The 75th anniversary of the end of WWII events took place this past summer and fall. But submerged in the deadly chaos of 2020 – from wildfires to hurricanes to the devastation of Covid 19, they passed by in a whisper. Celebrations were muted. Remembrance ceremonies were held with a handful of attendees, all carefully distanced. Dwindling numbers of aging veterans stayed safe at home.
The dates passed quietly. Our attention is back on today’s news.
But 75 years ago, the war was still raging in hearts and minds of both the winners and the lost. Europe was a smoldering mass of rubble. Hundreds of thousands of people were homeless and hungry. Refugees, displaced persons, criminals and survivors of Hitler’s camps flooded roads, shelters, and military bases looking for any help they could find.
In the U.S., soldiers were still returning home. Troops ships couldn’t get them back fast enough. And in Nuremberg, the trials were just getting underway. In January of 1946, the Anglo American Committee of Inquiry was formed. Ruth Gruber, on behalf of the New York Herald Tribune accompanied the Committee on their fact-finding mission through Germany. Ever a witness to history, she saw first-hand the devastating aftermath of war and sat in on part of the first trial.
Ruth Gruber’s story is that of an American Jewish woman who not only reported on the major events of the 20th century, but lived them. She was the American government’s official escort for 1,000 Jewish refugees who came to the U.S. in 1944, a story told in The Girls Who Stepped Out of Line. She was on the dock in Haifa, Israel when the ship Exodus 1947 arrived, carrying refugees to their promised land.
The World War II Museum’s podcast series “To the Best of My Ability” tells the compelling story of the trials. Episode 1 is “Doomed Men on Gallows Hang.” Available on Stitcher.
A new book, The Last Million, tells the story of Europe’s Displaced Persons from World War to Cold War. When I lived in Garmisch-Partenkirchen several years ago and worked at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies, there were old barracks on a nearby German military kaserne where DPs still lived.
The past is indeed with us.
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Thanks, Mari K. Eder
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