Galloway, N.J. – The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research (YIVO) and Stockton University are pleased to announce the opening of the exhibition, After the End of the World: Displaced Persons and Displaced Persons Camps.

The exhibit was created by the United Nations Department of Global Communications, United Nations Archives and YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. Professor Debórah Dwork, Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Crimes Against Humanity at the Graduate Center—CUNY, served as the scholar adviser for the exhibition. The exhibition was designed by YIVO and sponsored by the Refugee Studies Initiative and the Sara and Sam Schoffer Holocaust Resource Center at Stockton University in New Jersey.

The exhibition is on view from March 21 to April 28, 2022 in the Richard E. Bjork Library at Stockton University in Galloway,. It is open to the public and is free of charge. 

An unprecedented humanitarian crisis unfolded after the Second World War. The exhibition examines the responses of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), the first multinational response of its kind, and of Jewish Holocaust survivors in the immediate post-war years.

The exhibition weaves together sources from the United Nations Archives and the YIVO Archives to illuminate the macro history and personal stories. Official documentation, including photographs, reports and correspondence from survivors and family members trying desperately to trace one another, are drawn from the United Nations Archives.

Among YIVO’s contributions are posters created by Holocaust survivors in the displaced persons camps that reflect key aspects of their daily life. They include wall newspapers, announcements for sporting events and political rallies, and lectures presented at the camps.

The exhibition illustrates how the impact of the Holocaust continued to be felt after the Second World War ended.

“The exhibition reminds us of the importance of a multinational response that is sensitive and responsive to the agency of the survivors and works to support them as they reconstitute their lives,” said Tracey Petersen, manager of the Holocaust and the United Nations Outreach Programme.

 “The exhibition illustrates how the displaced persons did not shrink from the task of rebuilding both their own lives and Jewish communal life,” said Jonathan Brent, Chief Executuve Officer at YIVO.

Raz Segal, Director of the Master of Arts in Holocaust and Genocide Studies (MAHG) and co-coordinator of the Refugee Studies Initiative at Stockton University,  said “we are looking forward to welcoming students, educators, and community members on campus, to engage with this important exhibiton and consider the questions that this history poses for us today, in a world with more than 84 million forcibly displaced people.”         

This is the first time the traveling exhibition will be on view. A larger exhibition, including artifacts from the YIVO Archives, will open at United Nations Headquarters in New York, in January 2023, to mark the International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust.

Groups interested in touring the exhibit and the Sara and Sam Schoffer Holocaust Resource Center at Stockton University can contact Irvin Moreno-Rodriguez at 609 652-4699 or Irvin.Moreno-Rodriguez@stockton.edu.

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Media contact:
Diane D’Amico
Director of News and Media Relations
Galloway, N.J. 08205
Diane.DAmico@stockton.edu
609-652-4593
609-412-8069
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