The Anguish of Liberation and the Return to Life
The Anguish of Liberation
Survivors returning home – Budapest, Hungary
Approximately 825,000 Jews lived in (greater) Hungary before the war. About 565,000 were murdered in the Holocaust. The return home was long and arduous. Without any means of organized transportation, millions of refugees, amongst them the She’erit Hapleita (lit.: the remnant that survived) made their way through war-torn Europe. Those who reached their destinations, usually discovered that their homes had either been destroyed, or taken over by locals who had not allowed for the possibility that any Jews would survive and return home.

