Rhoda worked as a Welfare Officer in camps for displaced people after the Second World War. She recorded her observations of life in the camps in her letters home. Rhoda saw people at their best and worst, but always saw them as human.
Rhoda joined the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Association (UNRRA) as a Welfare Officer in 1945. She spent two years at various Displaced Persons (DP) camps in Germany helping people whose lives had been torn apart by the Second World War.
Life in DP camps was difficult: ‘One is beset on all sides by people who whisper that they alone need shoes, coats, cigarettes and better food; or a man wants to start a tailor’s shop and begs for the sewing machine being used by someone else; and the least things start them off on their horrors’.
‘One is beset on all sides by people who whisper that they alone need shoes, coats, cigarettes…’
But it was also lively; ‘…the whole place is buzzing with politics…’ and Rhoda recorded her observations on life in the camps in a series of letters home.
She met and worked with people from all over Europe. The mix of people led to some good times; ‘…and for the first time in my life, I danced to real gypsy music. I experienced a hangover next day far worse than anything I have ever had after liquor.’
She saw how people tried to rebuild their lives. ‘I talked today to a … woman who had been a partisan, fighting in woods for two years…. She had had three children murdered a well as all her family killed. Her husband however is with her, and she is about to have another child, so at least she has something fresh to live for.’
Rhoda was frustrated that she was not allowed to have more personal contact with the people. ‘If only they let me do what I wanted to do… just to go among the people and talk to them in a friendly way’.
She felt she had to spend too much time carrying out administrative tasks. ‘For one is obliged to work impersonally, according to directives and with filling of many forms…’
Yet an official visiting the camp ‘…insisted on telling me that I am much appreciated in the Camp because I, apparently alone among Welfare Officers, treat DPs as human beings.’
Her concern for the people in the camps was clear from the outset of her work; ‘What we fear now is that the DP’s are going home at such a rate that our work will be over in a few months. I feel the need now is, and will be, where we cannot follow, into their own countries. Their reception in many places won’t be warm.’
She left UNRRA in 1947.
View Images
View Document
Listen