ABSTRACT
As Holocaust survivors struggled to rebuild their lives at the end of the war, the legal mechanisms designed to deal with this incomprehensible tragedy fell into place. What followed were numerous war crimes trials in Allied- and Soviet-occupied territory that were designed to punish those responsible for the various crimes of the Nazi era. The Allied occupation forces initially rebuffed efforts by Jewish relief organizations to get into the displaced persons camps, where Jews and non-Jewish displaced persons were mixed together. Jewish chaplains were able to do some relief work, but the military in general either was not inclined to provide the care needed by Holocaust survivors or was incapable of doing so. Jewish refugees suffered similar abuse in Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, and Romania. Many of them were living in Budapest at the end of the war, then home to the largest Jewish population in Eastern Europe.
