Sacred Reconstruction: Tracing Hasidic Rebuilding in the DP Camps Through the Arolsen Archives

Among some 250,000 Jewish Displaced Persons in Allied Occupied Germany after the Second World War, Hasidic Jews represented the surviving remnant of a vibrant prewar movement which had thrived in Eastern Europe. The end of the war signified a new beginning for these survivors who now faced the task of rebuilding their lives. One of the most salient features of survivors’ responses was the search for relatives, a process closely associated with the International Tracing Service (ITS) in its initial stages. The ITS documents eventually became part of the Arolsen Archives and comprise a considerable resource for researchers of the period. This article examines the role of the Arolsen Archives for researchers of Hasidic life in the DP camps, assessing its potential as compared with alternative sources of testimony, correspondence, and memoir literature. Through three case studies this paper shows that the archive can transform research into the renewal of Hasidism in DP camps, improving our understanding of the movements, decisions and responses of displaced persons in the postwar period.