Category:Hidden Children (subject)

Hidden Children of the Holocaust

Overview

Among the small number of European Jewish children still alive at the end of the Holocaust, thousands survived because they were hidden.

(a) Some were in hiding, alone or with relatives, in attics, cellars, etc.

(b) Some had false identity papers.

(c) Some were entrusted by their parents to Christian families or religious institutions.

(d) Some, left abandoned, survived as street children.

(e) Some joined partisan groups.

Hidden Children and religious education

Christian families and institutions played a central role in protecting thousands of Jewish Children during the Holocaust. Thousands of "righteous among the nations" are recognized by the Institute Yad Vashem in Israel. Without the heroic commitment and sacrifice of non-Jewish rescuers, many more lives would have been lost.

In the 1940s, European societies were profoundly religious. In order to be safe, "hidden children" had to pretend to be "Christian" by living as Christians. The difference between being and pretending, however, was not very easy to maintain.

Some children were old enough to understand it, and were helped by their non-Jews saviors to keep the memory and pride of their "hidden" identity. Some were simply too little to understand it, or were encouraged by their saviors to convert and became "Christians". Many children ended up to be baptized. At the end of the war, the problem of what to do with these children became dramatic.

Generally speaking, the church discouraged the practice of forced baptism, although it accepted children who "spontaneously" asked for baptism or were presented to conversion by parents or grandparents.

More controversial was the case in which Jewish children were baptized by Christian neighbors or servants. Starting from the eighteenth century and the pontificate of Benedict XIV (1740-1758), the Church launched very strict rules that paved the way for the removal of "baptized" minors from the natural authority of their parents. The Mortara case, dated 1858, is the most famous example.

These norms had still an impact after the Holocaust. Many of the Jewish children saved by Catholic families or Christian institutions had been baptized and educated to the Christian religion. Should they be returned to their parents or relatives or even to Jewish organizations in case they were orphans?

In 1946 there was a heated debate about this issue within the Catholic Church. Pious XII in 1946 supported the idea that the Jewish children should not be returned. Other important members of the church supported the opposite view. At the end most of the children were returned, even though in some cases this meant to separate them from the families who so generously had taken care of them and that many of the "hidden children" considered as their own parents. The situation was very complex. Some of the children who had lived in Catholic Institutions refused to leave, some even became priests or nuns; some on the contrary left the priesthood when they discovered their Jewish roots. For many "hidden children", raised by non-Jewish families or guardians, the end of the war was either the happiest moment of their life or just another trauma.

Literature

2003

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"Secret Lives - Hidden Children And Their Rescuers During WWII (YouTube)" (2003) is a documentary, directed by Aviva Slesein.

2005

Hidden Child (New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005.) is a memoir written by Holocaust survivor Isaac Millman (France, 1933).

"A powerful story of survival, loss, and hope ... Isaac was seven when the Germans invaded France and his life changed forever. First his father was taken away, and then, two years later, Isaac and his mother were arrested. Hoping to save Isaac’s life, his mother bribed a guard to take him to safety at a nearby hospital, where he and many other children pretended to be sick, with help from the doctors and nurses. But this proved a temporary haven. As Isaac was shuttled from city to countryside, experiencing the kindness of strangers, and sometimes their cruelty, he had to shed his Jewish identity to become Jean Devolder. But he never forgot who he really was, and he held on to the hope that after the war he would be reunited with his parents ... After more than fifty years of keeping his story to himself, Isaac Millman has broken his silence to tell it in spare prose, vivid composite paintings, and family photos that survived the war."--Publisher description.

Isaac Millman (France, 1933)