Articles – Children of War, Holocaust and Genocide

Mass detective operation im befreiten Deutschland: UNRRA und die Suche nach den eingedeutschten Kindern nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg

Verena Buser — Thu, 14 Nov 2019 09:40:18 +0000

After the end of the Second World War the UNRRA was confronted with a mass atrocity which was conducted in the name of German social work: The kidnapping of children from Poland /at least 20 000) but also from the Netherlands or Belgium. The paper explores the challenges and steps wo trace these children of which only a minority was found in the end.

No Stone is Left Unturned

Verena Buser — Wed, 13 Nov 2019 09:43:19 +0000

After the Second World War under the auspices of the UNRRA welfare worker and field staff on the ground created by learning by doing new instruments and methods in tracing and rehabilitating children who survived the Holocaust and WWII. This paper introduces the historical situation in 1945 and asks what we can learn for today´s world from then.

Who is a survivor? Child Holocaust Survivors and the Development of a Generational Identity

Rebecca Clifford — Thu, 28 Feb 2019 06:49:25 +0000

In April 1983, the first American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors brought together thousands of adult survivors, child survivors, and children of survivors in the largest event of its kind ever held. This article explores the role of the Gathering in establishing a sense of generational belonging for child Holocaust survivors.

Goals and Challenges of the Research into Holocaust Survivor and DP children

Boaz Cohen — Thu, 21 Feb 2019 10:40:25 +0000

This program for further research of post war child survivor DPs, aims to map the field and define the major research directions.
It also conceptualizes these children’s experiences and work done with them in the immediate post-war years.

Child Survivors and Displaced Children in the Aftermath Studies. An Overview

Verena Buser — Thu, 21 Feb 2019 09:44:00 +0000

This paper strongly arguments for acknowledging the methods and innovations with regards to rehabilitation child survivors and displaced children after the Holocaust and WW2. It arguments that by learning from the past and exploring best practice from then the world today can learn to rehabilitate children who survived genocide and war today.

Displaced Children 1945 and the Child Tracing Division of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration

Verena Buser — Thu, 21 Feb 2019 09:39:18 +0000

This paper focuses on the Child Tracing Division of the UNRRA which existed from January 1946 onwards. It operated as a central clearing point with regards to all information on child survivors and displaced children. This division constituted a novelty in humanitarian aid work as for the first time not only a centralized office but also with regards to children came into existence.

A teacher and his students: Child Holocaust Testimonies from Early post-war Polish Bytom

Boaz Cohen & Beate Muller — Mon, 11 Feb 2019 10:26:27 +0000

The document presented here was created in 1945 in Bytom, Poland. It contains testimonies by Holocaust survivor children collected and put down in a notebook by their survivor teacher, Shlomo Tsam, in the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust. The testimonies shed light on Jewish children’s experience in Eastern Europe during the Holocaust, describing oppression, flight, and survival

Survivor caregivers and child survivors: Rebuilding lives and the home in the postwar period

Boaz Cohen — Thu, 22 Nov 2018 15:39:33 +0000

The educational and rehabilitative work that three young women, Holocaust Survivors, carried out with uprooted child Holocaust survivors in postwar children’s homes forms the subject of the
following article.
It establishes how they perceived the children and interacted with them, tracing their concerns, deliberations, and professional choices, and elucidates the practices and strategies they formulated.

The 1945 Bytom Notebook: Searching for the Lost Voices of Child Holocaust Survivors

Boaz Cohen & Beate Muller — Thu, 22 Nov 2018 14:53:28 +0000

This paper focuses on an unpublished Yiddish manuscript of 42 child Holocaust testimonies, collected and written down in Polish Bytom in 1945 by Shlomo Tsam, the principal of the local Hebrew School, who – through chronicling the fate of his charges under the Nazis – gave permanence to the children’s stories of loss and survival, stories which otherwise would have been lost.

Young Witnesses in the DP camps: Children’s Holocaust testimony in context

Boaz Cohen & Rita Horvath — Thu, 22 Nov 2018 14:33:21 +0000

Early child survivor testimonies tell us much about the children’s Holocaust experience and about society’s attitude to child survivors. This paper presents an in-depth analysis of two such testimonies on the backdrop of historical research of their setting and context in the Aschau DP Children’s Camp