After the atrocities of the Holocaust, thousands of survivors were stranded in displaced persons camps with nowhere to go. While some people did choose to go back to their old communities, the majority of survivors wanted to get as far away as possible from the terrible memories caused by the Nazi onslaught.

Among the many countries that took in these survivors was the United States. As the home of a large Jewish community, America seemed like the ideal place to rebuild their lives. While these survivors did manage to overcome many obstacles and in many cases create very successful lives in America, they did not receive the warm welcome of the Jewish community we would have expected them to encounter.

In the powerful book "Against All Odds: Holocaust Survivors and the Successful Lives They Made in America" (Simon and Schuster; $24.95), William B. Helmreich, a graduate Professor of Sociology and Jewish Studies at CUNY, writes about the tumultuous journey Holocaust survivors took on their way to making successful lives in the United States. He believes that often American Jews hid their sense of guilt for not saving European Jews, and this is why they often acted toward the survivors with belligerence. Anti-Semitism in the United States during the Holocaust was a major factor in dissuading many American Jews from helping in the war effort. Therefore, the American Jews did not want to bring attention to themselves by interacting with the survivors.

According to a University of California at Santa Barbara Web site titled The US and Holocaust Project Group (http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/marcuse/classes/33d/projects/usholo/LaurenAntisemPage.htm), national public opinion polls taken from the mid-1930s to the late 1940s showed that more than half the American population saw Jews as greedy and dishonest. These polls also found that many Americans believed that Jews were too influential in the United States. Similar polls were also taken, one of which showed that 35-40 percent of the population was ready to accept an anti-Jewish campaign. Since the American public looked down upon the Jews within their own country, American Jews felt there was little chance they would care about aiding Jews in Europe.

Of course, there were American Jews who were helpful to their relatives and others they came into contact with. Unfortunately, there were many whose animosity and callousness as well as indifference was quite clear. Some American Jews responded to the Holocaust survivors with their own stories of war privation, such as food rationing.

Many immigrants stopped talking about their war experiences because they soon realized that some American Jews did not want to hear their stories of horror. Helmreich informs us that survivors refused to discuss what occurred to them. Holocaust survivors created a "conspiracy of silence" which unfortunately lasted for a number of years.

Adding insult to injury, Helmreich adds, some American Jews felt that the only way that these immigrants survived the Holocaust was through selling out others in the concentration camps. If so many others died, American Jews rationalized it had to be the only way the managed to survive. They also had the attitude that some survivors came with great riches, so there was no reason to feel sorry for them.

My grandparents, Jacob and Rachel Rosenberg of blessed memory, were brought to America by the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS). Eventually, they settled in Kansas City, Miss., because my grandfather's half sister and her family, who were also Holocaust survivors, had already settled there. My father, who studied at Yeshiva University, and eventually became a rabbi, noticed that survivors and their children found it easier to adapt to New York than the Midwest. Helmreich notes that those who settled in New York endured fewer traumas with regard to cultural adaptation since they were able to quite easily recreate many of the features that they experienced in their previous countries. Numerous synagogues, yeshivas, kosher bakeries, restaurants, and delicatessens were available to them, and the food served reminded them of their former countries. Helmreich notes that, significantly, these survivors were able to settle in neighborhoods where other survivors lived, such as Washington Heights, the Lower East Side, and Crown Heights. The survivors created their own little communities and were not solely dependent on the support of the American Jewish community.

Helmreich writes that a key factor in the adjustment of the survivors was the communities' attitude and response to them. There was a great variation across the country. Denver, for example, was extremely cooperative, while Washington, D.C. did not warmly accept large and varied family units.

The response of leaders in the community also varied. A local rabbi in Pittsburgh stated that in his opinion, "Those Jews who survived were collaborators." Helmreich stresses that when Jews were insensitive to survivors it was because they were ignorant of the concentration camp experience.

This book has shed light upon the issue of why American Jews had difficulty adjusting to the Holocaust survivors. The main purpose of Professor Helmreich's contribution was to show the world that against all odds, as the title of the book states, most Holocaust survivors overcame the hardships of being accepted and adapted successfully to life in America. It was not written to lay blame on the American Jews, because as emotional beings we do not always act properly in certain situations. Rather, Helmreich emphasizes that the purpose of this book was to praise the perseverance and strength of the survivors. Helmreich writes that flexibility, optimism, tenacity, and courage were many reasons why survivors were able to create useful lives in America. "Against All Odds" shows that although the response of the American Jewish Community to the Holocaust survivors was not as supportive as it should have been, there were mitigating factors that led to their response.

Yaakov Rosenberg is a rising senior at Yeshiva University majoring in English. He hopes to enter the field of Jewish education. He is the son of Rabbi Dr. Bernhard and Charlene Rosenberg. Rabbi Rosenberg is the spiritual leader of congregation Beth-El, Edison, and teaches at Rutgers University.