DPs, mothers and pioneers: Women in the She'erit Hapletah

In the recent awakening of interest about topics pertaining to women and the Holocaust one aspect of the subject has almost completely been overlooked - that of Jewish women survivors during the first post-war years. This, in itself, is a multifaceted topic, ranging from their liberation and rehabilitation to their absorption into the cultural fabric of their newly adopted homelands. Here we shall concentrate upon one specific group of female survivors during the years 1945-1948, those of the "She'erit Hapletah" in liberated Germany