DP Camps in Austria page 7

Back to Austria A-C

Abbreviations:
AEIOU - Cultural Information System of Austria http://aeiou.licm.tugraz.at/
Bimi - Bindermichl History http://www.bindermichl.home.pages.at/
Gem. - Municipality of "FL..."
Gem. Saalfeden - Saalfelden Municipality http://www.sasslfelden.at/
IN[privat] = Internet / private
NMoAJMH - National Museumof American Jewish Military History http://www.oogeschichte.at/
ZGME - Ebensee Museum of Contemp. History http://bob.swe.uni-linz.ac.at/Ebensee/index.php

Austrian archives - https://www.oesta.gv.at/bezirks-stadt-und-kommunalarchive
The Austrian State Archives has a listing of basic service sheets, enlistment registers, parish registers and war casualties among many other things.
Kriegsarchiv (war archive)
Nottendorfergasse 2-4
A-1030 Wien
Fax number: 43-1-795 40-109

Archives in Austria by Andreas Hanacek

Austrian archives also

Another archive list

United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration Archives
Subgroup: Austria Mission: Chief of Mission 3.0.1.0.0.
Series: Registry files
Box 7-10: DPs, Jewish DPs, Matters Relating to Camps
23-24: Movement of Jews
31-38: Correspondence Relating to Educational Programs for DP camps

Subgroup: Austria Mission: Chief of Mission: Operation Analysis Division 3.0.1.0.2.0.
Series: Reports
Box 14: Special Reports on Jewish Camps, British Zone
Team 314 - Kobenz
Team 331 - Lienze
Team 336 - Villach
27: General Reports: Relating to Repatriation, Resettlement of DPs, State of DPs, Policies relating to DPs.
34-42: Camp Reports, weekly and monthly reports American Zone
36: Salzburg, Ebensee
38: Judenburg Jewish Transient Camp

Subgroup: Austria Mission: Chief of Mission: Operational Analysis Division 3.0.1.0.2.2. series: Historical Monographs
Box 1: Jewish Refugee Problem, Out of Camps DPs, TB among DPs, Supplies for DPs in Austria

Subgroup: Austria Mission: British Zone Headquarters 3.0.1.3.2.
Series: DP Files
Box 1: Amusement for DPs, Children Problems, DP General,
Welfare Employment for DPs, Accommodation for DPs, Reports for DP in Europe General Statistics and Surveys, Movement of DPs
2: Repatriation of DPs, Tracing Matters
3: Repatriation of DPs, Mission - Specific Cases
4: Reuniting of families, DP-Discipline, Regime, National, Accommodation
5: Orphans - DP, Immigration and Employment of DPs
6: Education of DP, Welfare, IGCR Registration of DPs, Children, Screening

Subgroup: Austria Mission: British Zone Headquarters: Health Files 3.0.1.3.3. Box 1: Team 335 Judenburg

Subgroup: Austria Mission: British Zone Field Offices 3.0.1.3.4.
Series: Field Office Files
Box 2 - 12: Camp Files

Subgroup: Austria Mission: French Zone Field Offices 3.0.1.4.1.
Series: Field Office Files: Camps
Box 1- 8: DP Camps

Subgroup: Austria Mission: US Zone Headquarters: Salzburg 3.0.1.5.0.
Series: Registry Files
Box 1: Administration Policy - DP
4: Relief Services - DP
5: Reports Correspondence - Zone Areas: Salzburg, New Palestine Camp

Subgroup: Austria Mission: US Zone Headquarters, Salzburg 3.0.1.5.1
Series: Files from Welfare Operations
Box 1: DP Operations
2: Meetings of Team Directors
3: Welfare Officer's Files
4: Camp Newspapers
5: Medical Officer's Files

Subgroup: Austria Mission: US Zone Field Offices 3.0.1.5.2.
Series: Camp Files
Box 1: Bad Gastein Team 322
2: Ebensee Team 313
3-5: Hellbrunn Team 316
6-8: Newspaper Articles
9: Itzling Team 326
10: Lehen Team 319
11: Parsch Team 318
12: Reidenburg Team 338
13: Saalfelden Team 321
14-15: Vienna Spearhead Team 350
16: General Reports/ Medical Health
17: Volksgarten Camp

