Children of The Holocaust- Research Article

AMERICAN PUBLIC UNIVERSITY

Children of the Holocaust

Amy M. White

“Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person's character lies in their own hands.” ― Anne Frank

WHITE 1

Throughout time, national histories have been corrupted by the evils committed by their

citizens and Nazi Germany stands as an enduring example of the fall of a nation fueled by the

fire of bigotry and evil. Of all the horrors that occurred during the reign of the Third Reich

nothing is quite as shocking as the evidence of the Children that lived, worked, died and survived

this period of history. The prospects of children enduring such cruelty were “too devastating” for

most of the liberating forces and even within the press at the time to report.1 The children of the

ghettos, in hiding, abroad and in the camps survived by sheer luck in many cases documented in

memoirs, testimonies, and other publications. At the time of liberation and the close of the war in

Europe the idea of such atrocities against children and existence of the Kinderlager (Children’s

camp within Auschwitz) seemed to be too devastating to discuss, earning just “one paragraph on

page 2” of the New York Times.2 Since then there have been few publications on the children of

the Holocaust, but their stories are an accurate sense of just how cruel and profound the bigotry

of Nazi Germany went.

Following the Great War German society developed a critical and accusatory impression

upon Jews and other hated groups within Germany for their failure of the War. The catastrophe

of Germany to achieve victory in the war greatly diminished the collective German mindset and

self-worth of the nation. The country’s unity and nationalism were at an all-time low. To

compensate for the inadequacies of the nation the citizens turned together to a scapegoat, that

being primarily the Jews and other disadvantaged groups of society. In 1933 when the Nazi party

came to power the stereotypes and anti-Semitism was already prevalent, as it is many nations,

1 Nieuwsma, Milton J. Kinderlarger: An Oral History of Young Holocaust Survivors. New York: Scholastic, Inc.,

1998. 4.

2 Nieuwsma, 4.

WHITE 2

but the propaganda machine created by the Nazi party essentially added fuel to an already hot

topic amongst the German public creating an inferno of sorts.

As the Nazis began to dominate, and Hitler rose to the position of Supreme Fűhrer, the

Aryan supremacy began to take an entirely different attitude within the military itself. German

soldiers were historically very for the most part very devout in any case. The soldiers held a

defiant dominance idealism that actually subjugated their lives and actions. The soldiers of the

Nazi era went a step further that exuded a “macho” attitude, which was held in high regard by

their ability to follow orders. Those that were simply “tough enough to kill unarmed,

noncombatant men, women and children” all in the name of Aryan superiority and Nazi

authority were thought to be most honorable. Their self-worth was described in their motto of

complete faith and “personal honor” with the ability to follow orders with “an unflinching

devotion to Hitler.” The honor was everything to these men and Hitler was a bigger than life

superstar that they were willing to rally for and do his bidding no matter the cost.3

Life as a Jew became harder in those early days. For the children, depending on their age,

it was apparent times were bad as they witness the heartache of their parents, but ultimately they

seemed to be content and loved by their families. For the young children that experienced this

time hold memories of their parents and other adults discussing and contemplating leaving

Germany and Europe out of fear and desperation. Despite their fears, many still felt that things

could not get much worse, and they would, therefore, ride out the storm. The laws passed

against Jews during that time created many hardships; work was scarce, and many Jewish

3 Roseman, Mark. The Wannsee Conference and the Final Solution: A Reconstruction. New York: Picador, 2002. 29

and 185.

WHITE 3

children were “expelled” from schools and prohibited from “hiring private teachers.”4 Germany

seemed to be making life as difficult as they could for the Jews.

Many social organizations abroad began to see the struggles Germany was putting upon

the Jews as a warning and began to try to assist the Jews in immigration. Sadly few countries

opened their doors to the Jews. In Great Britain, a coalition of groups began a “refugee” process

of bringing over as many Jewish children as they could in 1938.5 The effort began to take the

children into foster families, placing the children in private homes throughout England, many

families volunteered their homes, but “too few British Jews offered” and many of the Jewish

children were then “placed with Christian families motivated by proselytization6.”7 For the most

part, these children were taken in by British households, mostly Christian, and raised as an

adoptive member of those families. Many of the children would never see their biological

parents again. Some of the children who waited out the war in the safety of Britain were finally

able to reunite with their families if they were fortunate to survive the war.8

For the children that were unable to get out of Germany or Nazi-occupied areas, they too

became victims of the round-ups, evacuations, shootings, ghettos and concentration camps. The

children, again depending on their age, the breakdown of their world was not always apparent on

the surface or at the moment and only later in hindsight, if they had a chance to gain that

perspective, did they too have the realization of their world slowly falling apart. The children had

4 Laqueur, Walter Baumel, Judith Tydor. Holocaust Encyclopedia. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001.

80. 5 Fast, Vera K. Children's Exodus: A History of the Kindertransport. New York: L.B. Tauris & Co Ltd., 2011. xiii.

