Children In The Holocaust

On December 2nd, 1938, 200 children were transported from a Jewish orphanage in Berlin. They arrived, without their parents, in Harwich, Great Britain. This was the very first Kindertransport that took place. The persistent efforts of refugee aid committees and the British public helped found this act of help. The Kindertransport was an efficient act to help hide and save Jewish children during the Holocaust. It saved many kids from the despairing situations their parents went through and even death. The evacuation to Great Britain allowed the kids to grow up safely and to be able to live without fear.

Gas chambers were among the many horrific killing and torture methods used in Auschwitz that had been refined over time by the Nazis to exterminate as many people as they possibly could. The people taken to Auschwitz were often killed in gas chambers on the spot after being told they would get a shower. Most of the people who survived had to participate in hard labor and undergo selections often to see if they would get to live a bit longer. However, many of these people, became very emaciated and ill. These people were deprived of their needs until they were so disfigured that the Nazis sent them to the gas chambers and after that the crematoriums. Dr. Mengele also performed inhumane experiments on people of all ages and genders (Auschwitz, 1). On top of that, few managed to survive in Auschwitz,. As stated in Yad Vashem’s article, “ In Auschwitz-Birkenau, more than 1,100,000 Jews, 70,000 Poles, 25,000 Sinti and Roma (Gypsies) and some

For thousands of Jewish children the only way to survive the holocaust was to hide. When World War two was in action all Jewish people that lived in Europe were ordered to be killed no matter their wealth, religion, age, health, beliefs etc.. When children were put into hiding they were most of the time crammed into small spaces such as attics or cellars with large groups of people which caused very tight living quarters for long periods of time. Almost all of the children that were in the Holocaust that were not hidden were killed and those who survived and continued in school had to be able to pass as “non-jews” including not having an accent or strong “jewish” features that could possibly give away them or their family that was in hiding.

Parents who had kids under the age of seventeen during the Holocaust had the option to send their kids off to Great Britain through the Kindertransport, hoping that their kids would be safe throughout the war. Younger kids were hopeful, they thought that they would see their families again soon. Older kids thought of leaving their home as an adventure. The parents decision to send their children was very hard, especially knowing that they could die and the child would be left with no family. Once the kids got past the border, they were relieved because they were out of Hitler’s territory and could not be hurt.

Also included were the host families themselves, who took the frightened children into their homes and showered them with affection, love, and patience. Tens of thousands of children survived the Holocaust by living under new identities for lengthy periods of time with adoptive parents, or in institutions, such as religious orphanages, many of these stories also appeared in the Hidden Child bulletins over the years. In the Eastern side of Europe “the Germans executed not only the people who sheltered Jews, but their entire family as well” (The Holocaust). Western Europe was much more lenient, but many of the righteous individuals were incarcerated in camps or murdered randomly here too. Anyone who assisted in helping Jews “lived under constant fear of being caught; there was always the danger of denunciation by neighbors or collaborators” (The Holocaust). Jews were hidden in rescuers’ homes and property, they were provided false papers and identities, and were smuggled out of ghettos and concentration camps. As the entire race of Jews was being destroyed, a trace of hope and strength arose as the Righteous Gentiles sheltered Jews from the whole world that was against them.

The Jews that survived all of this were evacuated out of the camps by train or by ship. As winter approached, the Allies reached the border of Germany, and the Germans thought they ruled all of Germany because of the Allies reaching the border. The SS were still evacuating prisoners from the camps from the East and the West by foot. The search for the family always ended in tragedy. For the parents, it was to find their child dead or missing. For the hidden children, it was to find their family members dead and no one to claim them. For months and years, the Jewish parents searched for their children that the Nazis had sent into hiding. Parents would look in newspapers, tracing services, and survivor registries in hopes of finding their children. Although they would often find their children with the original rescuers, sometimes the rescuers would refuse to give the children back.

Life for hidden children during the Holocaust was incredibly dangerous and difficult. The children and families that were in the Holocaust and were in hiding had to pose as different identities and had to travel with false identity papers of someone else who was not a Jew. Those who were caught in hiding or with false identity papers were either deported straight to the concentration camps or deported to a ghetto which everyone in the ghettos were eventually sent to the concentration camps and killed. The children that survived the Holocaust were later described as old people with children's faces and they were said to have no trace of joy, happiness and/or innocence of a child when released from hiding. Out of the thousands of children that

Kindertransport was the program created during the Holocaust with a reason, but its children faced various outcomes. The growing rate of Jewish refugees became an urgent matter after the damage done on Kristallnacht, which left many homeless, without families, and without significant structures and buildings. The solution was compromised to allow children under the age of 17 into the Great Britain, depending on their registration and intense need to leave Germany. However, once in the United Kingdoms, the children faced many new situations, varying from their age and gender. New homes and safe shelters from the war were presented to some children. Other children struggled to adjust to new lifestyles or to survive on their own after abandonment

The Holocaust was a time of mass genocide. Millions of innocent victims, who ranged in age and gender, lost their lives because of the control one man had on a group of people. A majority of the victims killed practiced Judaism or had ancestors that practiced Judaism. The Holocaust was estimated to have murdered 1.8 million children. The victims had to go through harsh punishment, starvation, and most children were sent to the gas chambers immediately. Even with the cruel and unprecedented actions against the Jewish community many children were still able to survive. The actions and sacrifice from families and strangers helped to keep these children alive throughout the Holocaust. Children survived the Holocaust in many different ways.

