Category:Windermere Children (subject)

Windermere Children (see Holocaust Children Studies)

Overview

• See The Boys

In the last months of the war, around 800-1000 children (mostly teenagers) arrived in Theresienstadt in "death marches" either on foot or in open topped railway wagons.

They came from different locations and did not form a unified group, but after liberation many grouped together in the camp. At the beginning, they did it spontaneously under the leadership of some inmates (Sam and Isidore Rosenblatt and Isaac Finkelstein), who had came with younger brothers. With the help of the Red Army they managed to house the teenagers in a barracks on their own.

The camp authorities assigned two German women to care for the youngsters: Etta Veit Simon and her mother Irmgard Veit Simon.

Edith Lauer, a former prisoner oversaw the care of all the 2,000 children in the former ghetto and was allotted the task of drawing up a list of the 300 children who would be chosen to come to Britain.

In August 1945 a first group of 300 children from Theresienstadt were flown into a tiny town in the Lake District to begin new lives. Most of the children were teenagers. There was only a small group of toddlers. They were accompanied by Sam and Isidore Rosenblatt, Isaac Finkelstein, Etta Veit Simon, Irmgard Veit Simon, and Edith Lauer.

In England, the German refugee psychologist and Holocaust survivor, Dr Oscar Friedman was appointed to head up the team looking after the children.

Harry Spiro (M / 1929) -- Icek Alterman (1928) -- Sam Lasker (Schmuel Lasker, 1927) -- Jan Goldberger (1927) -- Harry Olmer (Chaim Olmer, 1927)

Ben Helfgott (1927) -- Martin Hoffman (1929)