6 Proselyitze: verb, to induce someone to convert to one's faith. M erriam-Webster. m-w.com. 1657.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/empiricism (accessed January 14, 2011).

7 Laqueur, 86.

8 Laqueur, 119.

WHITE 4

good lives, and it was not till they were faced with the evils of Nazi Germanys anti-Semitism,

pogroms, ghettos and the camps did they “learn to be afraid.”9

Evacuations were launched by the Nazis to relocate undesirables and Jews alike away

from Berlin to holding and eventually to concentration camps; while many other Jews outside of

the German borders were immediately killed in Poland and other occupied areas. Children were

not always the focus of round-ups, but if they were with their parents at the time they too would

fall victim to the pogroms, massacres, and shootings, they would not receive any special

circumstances.10 Sometimes women and children were transported to the killing sites by truck,

while the men were forced to march miles to the location, probably in an effort to separate

families while also wearing out any fight the men may have still held within them.11

To the modern day scholar it 's hard to come to terms with the barbaric and cruelty

launched by the Nazis and carried out by the SS and other police battalions towards the Jews, but

what one has to understand is the setting and rationale the government was feeding to their

troops and citizens. The Jews were displayed as the enemy and when faced with fear people

often do horrendous things. Still one asks why kill the children? What harm could they do?

Himmler answers that question vividly in a speech where he justifies the necessity of the final

solution upon all Jews. Himmler argued that to complete the Final Solution they must indeed kill

the men and women, but they just could not “allow” the next generation (their heirs) to grow up

and risk the possibility that they then turn into “avengers” against the next generation of Aryan

9 Nieuwsma, 121.

10 Rhodes, Richard. Masters of Death: The SS-Einsatzgruppen and the Invention of the Holocaust. New York:

Vintage Books, 2002. 116.

11 Rhodes, 137.

WHITE 5

descendants.12 To protect Germany completely in the present and from all future threats to the

Aryan race must then be eliminated, thus providing a successful denomination of the Aryan

race.13 Germany must become Judenfrei to survive.14

Eventually orders began to come down from Himmler’s office directly to kill even the

children, however, the orders were often in obscure languages at times, nevertheless the

commanders would insist the translation simply meant to kill them all, thus avoiding any

ambiguity amongst their men.15 The shootings along the countryside began as officers combed

the outskirts collecting Jews, including Jewish children from orphanages and sent them to be

exterminated with the rest.16 Though on occasion the soldiers collecting the Jews sometimes

“overlooked” the newborn and infant babies while others had no mercy demonstrated by a

woman trying to escape amongst the chaos:17

“A young German soldier was walking down the street with a year

old baby impaled on his bayonet. “The baby was still crying

weakly,” she would remember. “And the German was singing. He

was so engrossed in what he was doing that he did not notice

me.”18

As the shootings continued, the atrocities and cruelties surged. While being led to their

execution or just waiting for something to happen the adults would plead, bargain, and even beg

for mercy. When it slowly became apparent there was nothing they could do the crowds grew

12 Rhodes, 113.

13 Rhodes, 113.

14 Rhodes, 116.

15 Rhodes, 115.

16 Rhodes, 192.

17 Rhodes, 193.

18 Rhodes, 140.

WHITE 6

silent without “resistance” and “when their turn came, they went hopelessly to their deaths.”19

Led by a particularly cruel commander Jeckeln, a methodically and unyieldingly Russian

commander, he would conduct the shooting in Schepetovka without any feeling towards the

“horrors” place upon his victims.20 Here he ordered the victims, including children of all ages, to

march down into mass graves upon the previous group of victims’ bodies, then forced them to

lay on their dead neighbors and relatives while they awaited the final shots.21 Jeckeln christened

this particular technique as “Sardinepackung.”22 There was no humanity in these killings; they

were ruthless and horrifically efficient.

