The occupation of Germany and the survivors : an overview
The formation of She'erith Hapleitah : November 1944 - July 1945
She'erith Hapleitah enters the international arena : July-October 1945
Hopes of Zion : September 1945 -January 1946
In search of a new politics : unity versus division
The Central Committee of the Liberated Jews in Bavaria
The politics of education
Two voices from Landsberg : Rudolf Valsonok and Samuel Gringauz
Destruction and remembrance
The survivors confront Germany
She'erith Hapleitah towards 1947

Zeev W. Mankowitz tells the remarkable story of the 250,000 survivors of the Holocaust who converged on the American Zone of Occupied Germany from 1945 to 1948. They envisaged themselves as the living bridge between destruction and rebirth, the last remnants of a world destroyed and the active agents of its return to life. Much of what has been written elsewhere looks at the Surviving Remnant through the eyes of others and thus has often failed to disclose the tragic complexity of their lives together with their remarkable political and social achievements. Despite the fact that they had lost everyone and everything, they got on with their lives, they married, had children and worked for a better future. They did not surrender to the deformities of suffering and managed to preserve their humanity intact. Using largely inaccessible archival material, Mankowitz gives a moving and sensitive account of this neglected area in the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust