The Jewish Orphan Children

The conditions that the Jews and other were put through were super horrible. They were forced into boxcars that didn’t have anything in them and they wondered where they were and where they were going. They stood in the boxcars for days with no food or water to keep them alive. (Joseph)(Source 3) Along their way to the concentration camps they were exposed to harsh weather. In the summer it was scorching hot and in the winter it was freezing cold. Since they were shoved amongst each other they suffered from suffocation. Along their journey many young and old died along the way (“The Holocaust”)(Source 2). Inside the boxcars there was no windows or anyway to breath. It was also very unsanitary because of the abundance of people in them and they didn’t have any water to at least wash themselves with. All they could do was stand there in the dark and wait (Joseph) (Source

Life in the ghetto was subjected to death. Many took their own lives, and others tried to escape.

Around this time the Nazis came up with the term “The Final Solution” This meant to have all Jewish people segregated and put into ghettos, limiting their freedom and lives. People were evicted from their properties and also from their business just because they were Jews, and they were put in the “ghettos”. Life in the ghettos was unbearable and overcrowding. Specially when they have ten families living in one small apartment. They were also limited on the food that they could buy, since Nazis did not let them buy enough food for them and their family they were only aloud to buy small amounts, they were trying to make the Jewish starve. Jewish kids also sneak out through small openings in the ghetto walls to smuggle food, but if they got caught they were going to be severely punished. The housing inside ghettos were unsanitary specially when plumping broke down, and human waste was thrown in the streets along with garbage and caused contagious diseases that spread rapidly in the ghettos. Many people died every day in the ghettos because of the terrible conditions they lived and some

“The ghetto was to be liquidated entirely. Departures were to take place street by street, starting the next day” (Wiesel 13). Days later after they felt safe again, they would be taken to the camps, to be worked to death. They were dehumanized from that

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.

In 1939, Hitler was unsure of what he was going to do with the Jews; the Nazis were tossing around options and ideas with the goal of removing Jews from the population. The German invasion into Poland, allowed for the first ghetto, regarded as a provisional measure to control and segregate Jews. Ghettos were enclosed, isolated urban areas designated for Jews. Living under strict regulations, with unthinkable living conditions, and crammed into small areas, the ghettos destroyed all hope of retaliating. In this paper, I will discuss what life would be like to be a Jew inside one of the 1,000 of ghettos within Poland and the Soviet Union. I will imagine myself a member of the Jewish council, describing the

The Holocaust was one of the most horrible and dreaded events in history. Millions of Jews were killed, leaving many families devastated and hopeless. With the goal of racial purity, Adolf Hitler- along with many other Germans believed the Jews caused the defeat of their country, and led the Nazis to the elimination of Jews. For this reason, “Even in the early 21st century, the legacy of the Holocaust endures…as many as 12,000 Jews were killed every day” (The Holocaust). Later, Hitler organized concentration camps, where mass transports of Jews from ghettoes were brought and typically killed also. However, the fortunate Jews that were not killed still had many restrictions on their

For their protection, children were being sent away by their families to go into hiding and they very rarely knew who they were staying with. They were being taken in by strangers and had no idea what was going to happen to their other family. The stress of not knowing if their parents or siblings were even alive was something that they thought about constantly and they always had the agonizing fear that they would get caught and killed. (Hidden Children of the Holocaust).

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

before the holocaust Jewish people lived an almost normal life. Most of them had jobs as farmers, tailors, seamstresses, factory hands etc. Jews lived everywhere all around Europe. In some places like Greece and Italy they had vreated communities that existed for over 2000 years. Children would enjoy going to school. Jews were alowed to speak yiddish before the holocaust and they were alowd to practise their religion.

The ghettos and concentration camps caused a lot of conflicts for the Jews. The ghettos isolated Jews by separating Jewish communities from the non-Jewish populations (“Introduction to the Holocaust”). The concentration camps were used to make the Jews do intensive labor. The Germans ordered Jews residing in ghettos to wear identifying badges and armbands (“Introduction to the Holocaust”). The concentration camps were lock down facilities that Germans used for the mass murdering of Jews.

Jews had to find places to hide from the Nazi. They hid in attics and cellars.The Jew had to keep quiet with other survivors and other religions. “Thousands of Jewish children survived in hiding.”When the children tried to keep themselves busy they had hobbies like building, writing, drawing etc. Many Jews had more survivors than expected.

In the book The Resistance, by author Bachrach Debora, she talks about the many ways in which people resisted the Holocaust. A main section of the book is devoted to resistance inside of the ghettos and the reason for victims to resist. Even though education was not allowed, adults taught children different languages. Small groups of men met for prayer, some celebrated holidays, and taught children rituals, prayers, songs, and history. When the Jews were moved into ghettos, they were given very little food.

In the ghettos, there were many things happening that shouldn't have happened to any human. Jews that were still living, looked almost dead, there was only little skin covering their bones. Nazis gave no mercy to the Jews and punished Jews for the food they might’ve had that was not given by them. They were put to work and fed minute portions of food, not enough to keep them healthy. The Jews that were taken to the ghetto had it rough, they had to hide to survive and had to find someone willing to give them food in exchange for what they had.

When the nazis came to power in germany everything changed for Jewish children. Jews were the special target of the Nazi policies, which caused the holocaust. Jews and their child suffered at the hands of the Nazis from the beginning.