Biograpical History

The Jewish Committee for Relief Abroad (JCRA) was a British charity formed in 1943 by the Board of Deputies and the Anglo-Jewish Association under the auspices and financial responsibility of the Central British Fund for Jewish Relief and Rehabilitation (CBF, now World Jewish Relief WJR). The operational arm of the JCRA was the Jewish Relief Unit (JRU).

The JCRA and JRU dedicated their efforts to aiding Jewish survivors, Displaced Persons (DPs), and refugees in Europe following the Holocaust. JRU field workers were recruited from volunteers within the Jewish community in Britain and abroad and were deployed to the continent with the end of the war.

Since the summer of 1945, they operated in DP camps and Jewish communities, providing medical, educational, cultural, and welfare services, as well as helping with the acquisition of identity documents and the tracing of missing family members. Both JCRA and JRU were eventually disbanded by October 1950.

Scope/Content

The photographs in this collection document the work of the JCRA and the JRU from their inception to dissolution. They primarily cover activities and places in Western European countries in the early post-war period, particularly focusing on Germany and Great Britain.

The photographs widely capture aspects of the social, cultural, religious, and political life of Holocaust survivors, Displaced Persons (DPs), and refugees in numerous DP camps and recuperation facilities across the continent and in the UK.

Subjects of special interest may include, among others: the training and deployment of JRU field workers; recovery and rehabilitation actions for survivors, particularly children and the elderly; education and community rebuilding activities; early Holocaust memorialization practices; and emigration from Europe to Palestine/Israel (Aliyah) and other destinations.