Translations

After World War II, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) largely was responsible for the administration of the Displaced Persons camps. UNRRA appointed a French woman to oversee the Seligenstadt DP camp that became home to my Mom, Jake, and my Father-in-Law. The administrator spoke French and English, but she did not know Lithuanian, Russian, or any of the other languages spoken by the DPs.

My Mom became the camp translator. Mom translated information from Lithuanian to French for the administrator, who then converted things from French to English. Bureaucracy is historically inefficient.

Mom spoke and read six languages by the time she was a DP. English was not among those languages.

Seligenstadt, Germany, 1946. My Mom, on the far left, stands with the U.S. Army official serving in the DP camp and the French woman who served as the UNRRA administrator. Pantsuit!