. The food is totally inadequate, barely enough to survive. You are placed with others, non-Jews, sometimes former Nazis who are masquerading as refugees to escape punishment from the Allies. As a Jew you get no special consideration despite the fact that Hitler singled you out for especially bad treatment.
When General Dwight David Eisenhower visits the camp
a few months later, he is appalled at the conditions, and orders
an immediate improvement. Things begin to look up. You meet
another survivor, marry six months later, and have a child.
Hitler took one million, eight hundred thousand of our Jewish
children,
you tell your friends, and it is our obligation to
replace them as soon as possible. Without them, we have no
future.
Eventually, you resettle in Atlanta, Georgia. (You want no
more cold weather; freezing in Dachau was enough for you.) As
you drive to the community's Yom Hasho'ah services, you tell
your family: We are the 'She'erit Yashuv,' the remnant of
Israel, who returned to show the world that the Jewish people
is eternal. That is our obligation — to those who died, to
ourselves, to God. We must be Jews; we must survive.
END