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“Physical rehabilitation without vocational rehabilitation is unfinished business”: The IRO’s Rehabilitation Programme for Displaced Persons with Disabilities, 1948‑1952

« La réadaptation physique sans réadaptation professionnelle est une tâche inachevée » : le programme de réadaptation de l’IRO pour les personnes déplacées handicapées, 1948‑1952
Johannes Glack
p. 161-182

Résumés

En examinant le programme de réadaptation de l’IRO pour les personnes déplacées (DPs) en situation de handicap, cet article aborde la manière dont la réadaptation est organisée et comprise par les institutions internationales après la Seconde Guerre mondiale. L’exclusion des DPs en situation de handicap de la réinstallation a conduit à la création de la catégorie des “hard core”, pour lesquels l’IRO crée un système de centres de réadaptation. Après une année de planification en 1948, 20 centres sont opérationnels entre 1949 et 1950 en Allemagne de l’Ouest, en Autriche, en Italie et en Suisse, afin de faciliter leur réadaptation et de les aider à être réinstallés.

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Notes de l’auteur

The research that led to this publication received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Programme (Grant Agreement no. 101053242). The views and opinions expressed are however those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Council Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

Texte intégral

  • 1 Letter from Dr. Eugen Messinger to Herr Mayer, 1 February 1949. American Jewish Joint Distribution (...)
  • 2 Ibid. supra.
  • 3 Ibid.
  • 4 Letter to Melvine Goldstein, re: Chemisen‑Kurs, 2 November 1949. JDC‑A, GC 1945‑54, Switzerland: Ad (...)

1In January 1949, a joint commission of the Jewish Agency’s Palestine Office and the Swiss Jewish Welfare Association (VSJF) visited the Bella Lui sanatorium and rehabilitation centre for Jewish tuberculosis patients in Montana, Switzerland. The purpose of the visit was to determine which displaced persons (DPs) were fit enough to be considered for immigration to Israel. Yet, instead of being welcomed by health‑impaired DPs eager to migrate to Israel, the commission faced opposition. Most patients “categorically refused to accept offered migration opportunities”.1 They were profoundly dissatisfied with the vocational training provided in the sanatorium, which was deemed “extremely inadequate”.2 For these DPs, starting a new life seemed nearly impossible, since they were poorly trained and thus unable to support themselves. Indeed, the training provided in the tailoring course offered at the sanatorium was severely inadequate. A visiting rabbi from the city of Bern found that the students were unable to sew together a single piece of clothing.3 The trainees argued that if they were to migrate to Israel with a tailoring qualification obtained in this sanatorium in their pockets, their incompetence would become known, placing them in a disadvantageous position. This would leave them in a predicament, requiring social support instead of being able to support themselves.4 Therefore, they saw no other option but to refuse to migrate until the quality of vocational training was improved.

2At first glance, the reaction of these DPs might seem surprising. Why would they refuse resettlement and choose to stay in the limbo of the migration system? This case of resettlement boycott can only be understood by considering the discourses of rehabilitation and disability during this period. Embedded in the reaction of these DPs is the bigger question around the purpose of rehabilitation and “usefulness” of an impaired refugee for society in the period after the Second World War. This article explores how the notion of economic “usefulness” shaped the organisation of rehabilitation for DPs with disabilities under the administration of the International Refugee Organization (IRO) and how DPs experienced and reacted to rehabilitation. It does so by examining the development and implementation of the IRO’s rehabilitation programme in Europe between 1948 and 1952.

  • 5 Ben Shephard, The Long Road Home: The Aftermath of the Second World War, London, Vintage, 2011 [200 (...)
  • 6 This number was determined in the “hard core survey” of 1948, as discussed later in this article.

3The ability to work, and thus to become a productive member of society in the receiving country, was one of the paradigms of the global migration regime after 1945.5 This excluded around 27,000 DPs with critical health conditions, who were perceived to be incapable of undertaking work, from migration schemes and left them stuck in Europe.6 The first three sections of the article examine how IRO officials defined this group of DPs as the so‑called “hard core” and understood rehabilitation. For the IRO, rehabilitation served the primary purpose of restoring DPs’ ability to work, rather than just providing medical assistance. In the second half of this contribution, I take a closer look at the planning, implementation and results of the IRO rehabilitation programme. The fourth section shows how, with the help of external advisors, the IRO started planning the programme in 1948, which aimed at a swift transformation of DPs with disabilities and chronic illnesses into “useful” and productive workers. Drawing on two case studies of protest, the fifth and sixth sections provide further insights into how the DPs themselves reacted to the programme. Short‑lived and underfunded, the programme was officially launched in the beginning of 1949 and was only fully operational in the second half of the year.

  • 7 Ruth Balint, “Children Left Behind: Family, Refugees and Immigration in Postwar Europe”, History Wo (...)
  • 8 For a recent in‑depth discussion of UNRRA’s use of the term, see Samantha K. Knapton and Katherine  (...)
  • 9 Susan Burch and Michael A. Rembis, “Re‑Membering the Past: Reflections on Disability Histories (Int (...)

4To scrutinise how rehabilitation was understood by the IRO, I work mostly on primary sources from the IRO Archives held by the French National Archives. Files in this archive are administrative in nature. Nevertheless, refugee voices are not absent in these sources. Appeals, letters of complaint and reports on DP organisations offer insights into refugee agency. To understand these primary sources, this article combines two different strands of historiography. Although the topic of DPs with disabilities is still highly under‑researched within the field of DP studies, Ruth Balint’s work on DP children with disabilities offers groundbreaking insights.7 Furthermore, the term “rehabilitation” in its different meanings gained more attention in recent years.8 Secondly, discussions on rehabilitation at a more theoretical level within the field of disability history have helped me better understand the broader context in which rehabilitation for DPs with disabilities took place under the IRO administration.9

Defining disability

  • 10 Susan Burch and Michael A. Rembis, “Re‑Membering the Past…”, art. cit., p. 3.
  • 11 Louise W. Holborn, The International Refugee Organization…, op. cit., p. 290.
  • 12 Memorandum IRO Director of Health to all Medical Officers, Chronic Sick Census, 8 April 1948, Archi (...)

5Health‑related challenges to migration after the Second World War created a variety of experiences and life stories. According to Susan Burch and Michael A. Rembis, disability, like other identity categories, “is not static or natural, nor is it consistently and readily self‑evident. Its boundaries must be continually policed and maintained through various discursive practices.”10 The IRO’s definition of disability represented one such tool of maintaining these social boundaries. Most diverse biographies of health conditions were subsumed under one label and defined with respect to their influence on migration. Disability was therefore defined as “an injury or condition which causes a substantial handicap obtaining or keeping employment of a kind suited to the person’s age, experience and qualification”.11 In a similar way, the IRO’s definition of a chronically sick person as a “person suffering from a condition of the body or personality […] which interferes with his occupation and normal physical and social life”12 expressed a focus on employability. Both definitions were geared towards the working capacity of a DP by highlighting the ability to “obtain or keep employment” and framing a chronic illness primarily as something “interfering with occupation”.

  • 13 These numbers were determined in the “hard core survey” in December 1948, discussed later in this p (...)