Over one million Jewish children died during the Holocaust. They were ripped out of their homes and taken away from their families, and stripped of their childhoods. Innocent lives were caught in a war that they were not able to stop. When Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, he promised Germany that he would improve life their by getting rid of the one race that caused the problems, the Jews. Jews, including Jewish children, were sent to concentration camps, inspected, and if approved, were sent to work. All others would have been sent to be killed. Being sent to work did not ensure survival, children would be given very little food and water, and beaten severely, which caused their death. None of the children of the Holocaust will ever

It wasn’t just the fact that you had to work and go through harsh conditions but sometimes you wouldn’t be fed either. During a ten year decade, more than 40,000 concentration camps were built for all the poor jews and persons Hitler hated too. When people would first go there, they didn’t know what was going on ; they just knew something bad and scary was going to occur in the following days. Then the families would get separated into females or males so it would be easier to sort through them. The group of household would be terrified because the fact that they didn’t have their own blooded people around them scared them. Little kids would be sent to a different camp because Nazis found them useless and didn’t serve a purpose either. Some kids wouldn’t even make it a day through out the caps, they would just be separated and be sent straight to the crematory. Some moms were pregnant when they got to the concentration camps and those would be forced to abort and be instantly killed when they were born since they didn’t have much space to put a ton of useless kids. The age that made you survive alittle more was about 15 because they could actually put you to work. For example, younger kids would work in labors and machinery to teach them young and for them to learn for when they were older. Kids between the ages of 10 and 14 who were developed but not enough for the them would be tested on to see how they would react towards the chemicals to see how they would kill future people in the concentration camps. Testing on these kids would prove if either they were using were effective or not ;however, sometimes the chemicals wouldn’t work and would only damage the kids lungs which made them only suffer. Adults who were in group range between 18 and 45 were the ones they taked more care of since they were the most helpful. These adults had to be male howeverr because females

As the 1930’s came along, The Nazi’s set out a series of laws and regulations called ‘Nazi Laws’. One of the very first laws was ,”Laws against Overcrowding in German schools and universities”. This was a result of many children were looked down upon by Hitler and his Nazis as ‘racially inferior’. Letters from German Children to the editor of the Nazi tabloid Der Sturmer reveal a shameful potpourri Lettof and fanaticism against their Jewish classmates. The first punishment for the Jews and Gypsy children was to be presented in front of peers and downgraded by teachers as a lesson for the German children. Then all at once the children were restricted from all schools. Not long after the first act of public humiliation, the Germans invaded many Jewish neighborhoods, families and children were forced into overcrowded ghettos with scarce food resources and unhealthy living conditions . This was the Invasion of Poland, 1939. Jewish children died of starvation and little exposure to shelter, the great numbers of deaths caused by this were a mere indifference to the German officers. And because the food was such a high demanded resource, adults would send small toddlers between the crevices in the gates and over the walls to retrieve portions of food. This started a few of popular resistance activities, underground resistance was large. Sometimes if the Ghettos were run by Jewish relatives, certain ones could escape easier. Punishments would include

The children of the holocaust situation is way more extreme than the children dying in the civil war in Syria. The total children that died in the holocaust was 1.5 million in 6 years If a child was born a twin in the concentration camp they were usually used for medical experiments, often they resulted in death. 870 infants were killed instantly when they came to the camp because they were no use.

The Holocaust is a very large topic with many subtopics within, which many people have never heard of. One in particular is the Hidden Children of the Holocaust. Like a majority of individuals, I never heard of this topic before, until I started my inquiry work. Hiding children during the holocaust was an effort to save thousands of children’s lives. The children were hidden in different ways, either with false identities, underground, and with or without their parents. The children with false identities were allowed to participate in everyday life activities, like attend school and socialize with children their age, which in the long run this lead to less emotional and mental issues. However, the children that were hidden and not allowed to leave their hiding spots often faced boredom, pain, and torment. Some children were capable of being hid with their parents while other children were not. Depending on the situation the child was in, depends on the effects it had on the child during this time. In this paper, I will be discussing works by two scholars, Natalia Aleksiun’s Gender and Daily Lives of Jews in Hiding in Eastern Galicia and Judy Mitchell’s Children of the Holocaust. Aleksiun’s article talks about the daily lives of Jews in hiding and also about how they prepared their hideouts. Aleksiun’s article mainly focuses on children that were hidden with their families. In Mitchell’s article, he focuses on the hidden children and gives examples/survivor stories on what it

Nazis put people in concentrations camps because Hitler hated certain types of people. A concentration camp is a small place where a large number of people are held where they have to work and they are murdered. This led to a big conflict and a mass murder. They lived in bad conditions like wooden stable barracks that were very uncomfortable and very crowded small areas. The Jews had very bad sleeping conditions too. At the concentration camps there were many sicknesses that killed people. They were starved and weak because they did not have enough to eat. Jewish people were killed in many different disgusting ways, if they didn’t die from sickness.