If the Jews were not killed in these shootings along the countryside, they were shipped to

ghettos and then on to the concentration camps. Evacuations were efficient by use of the railway

systems, taking the masses in cattle cars rigged to keep the cargo within. The cars were packed

beyond capacity in most cases, and this is where many children who had made it this far was

killed due to the crushing crowds or by suffocation from seasonal temperatures and

overcrowding. Some parents were able to rig canopies above the adults within the cattle cars,

using belts, blankets or whatever they could use. To some children this was almost exciting and

fun to be riding in a train above the adults, of course, they simply did not know where or why

they were going, just that they were together.23 For a child as long as they are with their

defenders (their parents) everything was okay.

19 Rhodes, 139.

20 Rhodes, 115.

21 Rhodes, 114.

22 Rhodes, 114.

23 Laqueur, 117.

WHITE 7

Still at times rather than use trains the Jews were marched from the ghettos to the camps,

sometimes great distances, and still they were “rushed along like sheep, and beaten with rubber

truncheons (night sticks) in the darkness of night,” where “children lost their mothers, and

parents lost their children,” and still they continued while “everyone was wailing.”24 In many

cases the children had no idea what was actually happening, most of the adults were at a loss for

that matter, but they all knew something was very wrong and a sense of urgency coupled with

the inability to control the proceedings caused much dismay and confusion among them all.

Upon arriving at the camps, the sorting began, left and right, life and death, while women

and children were commonly separated from the men.25 In most cases children, women, and the

elderly were immediately gassed upon arrival while at the other camps all the families were

gassed simultaneously.26 “Young children were particularly targeted by the Nazis” for immediate

death while older children and “healthy adults” were used for labor.27 Still the fear lay in those

young children and the possibility that they would “grow up to parent a new generation of Jews,”

but with that said the Nazi’s felt the Final Solution could not fail, and, therefore, a bit of

arrogance went a long way in the survival of many Jews.28

Many of the children made it through the selection process by simply lying about their

age, while some were hidden by their parents. “Still other children, twins in particular, were

chosen to remain alive at Auschwitz” if only for a little while longer by Dr. Josef Mengele, who

24 Rhodes, 138.

25 Laqueur, 37.

26 Roseman, 177.

27 Laqueur, 117.

28 Laqueur, 117.

WHITE 8

used these children as experimental lab rats.29 The extent of Mengele’s experiments were ghastly

and unthinkable to most, while those involved felt they were breaking new ground in areas of

medicine and genetics, the gravity of the suffering they exposed these children to seemed to be

unrecognized and yet somehow some of those children actually survived.

Nevertheless, the very presence of the children within the camps gave many of the adults

and parents a reason “to fight to remain alive.”30 One mother exclaimed, “They do not consider

us people; we are doomed.”31 Life in the camps was horrific and still for a child the presence in

the camps was just another adjustment they had to make as they “grew up in chaos.”32 They were

given little rations and relied on extra rations from parents, while some even risked everything to

steal a bit of bread, the children suffered greatly from medical experiments, hard labor

malnutrition. One survivor remembered back at how they were nothing but “skeletons with

numbers.”33

Against all odds, the ability to survive came down to the chilling routine many of these

children grew accustomed. “Oddly, there was something comforting and reassuring” about a

routine, no matter how rigorous, as long as there was a familiar face there was a sense of security

to be gained.34 Still each one of the children saw people, parents and friends are taken away daily

from their lives never to return. They lived in fear of “who would be taken next.”35 Bribes were

29 Laqueur, 117.

30 Laqueur, 118.

31 Rhodes, 188.

32 Nieuwsma, 132.

33 Bartov, Omar. Mirrors of Destruction: War, Genocide, and Modern Idenity. New York: Oxford University Press,

2000. 177.

34 Nieuwsma, 127.

35 Nieuwsma, 125.

WHITE 9

paid to SS guards in the camp to alert them to coming dangers, thus paying for more time and

time equaled a greater chance of survival. They only relied on the few acts of kindness they

might receive, extra rations, job placements and simple warnings; all culminating in the story of

a survivor and that of a victim.

The inexplicable reasoning that a person, much less a child, should ever feel as if “this

[is] the end” without the ability to do anything about it and to end in such a violent manner is the

reason for learning about their lives, however long they may have been, they were terminated by

pure exploitation and undeniable racism.36 Somehow normalcy was found. Within Auschwitz a

former teacher from Prague, Freddy Hirsch, “received the camp commandant’s consent to open a

Kinderblock (a children’s barrack) in one of the empty huts in B2b.” 37 Here “hundreds of

children” lived and played together while their teachers sang, played, and told them stories.