6This definition encompassed a wide range of health biographies. What was deemed a disability was determined by the immigration policies of the receiving countries. This resulted in the formation of a complex and heterogeneous group of individuals with diverse experiences of disability and migration, unified under a single label and frequently situated within a single rehabilitation facility. Within this heterogeneity, two shared characteristics can be identified: firstly, almost all of them were disabled as a consequence of war or persecution and not by birth. More than half of these DPs were afflicted with tuberculosis and its consequent effects, while the remainder experienced disability as a result of the loss of a limb, blindness or psychological conditions, among a range of ailments.13 A second cohesive factor among this group can be found in the fact that they all wished to migrate and start anew somewhere else. According to the sources, disability within a DP context can therefore be defined as a bodily condition that hindered migration and led to a prolonged stay in West Germany, Austria or Italy.

“The refugee’s health is his passport to any New World”: The origins of the hard core

  • 14 Jacques Vernant, The Refugee in the PostWar World, London, Allen & Unwin, 1953, p. 37.
  • 15 Gerard Daniel Cohen, In War’s Wake…, op. cit., p. 104.
  • 16 Staff Memo 159, Health Division US Zone HQ, Development of rehabilitation program, November 1951. A (...)
  • 17 Ruth Balint, “Children Left Behind…”, art. cit., p. 153.
  • 18 Ibid. supra, p. 153.
  • 19 Missions were sent by all countries recruiting DPs. David Nasaw, The Last Million, op. cit., p. 11.
  • 20 Ibid. supra, p. 337.

7Between 1948 and 1952, over one million DPs were resettled worldwide with the help of the IRO.14 Preceding and accompanying this process were intensive negotiations between the IRO and states around the world for resettlement schemes. Humanitarianism and charity were not the driving forces of receiving countries in accepting DPs. Rather, as Daniel Cohen elaborates, it was an economic urge to utilise this “available pool of labourers” which appealed to governments.15 Refugees with chronic health conditions, or in any other way declared disabled and economically “un‑useful”, became the least favoured for resettlement. The IRO Health Division’s doctrine that “the refugee’s health is his passport to any New World”16 required it to maintain a system of clinics, hospitals and sanatoria, mostly inherited from UNRRA.17 DPs had to undergo medical checks twice, firstly when entering a camp and once again during the selection process for migration.18 Recruiting missions toured DP camps in Europe to pick single young people with good health for resettlement.19 David Nasaw describes the situation in the first period of the IRO’s activities as “a buyer’s market”.20

  • 21 Ben Shephard, The Long Road Home…, op. cit., p. 345.
  • 22 Ibid. supra.
  • 23 David Nasaw, The Last Million…, op. cit., p. 451.
  • 24 Ruth Balint, “Children Left Behind…”, art. cit., p. 151.
  • 25 Staff Memo 159, Health Division US Zone HQ, Development of rehabilitation program, November 1951. A (...)
  • 26 Ibid. supra.

8The last step before resettlement, after preselection by recruiters, was mandatory medical checks, which “were no problem for a healthy person”,21 but many DPs had been weakened by the years in camps. As Ben Shepard puts it: “TB was rife, and so were venereal diseases. If one of its members had TB, a whole family’s chances of a future life would be spoiled.”22 Health screenings were the main mechanism for determining disability. It was there that a health condition became a disability, with effects on entire families.23 Family members, as R. Balint has shown, had to decide whether to leave a loved one behind and emigrate or to stay with them and miss the opportunity for resettlement.24 In many cases, DPs tried every means to get around health screenings.25 In one such case, for example, a DP knew about his TB, which would have been discovered in a blood test. He found a lookalike DP with whom he exchanged identity cards before the health test. After the other received his results and requested a control test, both were deemed eligible.26

  • 27 Louise W. Holborn, The International Refugee Organization…, op. cit., p. 481.
  • 28 Marie Dresden Lane, “‘Who Share Our Concern for These People’: The Resettlement of Unwanted Refugee (...)
  • 29 Inter office memorandum: Report on the hard‑core program, 10 June 1949. AN, AJ/43/654, folder Hard  (...)

9Once rejected by a selection mission due to health, one became part of the “hard core”. The IRO and voluntary organisations used this term to describe displaced persons with disabilities for whom resettlement was considered unlikely.27 Although the term “hard core” was already used under the IRO’s predecessor, UNRRA, its meaning shifted in 1948 when it became clearer that a portion of the DP population would end up with limited or no options for resettlement.28 DPs with disabilities, classified as the “medical hard core”, were just one category of “hard core” DPs. Other factors leading to this status included health, age, single motherhood or having a highly specialised academic education, among others.29

“Rehabilitation as a concept means more than medical recovery”: Theorising rehabilitation

  • 30 David Amato, Post‑War Vocational Rehabilitation, Memorandum of the War Manpower Commission, 20 Marc (...)
  • 31 Ibid. supra.

10“Physical rehabilitation without vocational rehabilitation is unfinished business.” As expressed in this quote from a US memorandum from 1943 on the organisation of postwar DP care, economic considerations of DP rehabilitation applied right from the beginning of postwar medical rehabilitation.30 The memorandum continues: “rehabilitation as a concept means more than medical recovery. The process involves not simply patching up the injured or diseased person at home or at a hospital but seeing that his ability to work is restored. Its importance is not simply humanitarian. It is economic.”31 The logic expressed here continued to shape post‑Second World War rehabilitation work through the period of UNRRA up until the IRO’s rehabilitation programme. To understand these implications better, it is necessary to take a closer look at rehabilitation in general and the above‑mentioned paradigm of rehabilitation.

  • 32 Gildas Bregain, “The Role of International Institutions…”, op. cit., p. 117.
  • 33 Beth Linker, War’s Waste: Rehabilitation in World War I America, Chicago, University of Chicago Pre (...)
  • 34 Henri‑Jacques Stiker, A History of Disability, op. cit., p. 122.
  • 35 Ibid. supra, p. 124.
  • 36 Ibid., p. 128.
  • 37 Ibid., p. 135.

11In the aftermath of the First World War, because of the vast numbers of impaired soldiers and war refugees, rehabilitation emerged as a doctrine.32 The enormous number of war‑wounded forced societies to reintegrate these masses into society, rather than deal with them as outcasts.33 Rehabilitation, therefore, as the French historian Henri‑Jacques Stiker puts it, in his influential study History of Disability, implied “returning to a point, to an a priori situation, the situation that existed for the able but one only postulated for the others. In any case, reference is to a norm.”34 An understanding of care for impaired people as rehabilitation rather than just as a medical procedure or simple cure for a physical condition was the quintessence of this social norm. Rehabilitation was the idea that an impairment creates a deficit that can and must be replaced and erased.35 Capitalist society does not accept unproductiveness. “Every impaired person becomes, like the war‑wounded, someone who lacks a place and not just an organ or faculty, someone for whom a place has to be made,”36 as H.‑J. Stiker elaborates. Rehabilitation thus meant adaption to a social norm and it was assumed that “only money and time is needed to bring each person closer to this norm, to reoccupy a normal place in the group of the able (the normal)”.37 An impaired person could not just be medically cared for but, foremost, had to be rehabilitated socially, and this was precisely the key idea behind the IRO’s rehabilitation programme.

