The First Refugees Arrive at the Zeilsheim Camp (1945)

The Zeilsheim DP camp initially consisted of the wooden barracks of a former camp for Soviet slave laborers forced to work for I.G. Farben and was later expanded by the addition of factory housing units requisitioned from the firm Hoechst. When the camp opened in September 1945, it had 300 Jewish residents. By October 1946, the number of Jewish residents had risen to 3,563. There were still 2,617 remaining Jewish residents shortly before the camp closed in November 1948. The last DP camp, Föhrenwald, near Munich, did not close until 1957. Photo (1945) by E.M. Robinson.

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