Traveling Exhibition: After the End of the World: Displaced Persons and Displaced Persons Camps

MEDIA NOTE:   A media day and panel discussion by participants in the project will be held from 10 a.m. to noon Wednesday, April 6.  Contact Diane D’Amico to RSVP.

(Galloway, NJ) – The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research (YIVO) and Stockton University are pleased to announce the opening of the exhibition, After the End of the World: Displaced Persons and Displaced Persons Camps.

The exhibit was created by the United Nations Department of Global Communications, United Nations Archives and YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. Professor Debórah Dwork, Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Crimes Against Humanity at the Graduate Center—CUNY, served as the scholar adviser for the exhibition. The exhibition was designed by YIVO and sponsored by the Refugee Studies Initiative and the Sara and Sam Schoffer Holocaust Resource Center at Stockton University in New Jersey.

The exhibition is on view from March 21 to April 28, 2022 in the Richard E. Bjork Library at Stockton University in Galloway, N.J. It is open to the public and is free of charge.

An unprecedented humanitarian crisis unfolded after the Second World War. The exhibition examines the responses of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), the first multinational response of its kind, and of Jewish Holocaust survivors in the immediate post-war years.

The exhibition weaves together sources from the United Nations Archives and the YIVO Archives to illuminate the macro history and personal stories. Official documentation, including photographs, reports and correspondence from survivors and family members trying desperately to trace one another, are drawn from the United Nations Archives.

Among YIVO’s contributions are posters created by Holocaust survivors in the displaced persons camps that reflect key aspects of their daily life. They include wall newspapers, announcements for sporting events and political rallies, and lectures presented at the camps.

The exhibition illustrates how the impact of the Holocaust continued to be felt after the Second World War ended.

“The exhibition reminds us of the importance of a multinational response that is sensitive and responsive to the agency of the survivors and works to support them as they reconstitute their lives,” said Tracey Petersen, manager of the Holocaust and the United Nations Outreach Programme.

 “The exhibition illustrates how the displaced persons did not shrink from the task of rebuilding both their own lives and Jewish communal life,” said Jonathan Brent, Chief Executuve Officer at YIVO.

Raz Segal, Director of the Master of Arts in Holocaust and Genocide Studies (MAHG) and co-coordinator of the Refugee Studies Initiative at Stockton University,  said, “We are looking forward to welcoming students, educators, and community members on campus, to engage with this important exhibiton and consider the questions that this history poses for us today, in a world with more than 84 million forcibly displaced people.”

This is the first time the traveling exhibition will be on view. A larger exhibition, including artifacts from the YIVO Archives, will open at United Nations Headquarters in New York, in January 2023, to mark the International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust.

Groups interested in touring the exhibit and the Sara and Sam Schoffer Holocaust Resource Center at Stockton University can contact Irvin Moreno-Rodriguez at 609 652-4699 or Irvin.Moreno-Rodriguez@stockton.edu.

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For media inquiries please contact:
Shelly Freeman
Chief of Staff, YIVO

Diane D’Amico
Director, News and Media Relations
Stockton University

The Holocaust and the United Nations Outreach Programme

The Holocaust and the United Nations Outreach Programme was established by United Nations General Assembly resolution 60/7 in 2005 to further education about and remembrance of the Holocaust to help prevent future acts of genocide. Its multifaceted programme includes online and print educational products, seminars, exhibitions, a film series and the annual worldwide observance of the International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust, held on 27 January. Learn more at https://www.un.org/en/holocaustremembrance 

YIVO

The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is dedicated to the preservation and study of the history and culture of East European Jewry worldwide. For nearly a century, YIVO has pioneered new forms of Jewish scholarship, research, education, and cultural expression. Our public programs and exhibitions, as well as online and on-site courses, extend our outreach to a global community. The YIVO Archives contains 24 million unique items and YIVO’s Library has over 400,000 volumes—the single largest resource for the study of East European Jewish life in the world. yivo.org / yivo.org/the-whole-story

Stockton University

Stockton University, is ranked among the top public universities in the Northeast. Our almost 10,000 students can choose to live and learn on the 1600-acre wooded main campus in the Pinelands National Reserve in South Jersey and at our coastal residential campus just steps from the beach and Boardwalk in Atlantic City. The university offers more than 160 undergraduate programs, including a Minor in Holocaust and Genocide Studies and a Master of Arts in Holocaust and Genocide Studies. Learn more at www.stockton.edu

Sara & Sam Schoffer Holocaust Resource Center

The Sara & Sam Schoffer Holocaust Resource Center at Stockton University displays artifacts, an exhibition dedicated to rescuers of one Jewish family in the Netherlands during World War II and the USC Shoah Interactive Biography of a Holocaust Survivor. The center annually hosts, sponsors, and co-sponsors over 100 programs, reaching 10,000 participants around the world. Learn more at www.stockton.edu/holocaust-resource

The Refugee Studies Initiative

The Refugee Studies Initiative at Stockton University engages faculty members, students, and community members in cross-disciplinary research and discussions on displacement and refugees. The Initiative also works with other academic institutes and organizations around the world to create collaborations and research that forefront the voices, perspectives, and activism of refugees and displaced people and the struggle to address the related political, ideological, social, and environmental factors that give rise to the unprecedented displacement in our world today.