  • 38 Nicola Burns, “Boundary Maintenance...”, op. cit., p. 309.
  • 39 Recent research focuses more on UNRRA and looks at rehabilitation in a broader sense, beyond disabi (...)
  • 40 Peter Gatrell, “Refugees and the Doctrine of ‘Rehabilitation’…”, art. cit., p. 1.

12With this concept in mind, an analysis of the rehabilitation of DPs with disabilities after the Second World War makes it possible to uncover different layers of embedded social norms and power relations. Ability/disability was the “prime mechanism of exclusion in immigration policy”38 for most countries, but it interplayed with other mechanisms of power like race or gender that were also present in rehabilitation efforts. Indeed, gendered assumptions on how rehabilitation and vocational training should be structured were prominent in postwar rehabilitation.39 Underlying the rehabilitation programme was a unifying idea of how a good, healthy refugee should be, or, as Peter Gatrell has noted, the “language of rehabilitation implied a uniform refugee population”,40 ignoring social and bodily differences. For the IRO, rehabilitation served as a kind of magic tool to be applied to DPs to make them desirable for receiving countries.

The genesis of the IRO rehabilitation programme, 1948

  • 41 Louise W. Holborn, The International Refugee Organization…, op. cit., p. 289.
  • 42 Letter from Myer Cohen to Mary Switzer. AN, AJ/43/347, folder Rehabilitation.

13The idea for a special IRO rehabilitation programme formed in March 1948, within the context of planning for vocational training.41 The initial programme was met with much reservation, as Myer Cohen, IRO assistant director general, pointed out in 1951: “We were very slow in getting the medical rehabilitation program under way, principally because of the feeling among people unfamiliar with this type of program, that it was an unnecessary frill and also costly.”42 What rehabilitation meant in practice might have remained unclear to some IRO personnel and its purpose therefore a mystery.

  • 43 Letter from R. L. Coigny to P. Evans, 18 January 1949. Ibid. supra, also Minutes of conference on r (...)
  • 44 Letter from H. Balme to H. Kennedy, PCIRO, 16 August 1948. Ibid., folder Vocational Training of the (...)

14To overcome this obstacle, the IRO Health Division appointed two British physicians as special consultants, Harold Balme and Peter Edwards, to assist the newly established IRO rehabilitation board during the planning period of the programme.43 While P. Edwards was pioneer in British research on TB, H. Balme, as a specialist on rehabilitation, had a significant influence on the IRO’s understanding of rehabilitation. H. Balme himself was physically disabled and even had to resign his service to the IRO in January 1949 due to health reasons, having been unable to travel since November 1948.44 Despite the relatively brief period of his involvement with the IRO, he emerged as a figure of considerable influence in the shaping of the organisation’s approach to rehabilitation by providing significant guidance on the conceptualisation of the rehabilitation process.

  • 45 Harold Balme, “Rehabilitation Centres”, British Medical Journal, vol. 2, no. 4271, 14 November 1942 (...)
  • 46 Ibid. supra, p. 47.

15H. Balme’s approach to rehabilitation was fundamentally aligned with the previously analysed school of thought, as evidenced by his writing. In several commentaries and articles published before his involvement with the IRO,45 he addressed the importance of the “resettlement of the rehabilitated patient in some form of useful employment”,46 and advocated for “a system of patient grading” according to the degree of their disability to ensure that each individual undergoing rehabilitation received the requisite level of care. Furthermore, rehabilitation should be managed by a specialised team comprising trained professionals in rehabilitation facilities. All these measures —the establishment of rehabilitation centres, staffed by specialised rehabilitation teams, where care was provided according to disability grades—became central elements of the IRO’s rehabilitation plan in accordance with H. Balme’s recommendations.

  • 47 Letter from H. Balme to H. Kennedy, PCIRO, 16 August 1948. AN, AJ/43/347, folder Vocational Trainin (...)
  • 48 Agenda for Conference on medical rehabilitation and vocational training of the disabled, 7 March 19 (...)
  • 49 Minutes of Conference on medical rehabilitation and vocational training of the disabled, 22‑23 Sept (...)

16Prior to the establishment of the first rehabilitation centre, the IRO had to assess the nature and scope of the situation. H. Balme suggested that a statistical survey on DPs with disabilities should be the first essential step to be taken.47 As a second measure, a registry was to be established based on the results of the survey, with all identified DPs being provided with disability registration cards. In his “Governing Principles in the Rehabilitation and Resettlement of the Disabled”, a two‑page IRO guideline for the development of the rehabilitation programme, H. Balme concluded by underlining “the virtual importance of limiting rehabilitation to those with good prospects of becoming employable, even if only in a minor capacity”.48 Balme presented this guideline at a first conference on rehabilitation in September 1948, which can be seen as a starting point for the operational stage of the rehabilitation programme. Representatives from all involved IRO divisions gathered in Geneva to discuss and agree on the proposed plan by H. Balme.49 After the conference, the two consultants undertook extensive travel and visited IRO camps and sanatoria from October to December 1948.

  • 50 Letter from R. L. Coigny, IRO Health Division to all chief medical officers in Germany, Austria and (...)

17To coordinate the planning efforts, a second IRO Conference on rehabilitation was held on 18 November 1948, in Geneva.50 P. Edwards’s speech at the conference offers insights into his approach to rehabilitation, which also focused on restoring work capacity and employability:

  • 51 Minutes of Conference on Rehabilitation, held at IRO HQ Lemgo, 18 November 1948. Ibid. supra.

It is important that rehabilitation should begin at diagnosis and that the sick should be given hope, guidance as to possibilities of employment and encouragement to work. […] I would like to see the TBs collected together in reasonable sized units, dealt with medically and educated as far as possible despite language barriers etc., and it is most important to teach them a trade.51

  • 52 Ibid.
  • 53 Ibid.

18This proposal to create specialised centres for the collective treatment and rehabilitation of disabled persons with health complications was put forth at the conference for discussion and consequently agreed on as the main tool for rehabilitation. It was noted that the establishment of these centres “would mean large scale organisation and improved accommodation as the discharged patients were at present living under most unsuitable conditions”.52 The conditions in DP camps were not only inadequate from a medical point of view but were also a potential hindrance to resettlement: “the effect on morale was not good when a TB person unaccepted for resettlement lived amongst all anxious to emigrate”.53

  • 54 Letter from Health Division to office services branch, re: printing of disability registry cards, 2 (...)
  • 55 Letter from Myer Cohen to Harold S. Smith, 15 March 1949. AN, AJ/43/591 Medical Rehabilitation; Lou (...)
  • 56 Report by C. J. Edmonds on the Third Session of the IRO General Council. National Archives of the U (...)
  • 57 Letter from Boris Sapir to B. Goldman, 14 September 1949, Numbers of disabled DPs‑Hard core. JDC‑A, (...)