"Shortly after 1945, more than half a million 'displaced persons' - war refugees, people who had been liberated from the concentration camps - and more than 300,000 German speaking refugees from East and Central Europe were in Austria before moving on to the USA, Canada or Australia... After the state of war was declared in Poland, more than 120,000 Poles escaped into the West via Austria. The majority of these groups of refugees used Austria only as a 'corridor' on their path to a life in the West... Thousands of people grasped the opportunity to go West when Poles, Hungarians and Czechoslovakian were granted the freedom to travel." Excerpts from "Mapping Minorities and their Media: The National Context - Austria" by Mag. Martina Böse, Mag. Regina Haberfellner, Mag. Ayhan Koldas of Centre for Social Innovation,

Training in camps: In the U.S. zone of Austria, plans have been made to set up vocational training activities under the joint sponsoring of Jewish and non-Jewish agencies. A cobbler course has been started as a suitable test training project. From Church World Service 1948 brochure DP's Are People.

Hello Olga, Until I came across your website, I had no idea there was so much interest in the post-war period in general and displaced persons camps in particular. My father (now deceased), a Dutchman liberated by the Canadians and fluent in 4 languages, joined UNRRA immediately after the war and served with that organization and the IRO from 1945 - 1952. He went through a month-long training period at Jullouville and Granville in Normandy, France. Then he started with Team 313 at Ebensee as a Warehouse Officer and ended as a senior administrator at Klagenfurt/Villach during its final liquidation phase just before emigrating to Canada in 1952. In this seven year period, he worked at Ebensee, Vienna, Linz, Enns, Innsbruck, Salzburg, Grodig, Klagenfurt, Villach, and he took many pictures wherever he went.

He was an avid photographer, traveller and letter-writer, so I still have many of his documents, letters, photos, travel brochures, news clippings, films, etc. which brings that entire period to life. I am now in the process of translating his letters home from Dutch and illustrating them with these various documents. I hope to have a website up soon with this information so that your visitors might also benefit from this material.

Here is his Christmas greetings from 1945. Sincerely, Thanks so much. Miff Crommelin

United Nations Relief & Rehabilition Administration Teams, Austria1945: Web site by Miff Crommelin UNRRA Teams 1945:

Austria begins forced labor payments
(Someone sent me this clipping without telling which newspaper and date it is from.)
Chicago (PMN) - On August 1, 2001, Austria made the first compensation payments totaling $38 million, to former Nazi slave and forced laborers who worked in Austria during World War II. Payments were made to approximately 1,200 claimants in twenty countries, as well as to 9,205 people represented by organizations in Poland, the Czech Republic and Ukraine.

This fund is separate and distinct from the German Compensation program, which is paying compensation to those Slave and Forced Laborers who worked in the Third Reich.

There are notable differences from the German Agreement. The Austrian Agreement specifically includes compensation to victims of forced labor in agriculture, to women who gave birth to children while they were forced laborers and a separate payment to children under 12 years of age who were deported with their parents.

Not eligible for the Austrian Fund are former inmates of Mauthausen concentration camp and its sub-camps, as well as the sub-camps of the Dachau concentration, even though they were located on the territory of the present-day Republic of Austria. Such persons are eligible for payment by the German Foundation.

Claimants for the Austrian compensation program living in Poland will have their claim processed through the Polish Reconciliation Foundation in Warsaw. Residents outside of Poland must apply directly to the Austrian Fund in Vienna. For those living in the United State or Canada, however, claim forms and assistance are being provided by the Polish American Congress (PAC), which is working with the Austrian Reconciliation Fund in Vienna.

The deadline for claims was November 27, 2002. Further info Polish American Congress, 5711 N. Milwaukee Ave. Chicago, IL 60646. Help Line is 1-866-480-1944.

