after World War II, many Jews did attempt to "go home" to Poland. This resulted in the murder of about 1,500 of them -- killed not by Nazis but by Poles, either out of sheer ethnic hatred or fear they would lose their (stolen) homes. The mini-Holocaust that followed the Holocaust itself is not well-known anymore, but it played an outsize role in the establishment of the state of Israel. It was the plight of Jews consigned to Displaced Persons camps in Europe that both moved and outraged President Harry Truman, who supported Jewish immigration to Palestine and, when the time came, the new state itself. Something had to be done for the Jews of Europe. They were still being murdered...
Patton confided what he thought of Jews. Others might "believe that the Displaced Person is a human being," Patton wrote, but he knew "he is not." In particular, he whispered to his diary, the Jews "are lower than animals." The Jews, Patton felt, had to be kept under armed guard, otherwise they would flee, "spread over the country like locusts," and then have to be rounded up and some of them shot because they had "murdered and pillaged" innocent Germans. All of this is detailed by Allis and Ronald Radosh in their book about the founding of Israel, "A Safe Haven."
For the surviving Jews of Eastern Europe, there was no going home -- and no staying, either. Europe was hostile to them, not in the least appalled or sorry about what had just happened. Even the American military, in the person of the hideous Patton, seemed hostile. For most of the DPs, America was also out of the question. The United States, in the grip of feverish anti-communism and already unreceptive to immigrants, maintained a tight quota. When the Jewish DPs were polled, an overwhelming majority said they wanted to go to Palestine. They knew life would be tough there, but they would be among their own people -- and relatively safe.