19The last step of H. Balme’s guideline, the distribution of disability registration cards, was carried out by November 1948. All DPs registered as “hard core” received a card. The fact that the IRO printed 35,000 cards gives an impression of the supposed numbers.54 The actual numbers were available shortly afterwards, when the “Hard Core Survey” was presented in December 1948. It determined that 27,000 DPs in Germany, Austria and Italy constituted the “medical hard core”.55 Together with more than 36,000 dependents, 63,000 DPs were thus directly affected by a disability in their migration, according to the survey’s findings. The survey did not raise any sociographic specifics, like age, former trades or education, but children and elderly were certainly among the “medical hard core”. Neither is the precise methodology employed in conducting the survey disclosed in the archives, rendering it plausible that parts of the survey may have been based on estimations. A subsequent survey of the “hard core”, conducted in June 1949, employed a random sample of 10% of the DP population residing in Italy, Austria and West Germany. This survey yielded a much higher total of 48,900 DPs classified as part of the “medical hard core”.56 And when the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) conducted its own survey of the Jewish medical “hard core” in Germany, Italy and Austria in 1949, only the figures for the US zone in Germany, 1,977 patients, were based on actual figures, while the data for Austria and Italy were mere estimates and resulted in a total of 4,200 Jewish “hard core” patients.57 Across all statistical data, tuberculosis patients invariably constituted about half of the “hard core” population. Chronic diseases and physical disabilities accounted for an additional 20% each, while patients with mental illness constituted approximately 10% of the total.

“One of the most important activities”: The implementation of the rehabilitation programme, 1949

  • 58 Louise W. Holborn, The International Refugee Organization…, op. cit., p. 290.
  • 59 Minutes of Conference on Medical Rehabilitation and Vocational Training of the Disabled, held in Ge (...)

20It was not until 1949 that rehabilitation really became the word of the hour in the IRO. In February 1949, the operational phase of the rehabilitation programme was officially launched.58 In March 1949, the IRO’s director general declared rehabilitation as “one of the most important activities in which IRO will be engaged through the forthcoming months” and noted that he hoped “that as a result disabled refugees can again be considered valuable to the economy of any nation”.59

  • 60 AJDC Rehabilitation Programmes in Germany, 20 May 1949. JDC‑Archives, Geneva Collection 19451954, (...)
  • 61 Report “Hard Core paper” by IRO Health Division and Division for Employment and Vocational Training (...)
  • 62 Letter from IRO Health Division to Chief Medical Officers in all Zones of Germany and Austria, Re: (...)
  • 63 Ibid. supra.

21The only tool to achieve this goal were rehabilitation centres, supposed to provide follow‑up healthcare to DPs after leaving hospitals while mainly focusing on the vocational training aspect of rehabilitation.60 Originally, every operational zone was to host one “tuberculosis rehabilitation centre” and one “physical rehabilitation centre”. In the tuberculosis rehabilitation centres, DPs would receive care and training for six to nine months, while in the centres for other kinds of disabilities and chronic health conditions, patient stays were planned to be much shorter, about six to nine weeks.61 These short time periods proved insufficient to fully rehabilitate DPs and, in effect, many stayed much longer in the centres. Each centre should host up to 200 DPs and be located “not too far from camps where the families of people undergoing instruction could be lodged” and in “areas of population concentration”.62 The creation of these centres was declared a “first priority”.63

  • 64 AN, AJ/43/347, folder Rehabilitation.
  • 65 For further information on the role of the two most important Jewish organizations JDC and Organisa (...)
  • 66 Internal IRO Report on Medical Rehabilitation and Vocational Training of the Disabled, US‑Zone Germ (...)
  • 67 Letter from O. E. Cound, Chief of Operations IRO Italy, to Myer Cohen, IRO Assistant Director Gener (...)
  • 68 Health Report US‑Zone, June 1949. AN, AJ/43/1021 Health Reports Austria.
  • 69 Ibid. supra, Report for November 1949.

22The first rehabilitation centre was opened in November 1948 in Passau, a border town between Bavaria and Upper Austria in the US zone.64 This first centre was dedicated to Jewish DPs. It had space for up to a hundred people and was managed by the JDC.65 It offered courses in typewriting, machine sewing, leatherwork, dressmaking, radio skills and telephone and telegraph techniques. A second centre for Jewish DPs was opened in Bayerisch Gmain, also in Bavaria, while in Wartenberg the IRO provided care for TB patients in the first rehabilitation centre for non‑Jewish DPs by the end of 1948.66 This illustrates the dynamic nature of the whole programme and also highlights the fact that rehabilitation for Jewish DPs was facilitated faster than for non‑Jewish DPs, owing to the initiative of the JDC, which supplied funds and also operated some of the centres. In these cases, the IRO managed the rehabilitation training programme, and provided physicians, X‑ray facilities for tuberculosis checks and medical equipment, while the JDC managed the day‑to‑day business and was involved financially.67 This cooperation was necessary for the IRO, owing to the programme’s financial situation. In Austria, for example, the IRO did not manage to open its own centre until mid‑1949, and only then took over the rehabilitation centre for Jewish DPs in Ebelsberg from the JDC, as noted in the IRO health report for June 1949: “We have been obliged to request AJDC to continue to look after the financial side of the centre, which they have accepted until we are in a position to assume the financial responsibility as well.”68 A centre for non‑Jewish DPs in Austria was only opened in November 1949 in the US zone.69

  • 70 Report by Spencer Mapes “Summary Report on Rehabilitation Programme”, Annex 1 “Table of Rehabilitat (...)
  • 71 Minutes of the third rehabilitation conference, 10‑11 March 1949. AN, AJ/43/1026, Austria rehabilit (...)
  • 72 Of the nine centres for Jewish DPs, one was in Austria, two were in Italy, one in Switzerland and f (...)
  • 73 Third Special Session of IRO General Council, further recommendations of the director general with (...)

23November 1949 also saw the peak of the IRO’s rehabilitation activities, with as many as 20 IRO rehabilitation centres operating in Germany (15), Austria (2), Italy (1) and Switzerland (1).70 Two of the centres in Germany were dedicated to rehabilitating blind DPs, one in the British zone and one in the US zone.71 Almost half of all the centres —a total of nine—were Jewish DP centres, while the other eleven had a mixed population.72 This sudden increase in rehabilitation activities was made possible through an increase of the programme’s budget. While for the fiscal year of 1948/49 only $100,000 was dedicated to rehabilitation, the next year’s rehabilitation budget was increased significantly to $1.25 million.73

  • 74 Minutes of the rehabilitation working committee meeting, 23 January 1950. AN, AJ/43/347, folder Reh (...)
  • 75 Minutes of the rehabilitation working committee meeting, 8 August 1949. Ibid. supra.

24Admittance to rehabilitation centres was voluntary. The original selection procedure entailed individual interviews by welfare, medical and employment officers to assess rehabilitation potential. This procedure was abandoned in the summer of 1949, when DPs were offered the possibility to directly register for rehabilitation centres at camps, sanatoria or hospitals.74 This change in procedure stemmed from the widespread scepticism among DPs towards the centres and the resulting difficulty in motivating “hard core” DPs to move there. Therefore, the centres were never utilised to their full capacity. The opposition of some DPs to these centres had economic and personal grounds. Some feared that they might lose a job that they had acquired while undergoing rehabilitation, while others had reservations that entering a rehabilitation centre might actually become an obstacle for migration rather than aiding it by marking them as in need of rehabilitation.75

  • 76 Louise W. Holborn, The International Refugee Organization…, op. cit. p. 291. Similarly, DPs refused (...)
  • 77 Minutes of the rehabilitation working committee, 26 September 1949. AN, AJ/43/347, Rehabilitation M (...)
  • 78 Minutes, 10 October 1949. Ibid. supra.
  • 79 Minutes, 26 September 1949. Ibid.

