Children During the Holocaust

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Children During the Holocaust
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Children and the Holocaust

• Approximately one million Jewish children under
  15 were murdered by the Nazis
• The experience of children varied

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The Kindertransport

• Followed Kristallnacht
• The British government allowed an unspecified
  number of children under the age of 17 to enter
  Great Britain from Germany and German territories

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The Kindertransport

• Private citizens had to pay for each childs
  care, education, and emigration
• parents or guardians could not accompany children
• last transport from Germany was in September
  1939, just before the war started

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The Kindertransport

• Last transport left the Netherlands on May 14,
  1940
• In all, 9,000-10,000 children were brought
• some 7,500 were Jewish
• Most of these children would never see their
  parents again

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Children and the Holocaust

• In Poland and Eastern Europe, children went with
  their parents to the ghettos
• Many became smugglers and beggars

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Children and the Holocaust
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Children and the Holocaust

• Children in Western Europe were sent with their
  families to the transit camps.
• In the end, children were deported with their
  parents to concentration camps

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Children and the Holocaust

• Parents who refused to be separated from their
  children were sent at once to the gas chambers.

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Children and the Holocaust

• Many parents forced to make choiceless choices
• Should they stay and face the future or go into
  hiding?
• If they go into hiding, should they go together
  or individually?
• Should a child be given to non-Jewish friends or
  strangers?

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Children and the Holocaust

• Young children often endangered their parents

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Children and the Holocaust

• Should a child be hidden in a convent or
  monastery where they might be protected, but
  cease to be a Jew?
• Some Jewish children could pass as non-Jew and
  took on new names
• Led to confusion about their religion and their
  identity.

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Two Types of Hiding

• Physical hiding- an attempt to hide ones
  complete existence from the outside world.
• Where would you hide?
• Identity Hiding
• changing who you were in order to blend into
  society

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Children and the Holocaust

• Gypsy children and twins were subject to medical
  experiments by Dr. Josef Mengele
• Trying to create the Master Race