FOCUS

To morrow Jerusalem

AN AMERICAN
SOLDIER
IN EUROPE
AFTER WORLD
WAR 11
RECALLS 'THE
DETERMINATION
OF JEWISH
REFUGEES
TO MAKE
THEIR WAY
TO PALESTINE.

JOHN D. BAIRD

Special to The Jewish News

ILLUSTRATION BY ANTHONY FORANDA

LU

Cr)

CC

LU

LLJ

120

A

s a very young
enlisted man
in the U.S.
Army of Occu-
pation, sta-
tioned in Linz,
Austria, I saw
the aftermath of World War II
and its effect on people. A boy
from the Illinois farm country, I
had had no prior contact with
Jewish people before my tour of
military service but I was to see
the exodus of European Jews in
a manner that the passing of 45
years has not erased from mem-
ory. Since then I have had rea-
son to observe, to marvel at, and
to admire, the tenacity and de-
termination of those people we
now call Israelis.
I was but one member of a
large contingent of newly trained
troops sent to Germany in Febru-
ary 1947, as replacements for vet-
erans sweating out the point
system for rotation back to the
States and discharge after the
war's end. Germany was still in
a state of devastation, with every
major city little more than black-
ened rubble and twisted steel.
My first view of mass hunger
came soon after my arrival when
we stood in long lines, waiting to
go through the mess hall for
breakfast at Marburg. Opposite
us, on the other side of the build-
ing, I could see an even longer
line of poorly dressed civilians,
shivering in knee deep snow and
the cold morning air. I asked if
they had a mess hall for civilians
here and was told that those peo-
ple were waiting in line for the
privilege of going through the
garbage, after we had eaten.
I also learned that the civil-
ian employees in the kitchen took
pains to separate edible food from
the garbage and placed it in sep-
arate garbage cans, in an effort
to help those hungry people as
best they could.
I, who had been a boy during
the depression years of the

Mr. Baird writes from
Wadestown, West Virginia.

1930's, had experienced hunger,
but not to the extent that was ob-
vious here. It made a profound
impression on me to see people
reduced to such a state.
After a few days of processing
at the Marburg Repo-Depot, as
it was called by the troops, a
small contingent of us were se-
lected for duty in Linz, Austria,
and again boarded a train. I
spent the entire trip with my
nose pressed to the window, and
I noted something I could not un-
derstand or identify — what ap-
peared to be hundreds of
refugees, in small groups, plod-
ding down roads. Some crossed
snow-covered fields, leading chil-
dren by the hand, with packs of
belongings on their backs. Old
people, hobbling along in the win-
ter cold, or being carried on
younger backs and by sturdier
legs than their own. What did it
mean, I wondered? What des-
peration could send these people
out into the winter's cold, to plod
their way from place to place?
What was their destination?
I later learned that those
groups were Jewish refugees,
making their way to Palestine.
Politically speaking, America
was doing nothing to aid the Jew-
ish refugees in their efforts to
reach Palestine.
However, humanitarian needs
required the American forces to
extend what limited aid we could
under such conditions. As a re-
sult, virtually all of those refugees
passed through the American
Zone of Occupation. We provid-
ed shelter and food for refugee
camps, and facilities for private
relief organizations who were
aiding the refugees.
The driving force that burned
in the hearts of those refugees
was the eternal hope that they
would live to see Palestine, to die
in the "Promised Land." Nothing
that lay between them and that
cherished goal could be as bad as
the hell they had just passed
through, as survivors of Nam con-
centration and death camps.
Now they looked forward to to-

,

morrow, when they would reach
Palestine.
Because the population of the
refugee camps was constantly
changing, it was difficult to know
how many rations were required. --
The Jewish people managing the
camps were not above inflating
the figures, with the idea that
any surplus food could be sold to
help raise needed money with
which to buy boats to cross the
Mediterranean.
The authorities hit upon the
expedient of regularly counting,
the people in camp. Since the
refugees were not confined to the
camp, the only time an accurati.-- ,
count could be made was in the
middle of the night.
That's when we counted them.
Squads of us would be sent out c,
at about 3 a.m., and we would
go through the pitiful barracks
and count the people in their
beds. Upon completion, the indi-
vidual counts would be tallied
and the rations for that number
of refugees issued.
It was a good plan, from a mil-
itary standpoint, and it resulted
in figures as accurate as possible,
to obtain. But it was a humili-
ating experience for those being
counted and for those of us doing
the counting. I've often wondered _
since, by whose order was the
richest country in the world re-
duced to such penurious action
that we could not afford to err on
the side of generosity.
As we made our rounds we
saw families, with children,
sometimes four and five to a bed,
under the most crowded condi-
tions you can imagine. Forty or
50 refugees, children and adults, --
and their few possessions, in bad-
ly heated barracks designed to
hold fewer than 20 soldiers. I
have never seen, either before
or since, such absolute poverty. J
Yet the spirit of "tomorrow in
Jerusalem" was everywhere.
As a young soldier, I had no
particular understanding of all
of this at the time. Only in later
years, when I had an opportu-
nity to read some of the books re-