25Equally importantly, DPs were hesitant to leave their families behind to enter a faraway rehabilitation centre.76 Possibly because rehabilitation centres were perceived as places of separation, the IRO initially hesitated to allow healthy family members to accompany patients. However, given the great opposition to this, the IRO eventually permitted family members in most centres. Where this was not possible, it offered them free travel passes to facilitate visits.77 Furthermore, recruitment and counselling units visited hospitals, camps and sanatoria in Germany and Austria to screen recruitment movies for the centres to patients. To overcome resistance to the centres, the IRO also held an open day at Wartberg rehabilitation centre in Germany, where representatives of the DP press were invited to cover the matter in a positive light.78 These measures helped to increase the numbers of DPs undergoing medical rehabilitation, but the IRO continued to struggle to attract DPs to rehabilitation centres. In September 1949, no area of operations had fulfilled its admittance quota.79

  • 80 Laure Humbert, Reinventing French Aid…, op. cit., p. 255; On the history of vocational training in (...)
  • 81 Laure Humbert, Reinventing French Aid…, op. cit., p. 258.

26In the eyes of the organisation, vocational training not only helped DPs develop skills, fostering their migration opportunities, but would also boost their self‑confidence.80 Aside from this proclaimed positive function, vocational training “represented a means through which older forms of gender and ethnic ordering could be re‑established”,81 as Laure Humbert has asserted. By encouraging women to embrace domestic work, while men trained in “masculine” pursuits, vocational training, like rehabilitation, can be analysed as a tool for the reestablishment of social norms in the postwar period. This tendency was also present in the vocational training within the rehabilitation programme.

  • 82 Untitled typewritten document (Letter from Ebelsberg Committee to their friends in Grottaferrata in (...)
  • 83 Resolution, translated from Yiddish, 11 May 1950. Ibid. supra, item‑ID 747043.

27As illustrated by the case of the B. Lui rehabilitation centre at the outset of this article, health‑impaired DPs were not passive recipients but used the paradigm of rehabilitation to try to gain access to better migration opportunities. A group of DPs at the Ebelsberg rehabilitation centre acted in a similar way to the patients of the B. Lui sanatorium, but tried a different, more explicitly political approach. Under the name Committee for the Weakened Olim, they held a self‑organised congress in Ebelsberg on 7 May 1950, to which they also invited Jewish DPs from other rehabilitation centres in West Germany and Italy.82 The name of the self‑proclaimed group indicated a certain narrative, as they did not categorise their health status as disabled or handicapped but rather used the term “weakened”, which labelled their state of health as temporary. Furthermore, by referring to themselves as olim, the Hebrew term for individuals who want to migrate to Israel, they emphasised their Zionist endeavour, with Israel as the only option for migration. The participants of the congress, most of them from the Ebelsberg centre itself, agreed on a resolution at the end of the day.83

  • 84 Ibid.
  • 85 Ibid.

28The central demands of the resolution were not primarily focused, as one might expect, on health care, but on work opportunities. Out of the six demands of the resolution, four referred directly to this issue. The DPs demanded to be trained in agricultural work to meet the ideal of kibbutz life. This was followed by a call for the lifting of custom regulations for this group of DPs in order to allow them to take tools and other equipment with them and to make it easier for them to open up businesses as a basis for a new, self‑sufficient existence. By emphasising work‑related aspects, they made it clear that they were willing and able to integrate into the labour market instead of just requiring medical care. They concluded the resolution with the statement that the sick Jewish DPs would “not stay a day longer in the land of Mauthausen and Ebensee”84 and the demand that improvements in the health care conditions in Israel must be provided so that they could leave immediately. Thus, after showing that they were valuable immigrants, the statement also underlined that they, just like any other European Jewish immigrant to Israel, were after all victims of the Nazis.85 Similar to the Swiss case of B. Lui, the rehabilitees in Austria did not oppose the rehabilitation programme in the centre but demanded an improvement. Based on the resolution, rehabilitation for them served a practical purpose, geared towards migration.

The end of the programme, 1950‑1952

  • 86 Letter from R. L. Coigny, IRO Director of Health to Karl Evang, Norwegian Social Ministry, 17 Janua (...)

29These efforts to rehabilitate “medical hard core” DPs began to show significant results in 1950. By 30 November 1950, there were still nine rehabilitation centres operating, providing services to a total of 1,778 refugees. Of these, 1,450 were receiving vocational training, of whom 851 were TB cases.86 The situation at the end of 1950 differed greatly from that of the preceding year. Significant numbers of DPs with disabilities had been able to resettle, owing to special “hard core” schemes and the opening of immigration possibilities for Jewish DPs to Israel in 1950. Nevertheless, some 2,000 DPs with disabilities remained under IRO care, either because they were rejected by existing schemes or declined the options offered to them. Until it was abolished, the IRO, along with other aid organisations, sought to find solutions for each of these refugees.

  • 87 Letter from Ernst C. Grigg, IRO Director of Field Services, to O. E. Cound, IRO Chief Italy, re: me (...)

30As for the equipment and facilities, the IRO had anticipated that Germany and Austria would assume responsibility for most of the centres and ensure their continued operation. However, primarily due to financial considerations and concerns that the centres would become a long‑term solution, Germany and Austria declined, resulting in only a limited portion of the IRO infrastructure being used on a permanent basis. As for Italy, all rehabilitation actions ceased on 30 June 1951.87

  • 88 Letter from Trainees Committee of IRO Rehab. Centre Luttensee to D. Kingsley, IRO General Director, (...)
  • 89 Ibid.
  • 90 Ibid.

31Most of the equipment was sold. In select instances, however, the DPs themselves managed to take part in this process and pressed for more innovative solutions. One such instance is the case of the Luttensee rehabilitation centre for Baltic and Russian DPs in the US zone in Germany. This case also exemplifies the process of closing a rehabilitation centre and DPs’ reactions to it. The inmates were informed of the imminent closure of the centre. In Germany, any displaced person who remained in the country was designated as a “homeless alien”. The implication for “hard core” DPs was that, upon departing the IRO facility, a DP would be deemed rehabilitated and prepared for employment, regardless of the actual circumstances of their situation. The nearly 300 DPs in this centre collectively established a “Trainees Committee” and submitted a joint appeal to the IRO in August 1951.88 It is noteworthy that their appeal did not pertain to the provision of extended medical care or rehabilitation services. Instead, they sought permission to retain the machinery and tools from the workshops within the rehabilitation centre for their own use following the centre’s closure. They asserted that it would be challenging for a former DP without disabilities to secure employment in Germany, and that this challenge would be compounded for refugees with disabilities. Subsequently, they feared that they would remain without work or would have to take up a job unsuited to their health and outside of their profession learned in the rehabilitation centre, “as IRO had failed to solve such important part of rehabilitation as securing a job for rehabilitated trainees”.89 They argued that if they were permitted to procure the necessary tools from the closing centre, they would be able to establish their own tailoring or radio repair businesses, which would otherwise be unfeasible due to a lack of financial resources to purchase the requisite equipment. Given the loss of “home, relatives, and the chance of migration”,90 they depended on the IRO to help them restore hope.