Meanwhile outside the “crematoriums were burning the bodies of thousands of other Jews

daily.”38

When liberation finally came to the camps “there were disbelief and great rejoicing and

then the sense” that they “were lost again, because” they simply “had no home to go back to.”39

Thousands of Jews became displaced persons across Europe, those coming out of the camps, out

of hiding, others trying to find family after they had fled Germany no desperately search for their

families and some were able to be reunited with their biological families or through displaced

persons Jewish foundations that were created with the sole purpose relocated displaced persons

36 Nieuwsma, 129.

37 Laqueur, 118.

38 Laqueur, 118.

39 Nieuwsma, 129.

WHITE 10

to other countries and later to Palestine (or modern day Israel).40 Many children that survived the

Holocaust were now orphans in every sense; they had no family at all. The close-knit

communities they may have known as children were gone. They were the only generation left in

many ways.

For many a feeling of new beginnings and freedom lifted them from the horrors they had

experienced. After the war the traumas endured still resonated within all of the children, they

were survivors and for many they continued just to survive as displaced persons, striving only to

make a life and find some kind of normalcy, a way to exist by doing what they knew best,

adapting to their surroundings. Slowly many did find a way to go forward, establishing new

relationships, families and slowly they “began to function as a community” again.41 As the years

past the ordeal they had survived, and often never discussed, would flare up in large crowds and

small spaces and their dreams. These feelings, memories, and nightmares washed over their

present and placed them yet again in an unwinnable and horrific nightmare that are their

childhood memories. Many struggled to “find a link between present reality and the tormenting

memories of the past.”42

Most suffered from “feelings of guilt” that “was never far from the surface.”43 For the

children survivors they had guilt place on two levels, “guilt for having survived while other

perished,” and still “guilt for having not done enough to help the victims.”44 Obviously, in

hindsight one would say they were children what could they do, but this was a very personal loss

40 Laqueur, 119.

41 Nieuwsma, 135.

42 Bartov, 202.

43 Bartov, 202.

44 Bartov, 202.

WHITE 11

and trauma that mostly “wounded” these children that went on to be “wounded” adults.45 They

had endured the unthinkable, and they had lost their identities and sense of self, they essentially

not in a haven, but in pandemonium unmatched by any event in history.46

The Holocaust claimed over 6 million Jews and 1.1 million of those victims were

Children all during the reign of the Third Reich. The fact that even a few of the Jews survived

and were able to reestablish a new life and move forward essentially demonstrated the “failure”

of Hitler to succeed in the Final Solution.47 For many survivors their ability to rebuild what the

Nazis strived so hard to eradicate (their lives, families and community) demonstrates “to the

world that evil” did not “triumph” in German Holocaust, but the Jewish people did survive and

triumphed.48 It is truly “an incredible feat” at how “quickly” the survivors were able to

“reestablish norms and be able to transcend the horrors and want to reproduce,” to continue on as

a community.49 Somehow at the brink of eradication and the loss of so many, the few that

survived were able to rebuild and lean on foreign Jews for support and begin a new chapter.

45 Nieuwsma, 139.

46 Nieuwsma, 132.

47 Nieuwsma, 140.

48 Nieuwsma, 141.

49 Nieuwsma, 132.

WHITE 12

Works Cited

Bartov, Omar. Mirrors of Destruction: War, Genocide, and Modern Identity. New York: Oxford

University Press, 2000.

Bergen, Dorris L. War & Genocide: A Concise History of the Holocaust. New York: Rowman &

Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2009.

Brown, Bryan. "WWII: Freeing the Death Camps." Junior Scholastic, Apr. 2005: 14-15.

Burgess, Edwin B. "After Daybreak: The Liberation of Bergen-Belsen, 1945." Library Journal,

Nov 2005: 98.

Fast, Vera K. Children's Exodus: A History of the Kindertransport. New York: L.B. Tauris & Co

Ltd., 2011.

Laqueur, Walter Baumel, Judith Tydor. Holocaust Encyclopedia. New Haven, CT: Yale

University Press, 2001.

Merriam-Webster. m-w.com. 1657. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/empiricism

(accessed January 14, 2011).

Nieuwsma, Milton J. Kinderlager: An Oral History of Young Holocaust Survivors. New York:

Scholastic, Inc., 1998.

Rhodes, Richard. Masters of Death: The SS-Einsatzgruppen and the Invention of the Holocaust.

New York: Vintage Books, 2002.

Roseman, Mark. The Wannsee Conference and the Final Solution: A Reconstruction. New York:

Picador, 2002.

Wadsworth, Tenley. "The Liberators: America's Witnesses to the Holocaust." Army, May 2010:

77-78.