Category:Hidden Children (subject)

Hidden Children of the Holocaust (see Holocaust Children Studies)

Belgium -- France -- Italy -- Netherlands -- Poland

Overview

Among the small percentage 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.

Countries

Book : The Hidden Children (1993), by Jane Marks

Jane Marks, The Hidden Children: The Secret Survivors of the Holocaust (New York : Ballantine Books, 1993).

"They hid wherever they could for as long as it took the Allies to win the war -- Jewish children, frightened, alone, often separated from their families. For months, even years, they faced the constant danger of discovery, fabricating new identities at a young age, sacrificing their childhoods to save their lives. These secret survivors have suppressed these painful memories for decades. Now, in The Hidden Children, twenty-three adult survivors share their moving wartime experiences -- some for the first time ... There is Rosa, who hid in an impoverished one-room farmhouse with three others, sleeping on a clay pallet behind a stove; Renee, who posed as a Catholic and was kept in a convent by nuns who knew her secret; and Richard, who lived in a closet with his family for thirteen months. Their personal stories of belief and determination give a voice, at last, to the forgotten. Inspiring and life-affirming, The Hidden Children is an unparalleled document of witness, discovery, and the miracle of human courage."--Publisher description.

The ordeal -- The aftermath -- The legacy -- The healing -- A historical perspective : tracing the history of the hidden-child experience / by Nechama Tec -- The psychology behind being a hidden child / by Eva Fogelman.

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 retain the memory and pride of their "hidden" identity. Some were simply too young 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 offered 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 issued 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 still had an impact after the Holocaust. Many of the Jewish children saved by Catholic families or Christian institutions had been baptized and educated in the Christian religion. Should they be returned to their parents or relatives or even to Jewish organizations in case they were orphaned?

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. Eventually, most of the children were returned, even though in some cases this meant separating them from the families who so generously had cared for them. For many of the "hidden children" they were the only parents they had ever known. 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.