  • 91 Inter‑office memo, Chief of IRO Supply Division to Division of Voluntary Societies, re: Letter from (...)
  • 92 However, two months later, in November 1951, this policy was revoked, and no further donations were (...)

32The appeal was discussed by various IRO divisions, all of which expressed “extreme sympathy”91 for the proposal. Initially, however, bureaucratic constraints made it difficult to grant the tools as a gift. After several weeks of discussion, a solution was eventually found and the appeal was accepted, allowing the requested tools to be provided to the DPs.92

33Like the DPs from the Luttensee rehabilitation centre, many of those still without permanent solutions were confronted with the closing of the facilities where they had spent the last months or years. The UNHCR and NGOs like the JDC continued to take care of them and negotiated with numerous states to find permanent solutions for those still in camps or care facilities after the IRO ceased operations. Thanks to this active advocacy, schemes with Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and other countries were agreed on in the years following 1952, and most refugees were resettled to permanent care facilities there.

  • 93 Letter from Henry H. Kessler to R. L. Coigny, 11 September 1959. AN, AJ/43/347, folder Vocational T (...)
  • 94 Minutes of first session of the Ad Hoc Technical Working Group on Rehabilitation of the physically (...)

34IRO leadership and leading professionals in the field of rehabilitation deemed the IRO rehabilitation programme to have been a big success (at least publicly), paving the way for a bigger UN programme of rehabilitation. Henry H. Kessler, a US specialist on rehabilitation and head of one of the most important welfare organisations for people with disabilities at that time, assessed the IRO rehabilitation programme as “a model for all the world to see”.93 Headed by H. Balme, the Ad Hoc Technical Working Group on Rehabilitation of the Physically Disabled was established by the United Nations at the end of 1950, aiming to intensify care for disabled people around the world.94 Donald Kingsley, director general of the IRO, offered his help to the UN in this endeavour:

In the operation of its medical rehabilitation centres, IRO has gained a considerable amount of practical experience in this field, and it is considered that this experience will enable IRO to make a valuable contribution towards the preparation of a coordinated international programme for rehabilitation […].

  • 95 Report on refugees requiring institutional care in IRO installations as of 30 June 1951, 6 August 1 (...)
  • 96 Letter from Egon Fink to Akiva Kohane, closure of camp Asten, 22 July 1963. JDC‑A, GC 45‑54, Folder (...)

35Despite these endorsements of the IRO programme, its practical success was overshadowed by the hundreds of DPs who were compelled to remain in a state of limbo following the IRO’s closure of its operations. In Austria, there were 871 “hard core” DPs with 294 family members, amounting to a total of 1,165 refugees without a permanent solution.95 The figures in Germany were even more significant. The primary objective of the rehabilitation programme, which aimed to facilitate the resettlement of all DPs with disabilities and chronic health conditions, was ultimately not fully achieved. In some cases, refugees with disabilities were compelled to remain in camps until the beginning of the 1960s. The issue of these remaining refugees from the Second World War resurfaced during UN World Refugee Year, which led to renewed attention and the allocation of funds to support their eventual resettlement. As for Jewish refugees, the last “hard core” case left Asten camp in Upper Austria in 1963.96

36Returning to the example of the resettlement boycott in the B. Lui rehabilitation centre mentioned in the introduction, we now see how the protest was embedded in a paradigm of rehabilitation. Deemed as economically “un‑useful”, DPs with disability were excluded from migration. Only by going through a rehabilitation centre could they become “whole” and worthy of resettlement. DPs themselves endorsed the rehabilitation paradigm by presenting themselves as capable of working to foster their migration wishes after having completed the rehabilitation programme.

  • 97 Peter Gatrell, “Refugees and the Doctrine of Rehabilitation…”, art. cit., p. 11.

37As P. Gatrell observed, rehabilitation was a top‑down programme, imposed on refugees from above, and for them, never with them.97 The same was true for the IRO’s rehabilitation programme. With the help of two external consultants, the IRO planned its rehabilitation programme for DPs with disabilities in 1948, with rehabilitation centres as the core element. Much effort was put into the establishment of these rehabilitation centres in 1949, yet shortly thereafter, in 1950, half of them were closed down.

38One fundamental aspect has only been touched upon. The very premise of the IRO rehabilitation programme, if we consider H.‑J. Stiker’s ideas about rehabilitation and capitalist society, was one of optimising human capital. DPs with disabilities, most of whom were victims of Nazi racist and eugenic ideology, once again had their value as human beings measured by their ability to work. Further research is needed to deepen our understanding of how disability was constructed by international organisations such as the IRO and to what extent eugenic ideas structured migration regimes after 1945.

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Notes

1 Letter from Dr. Eugen Messinger to Herr Mayer, 1 February 1949. American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee Archives, Geneva Collection 1945‑1954 (hereafter JDC‑A, GC 1945‑54), Switzerland: Administration 1946‑1950, 1952‑1953, item‑ID 2027333.

2 Ibid. supra.

3 Ibid.

4 Letter to Melvine Goldstein, re: Chemisen‑Kurs, 2 November 1949. JDC‑A, GC 1945‑54, Switzerland: Administration 1946‑1950, 1952‑1953, item‑ID 2027332.

5 Ben Shephard, The Long Road Home: The Aftermath of the Second World War, London, Vintage, 2011 [2009], p. 334.

6 This number was determined in the “hard core survey” of 1948, as discussed later in this article.

7 Ruth Balint, “Children Left Behind: Family, Refugees and Immigration in Postwar Europe”, History Workshop Journal, vol. 82, 2016, no. 1, p. 151‑72, Doi: 10.1093/hwj/dbw021; Ruth Balint, Destination Elsewhere: Displaced Persons and Their Quest to Leave Postwar Europe, Ithaca/New York, Cornell University Press, 2021, p. 64‑73.

8 For a recent in‑depth discussion of UNRRA’s use of the term, see Samantha K. Knapton and Katherine Rossy (eds), Relief and Rehabilitation for A Post‑War World: Humanitarian Intervention and the UNRRA, London, Bloomsbury, “Histories of internationalism”, 2024 [2023]. Contributions on rehabilitation within DP studies include, among others, Louise W. Holborn, The International Refugee Organization: A Specialized Agency of the United Nations. Its History and Work, 1946‑1952, London/New York, Oxford University Press, 1956; Ben Shephard, The Long Road Home: The Aftermath of the Second World War, London, Vintage, 2011 [2009]; Gerard Daniel Cohen, In War’s Wake: Europe’s Displaced Persons in the Postwar Order, Oxford/New York, Oxford University Press, “Oxford Studies in International History”, 2012; Peter Gatrell, “Refugees and the Doctrine of ‘rehabilitation’ in the Mid‑Twentieth Century”, unpublished manuscript, 2013; David Nasaw, The Last Million: Europe’s Displaced Persons from World War to Cold War, New York, Penguin Press, 2020; Laure Humbert, Reinventing French Aid: The Politics of Humanitarian Relief in FrenchOccupied Germany, 1945‑1952, New York, Cambridge University Press, 2021.

