Feldafing displaced persons camp

Feldafing displaced persons camp in Bavaria was the first DP camp exclusively for use by liberated Jewish concentration camp prisoners. It was later used by Jewish refugees from the Russian-controlled Jewish areas. The camp was located in Feldafing's Höhenberg area and beyond.
The camp was opened by the United States Army on May 1, 1945 as an emergency measure to house mostly Hungarian Jews who were in cattle cars when liberated at railroad sidings near at the Tutzing Railroad Station next to a German hospital train. The train has originated from Muhldorf-Mettenheim concentration camp for transporting only Jewish prisoners gathered from Mittergars, Muldorf Wald Lager and Muhldorf-Mettenheim Concentration Camps to be massacred in the Tyrolian mountains by an SS that was waiting for said transport. The war was near its end when the knowing Wehrmacht transport commander kept delaying the train to be liberated by the advance units of the US Army. The Germans kept guarding the train until the Americans took them prisoner, though the worst of the guards escaped. Some prisoners were immediately transferred to the hospital train and the prisoner train was taken to the track right above the Hitler Youth school in Feldafing , where the prisoners disembarked. The German Train Commander and two female guards, recognized as having helped the prisoners' survival, were given freedom and living quarters along with the liberated prisoners. In charge of the camp was First Lieutenant Irving J. Smith, a Jewish soldier and peacetime attorney, serving in the Army's Civil Affairs Command.

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