There were many Vertriebene and other non Zwansarbeiter [non slave labor] living at the DP camps, too. Althogether there were about 12 million displaced persons with German roots arriving in Germany and Austria after WWII

people who fled because of the advancing Red Army
former inmates of concentration camps
victims of the ethnic cleanings after the end of WWII
people accused of having collaborated with the Germans
Jews coming from Poland, etc, after pogroms
persons fleeing the new communistic regimes of Eastern Europe

April 2007: from Klaus Fohringer klaus.forhinger@aon.at

RE: German and Austrian Laborers For those who is interested: databases of POW and internees from Austria and Germany to USSR are in the State Archive of Russian Federation (GARF) in Moscow. Aleksey Russia

Cities and Towns in Austria Group travel website Intercession of the Holy Virgin Russian Orthodox Church in Manchester The history of the parish started in the camps of the so-called "displaced persons" (DP) in Austria, after the end of the second world war.

Article: Zavner, Stefan. "French Occupation Policies in Austria After WWII." Contemporary Austrian Studies 3 (1995): 273-86.

Austria Encyclopedia, website in English & German: aeiou and 1500 photos on line

Alphabetical list of Museums in Austria

österreich 1938-1945" Encyclopedia of Austria

Austrian Research Centers dissertations; and databank search

Jewish camp list and Jewish list 2

Terror im Reichsgau Steiermark 1938-1945 in German

US Army occupation in Austria

Panzer units in Austria

Occupation life in Austria USFAVA, US Airforce

Austria 1945-1995: The Economic Development Of The Second Republic by Sigurd Pacher

Law reports
The Austrian legal system is based on a division between legislative, administrative and judicial power. There are three supreme courts, Verfassungsgerichtshof (Constitutional Court); Verwaltungsgerichtshof (Administrative Court); and Oberster Gerichtshof (Supreme Judicial Court). The judicial courts are organised into about 200 local courts (Bezirksgerichte); 17 provincial and district courts (Landes- und Kriesgerichte); and 4 higher provincial courts (Oberlandesgerichte) in Vienna, Graz, Innsbruck and Linz. Library Research Guide Austria

Austria to New Zealand
Dear Olga
Thank you for the wonderful site. The background you have is amazing as I am trying to work out where in Austria my mother, brothers and sisters left for the transport to New Zealand in 1951.

My mother lapses back to this times during my life-time, and I can only say these days are as vivid as they had been back then. I regret that the world did not believe them, and I know of even professionals who claim only the Jews suffered during this time.

Many people of all ages, ethnic backgrounds and religions have been included and I thank-you for the wonderful effort you have done to enable me to pass on the truth on the history that made his grandmother the way she was. Her strength must have come from those times as she never lost sight of humour and her care for another person.

Despite the fact I was to join the family much later, I understand the bonds of friendship which now enabled those DP a new life. They on their gatherings always were happy and treasured their moments together, the bonds I think in way was these people replaced their lost families,homes and memories. They lived for each new day with optimism and hopes for their children never to see war of any kind that destroyed that many lives.

Her life was to see her lose one husband while pregnant, to then have a man leave her with two more children as he went to America never to see any of them again, and a marriage to another DP, who just wanted out. She had all of that, but her story its like many others.

Thanks so much. Anne-Marie Hofman

Dear Olga
I am trying to find out any information about the way people lived in Ukraine during the above dates. I am 40 and my Father died long before the iron curtain was lifted. He never talked much about his childwhood and as a child, I never asked. It is only now that I feel a need to let my children know about their Grandfather and how and where he grew up. My mother has told me that he was in a DP camp in Austria after the war - I don't know the name, only that he changed his name from Volodymr Formenko to Korynevsky. He then came to England. Is there a website you can recommend that specialises in DP's who chose to come to England Researching the British zone. I have so many unanswered question. My Father destroyed all photographs and letters for fear of reprisals on his family back in Krasny Luch near Kiev, Ukraine. I am trying to find out the name of the camp Austria and that will hopefully begin my search. Thank you once again, I am very excited about researching this. I am just so sad that I can't share this with my Father.

Sonia Sonia Baggs

Austria DP Camps Page 7