9 Susan Burch and Michael A. Rembis, “Re‑Membering the Past: Reflections on Disability Histories (Introduction)”, in Susan Burch and Michael A. Rembis (eds), Disability Histories, Urbana, University of Illinois Press, 2014, p. 1‑14; Gildas Bregain, “The Role of International Institutions in the Process of Categorization of ‘Disabled People’ (1930s‑1975)”, in Roy Hanes, Ivan Brown and Nancy E. Hansen (eds), The Routledge History of Disability, Milton Park/Abingdon, Routledge, “The Routledge Histories”, 2017, p. 117‑132; Henri‑Jacques Stiker, A History of Disability, new ed., William Sayers (trad.), Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, “Corporealities: Discourses of Disability”, 2019; Nicola Burns, “Boundary Maintenance: Exploring the Intersections of Disability and Migration”, in Nick Watson and Simo Vehmas (eds)., Routledge Handbook of Disability Studies, 2nd ed., London/New York, Routledge, “Routledge International Handbooks”, 2020, p. 305‑332, Doi: 10.4324/9780429430817-22.

10 Susan Burch and Michael A. Rembis, “Re‑Membering the Past…”, art. cit., p. 3.

11 Louise W. Holborn, The International Refugee Organization…, op. cit., p. 290.

12 Memorandum IRO Director of Health to all Medical Officers, Chronic Sick Census, 8 April 1948, Archives nationales, Pierrefitte‑sur‑Seine (hereafter AN), AJ/43/749, folder Monthly Narrative Reports, Health Austria.

13 These numbers were determined in the “hard core survey” in December 1948, discussed later in this paper.

14 Jacques Vernant, The Refugee in the PostWar World, London, Allen & Unwin, 1953, p. 37.

15 Gerard Daniel Cohen, In War’s Wake…, op. cit., p. 104.

16 Staff Memo 159, Health Division US Zone HQ, Development of rehabilitation program, November 1951. AN, AJ/43/843, General Medical Matters and Reports.

17 Ruth Balint, “Children Left Behind…”, art. cit., p. 153.

18 Ibid. supra, p. 153.

19 Missions were sent by all countries recruiting DPs. David Nasaw, The Last Million, op. cit., p. 11.

20 Ibid. supra, p. 337.

21 Ben Shephard, The Long Road Home…, op. cit., p. 345.

22 Ibid. supra.

23 David Nasaw, The Last Million…, op. cit., p. 451.

24 Ruth Balint, “Children Left Behind…”, art. cit., p. 151.

25 Staff Memo 159, Health Division US Zone HQ, Development of rehabilitation program, November 1951. AN, AJ/43/843, General Medical Matters and Reports.

26 Ibid. supra.

27 Louise W. Holborn, The International Refugee Organization…, op. cit., p. 481.

28 Marie Dresden Lane, “‘Who Share Our Concern for These People’: The Resettlement of Unwanted Refugees by the International Refugee Organization”, Social Service Review, vol. 26, no. 3, 1952, p. 274, <http://www.jstor.org/stable/30018950>.

29 Inter office memorandum: Report on the hard‑core program, 10 June 1949. AN, AJ/43/654, folder Hard Core.

30 David Amato, Post‑War Vocational Rehabilitation, Memorandum of the War Manpower Commission, 20 March 1943. UN‑Archives, S‑1271‑0000‑0198‑00001, Folder “Rehabilitation of Physically Handicapped”.

31 Ibid. supra.

32 Gildas Bregain, “The Role of International Institutions…”, op. cit., p. 117.

33 Beth Linker, War’s Waste: Rehabilitation in World War I America, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2014, p. 4.

34 Henri‑Jacques Stiker, A History of Disability, op. cit., p. 122.

35 Ibid. supra, p. 124.

36 Ibid., p. 128.

37 Ibid., p. 135.

38 Nicola Burns, “Boundary Maintenance...”, op. cit., p. 309.

39 Recent research focuses more on UNRRA and looks at rehabilitation in a broader sense, beyond disability.

40 Peter Gatrell, “Refugees and the Doctrine of ‘Rehabilitation’…”, art. cit., p. 1.

41 Louise W. Holborn, The International Refugee Organization…, op. cit., p. 289.

42 Letter from Myer Cohen to Mary Switzer. AN, AJ/43/347, folder Rehabilitation.

43 Letter from R. L. Coigny to P. Evans, 18 January 1949. Ibid. supra, also Minutes of conference on rehab.

44 Letter from H. Balme to H. Kennedy, PCIRO, 16 August 1948. Ibid., folder Vocational Training of the Unfit.

45 Harold Balme, “Rehabilitation Centres”, British Medical Journal, vol. 2, no. 4271, 14 November 1942, p. 589‑590, <http://www.jstor.org/stable/20324623>; Harold Balme, “Some Problems of Rehabilitation”, British Medical Journal, vol. 2, no. 4305, 10 July 1943, p. 47‑49, <http://www.jstor.org/stable/20326647>.

46 Ibid. supra, p. 47.

47 Letter from H. Balme to H. Kennedy, PCIRO, 16 August 1948. AN, AJ/43/347, folder Vocational Training of the Unfit.

48 Agenda for Conference on medical rehabilitation and vocational training of the disabled, 7 March 1949, Appendix A: Governing Principles in the Rehabilitation and Resettlement of the Disabled by Harold Balme, 22 September 1948. AN, AJ/43/591, folder Medical Rehabilitation.

49 Minutes of Conference on medical rehabilitation and vocational training of the disabled, 22‑23 September 1948. Ibid. supra.

50 Letter from R. L. Coigny, IRO Health Division to all chief medical officers in Germany, Austria and Italy, 15 October 1948. AN, AJ/43/347, folder Vocational Training of the Unfit.

51 Minutes of Conference on Rehabilitation, held at IRO HQ Lemgo, 18 November 1948. Ibid. supra.

52 Ibid.

53 Ibid.

54 Letter from Health Division to office services branch, re: printing of disability registry cards, 24 November 1948. Ibid.

55 Letter from Myer Cohen to Harold S. Smith, 15 March 1949. AN, AJ/43/591 Medical Rehabilitation; Louise W. Holborn, The International Refugee Organization…, op. cit., p. 289. Notably, the figures in the primary sources are consistently around 27,000, whereas Holborn mentions 26,000.

56 Report by C. J. Edmonds on the Third Session of the IRO General Council. National Archives of the UK (TNA), FO 371/78164.

57 Letter from Boris Sapir to B. Goldman, 14 September 1949, Numbers of disabled DPs‑Hard core. JDC‑A, NYC 1945‑54, folder Hard‑Core, 1949‑1950, item‑ID 623885.

