Giving up was unimaginable for the Jewish refugees who crossed this Alpine Road into Italy 75 years ago. Men, women, and even toddlers and newborns were among them.
After WWII, there were approximately 250,000 displaced Jews in Europe. They’d gotten away from the Nazis or survived c oncentration camps. When they went home, they discovered their homes occupied, their towns shattered, and many of their non-Jewish neighbor’s hostile. They believed that the only place they could start a new life and find true shelter was in British Palestine, or Eretz Yisrael. The Bricha, a secretive society, devised a scheme to circumnavigate them. Though the Bricha faded from public awareness, Krimml residents never forgot that Holocaust survivors had passed through their town.