58 Louise W. Holborn, The International Refugee Organization…, op. cit., p. 290.

59 Minutes of Conference on Medical Rehabilitation and Vocational Training of the Disabled, held in Geneva 10‑11 March 1949, page 1, “Purpose”. AN, AJ/43/347, folder Vocational Training of the Unfit.

60 AJDC Rehabilitation Programmes in Germany, 20 May 1949. JDC‑Archives, Geneva Collection 19451954, Folder GER.565, item 2051848.

61 Report “Hard Core paper” by IRO Health Division and Division for Employment and Vocational Training, 3 September 1949. AN, AJ/43/347, folder Rehabilitation.

62 Letter from IRO Health Division to Chief Medical Officers in all Zones of Germany and Austria, Re: Rehabilitation Centres, 8 February 1949. AN, AJ/43/348, folder Rehabilitation Centres.

63 Ibid. supra.

64 AN, AJ/43/347, folder Rehabilitation.

65 For further information on the role of the two most important Jewish organizations JDC and Organisation for Rehabilitation through Training (ORT) in postwar relief, see Avinoam J. Patt, Anita Grossmann, Linda G. Levi and Maud S. Mandel (eds), The JDC at 100: A Century of Humanitarianism, Detroit, Wayne State University Press, 2019; Sarah Kavanaugh, ORT, the Second War and the Rehabilitation of Holocaust Survivors, London/Portland, Vallentine Mitchell, 2008.

66 Internal IRO Report on Medical Rehabilitation and Vocational Training of the Disabled, US‑Zone Germany, 7 March 1949. AN, AJ/43/591, Medical Rehabilitation.

67 Letter from O. E. Cound, Chief of Operations IRO Italy, to Myer Cohen, IRO Assistant Director General, 3 June 1950. AN, AJ/43/348, folder Rehabilitation Centres.

68 Health Report US‑Zone, June 1949. AN, AJ/43/1021 Health Reports Austria.

69 Ibid. supra, Report for November 1949.

70 Report by Spencer Mapes “Summary Report on Rehabilitation Programme”, Annex 1 “Table of Rehabilitation Centres”, 4 November 1949. AN, AJ/43/591, 35/6.

71 Minutes of the third rehabilitation conference, 10‑11 March 1949. AN, AJ/43/1026, Austria rehabilitation general.

72 Of the nine centres for Jewish DPs, one was in Austria, two were in Italy, one in Switzerland and five in Germany; all cooperated with the JDC and ORT, or in the Case of Montana, Switzerland, with the French‑Jewish aid organisation Œuvre de secours aux enfants (OSE).

73 Third Special Session of IRO General Council, further recommendations of the director general with a view to the termination of the IRO programme, section iii, Problem of the “Hard Core”, p. 16, 9 May 1949. TNA, FO 371/78156, WR 939.

74 Minutes of the rehabilitation working committee meeting, 23 January 1950. AN, AJ/43/347, folder Rehabilitation Minutes.

75 Minutes of the rehabilitation working committee meeting, 8 August 1949. Ibid. supra.

76 Louise W. Holborn, The International Refugee Organization…, op. cit. p. 291. Similarly, DPs refused to enter vocational training schools, Laure Humbert, Reinventing French Aid…, op. cit., p. 289.

77 Minutes of the rehabilitation working committee, 26 September 1949. AN, AJ/43/347, Rehabilitation Minutes.

78 Minutes, 10 October 1949. Ibid. supra.

79 Minutes, 26 September 1949. Ibid.

80 Laure Humbert, Reinventing French Aid…, op. cit., p. 255; On the history of vocational training in the context of rehabilitation, see Jennifer Laws, “Crackpots and Basket‑Cases: A History of Therapeutic Work and Occupation”, History of the Human Sciences, vol. 24, no. 2, 2011, p. 65‑81, Doi: 10.1177/0952695111399677.

81 Laure Humbert, Reinventing French Aid…, op. cit., p. 258.

82 Untitled typewritten document (Letter from Ebelsberg Committee to their friends in Grottaferrata in Yiddish), 26 May 1950. JDC‑A, GC 45‑54, Folder AU.159, item‑ID 747045.

83 Resolution, translated from Yiddish, 11 May 1950. Ibid. supra, item‑ID 747043.

84 Ibid.

85 Ibid.

86 Letter from R. L. Coigny, IRO Director of Health to Karl Evang, Norwegian Social Ministry, 17 January 1951. AN, AJ/43/347, folder Vocational Training of the Unfit.

87 Letter from Ernst C. Grigg, IRO Director of Field Services, to O. E. Cound, IRO Chief Italy, re: medical rehabilitation program, 23 March 1951. AN, AJ/43/348, folder Rehabilitation and Vocational Training: Centres.

88 Letter from Trainees Committee of IRO Rehab. Centre Luttensee to D. Kingsley, IRO General Director, 28 August 1951. Ibid. supra.

89 Ibid.

90 Ibid.

91 Inter‑office memo, Chief of IRO Supply Division to Division of Voluntary Societies, re: Letter from Trainees Committee at Luttensee, 14 September 1951. Ibid.

92 However, two months later, in November 1951, this policy was revoked, and no further donations were made.

93 Letter from Henry H. Kessler to R. L. Coigny, 11 September 1959. AN, AJ/43/347, folder Vocational Training of the Unfit. Kessler was the head of the “International Society for the Welfare of Cripples.”

94 Minutes of first session of the Ad Hoc Technical Working Group on Rehabilitation of the physically disabled, 16 December 1950. Ibid. supra.

95 Report on refugees requiring institutional care in IRO installations as of 30 June 1951, 6 August 1951. Austrian State Archives ÖStA, 12U, 186/3.41, hard core Austria, statistical reports.

96 Letter from Egon Fink to Akiva Kohane, closure of camp Asten, 22 July 1963. JDC‑A, GC 45‑54, Folder AU.147, item‑ID 2676500.

97 Peter Gatrell, “Refugees and the Doctrine of Rehabilitation…”, art. cit., p. 11.

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Johannes Glack

Johannes Glack specialises in modern history. He is currently a doctoral candidate at the Department of Contemporary History of the University of Vienna, where he is engaged in the ERC project “GLORE. Global Resettlement Regimes: Ambivalent Lessons Learned from the Postwar (1945‑1951)”. His research focuses on the migration processes of Jewish Displaced Persons (DPs) with health‑related challenges from 1945 to 1963. For this project he has received the JDC Archives research fellowship for 2024 and a Mandel Center fellowship 2025 at the USHMM. Prior to joining the Department of Contemporary History, he worked as a research assistant for the Yad Vashem archive.
Johannes Glack est un historien contemporanéiste. Il effectue actuellement un doctorat à l’Université de Vienne, où il participe au projet ERC GLORE‑ Global Resettlement Regimes: Ambivalent Lessons Learned from the Postwar (1945‑1951). Ses recherches mortes sur les migrations des personnes déplacées juives en situation de handicap ou qui ont des problèmes de santé, entre 1945 et 1963. Pour ce projet, il a reçu la bourse de recherche des Archives du JDC en 2024 et la bourse Mandel du Musée de l’Holocauste à Washington (USHMM) en 2025. Avant de rejoindre l’Université de Vienne, il était assistant de recherche aux archives de Yad Vashem.

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