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Children in the Holocaust
1. About the
meaning of childhood
Add a sentence of your own: A child is ________________________. 2. About adult-child relationships – natural and self-evident? What are the things that children need? Who should
provide them with these things?
3. The Jewish child in the Nazi ideology
Hadassah (age 16; Poland) …But the murderer’s heart of stone was not moved.
He replied: 'He’s a baby now, but he’ll grow up to be a Jewish man.
That’s why we have to kill him.'"
4. The Jewish child during the Holocaust: Extracts of Testimonies A. Read the following testimonies and choose
2 of them. Moshe Flinker "During the year I attended
[the Jewish school], the number of restrictions on us rose greatly.
Several months before the end of the school year we had to turn in our
bicycles to the police. From that time on, I rode to school by street-car,
but a day or two before the vacations started Jews were forbidden to ride
on street-cars. I then had to walk to school, which took an hour and a half.
However, I continued going to school during the last days because I wanted
to get my report card and find out whether I had been promoted to the next
class. At that time I still thought that I would be able to return to
school after the vacations."
Cila Liberman "We returned home joyfully, but it seemed as if everything had changed. A strange sadness gripped everything. The houses had become gray, and the treetops looked as if they had gathered their branches to hide the birds that were flying around peacefully and tranquilly. The town in which I was born, the house in which I grew up, had become alien to me. "Two families who had fled the German border reached our house. Those families arrived in a fancy car, and they had two children and lots of suitcases and packages. Mother told us that they were friends from long ago, and we had to make them welcome until they could continue their flight to Russia. "We gave them the children’s room. From that day on, I felt neglected. The room I loved; the toy corner where I spent most of my days – other children were playing there. I wandered from place to place, looking for a corner of my own, but no one paid any attention to me. I didn’t find a quiet corner. "A knock at the door. On the threshold stood a dusty man with a long beard, his eyes red from the dust and the wind, but radiating goodness and love. ‘Father!’ we shrieked together. He hugged us tightly and wept. That was the first time I saw Father cry. ‘Father! Why do you have a beard? Why are you so dusty? Why are your eyes red? Why? Why?’ "‘The war has started,’ replied my father. The words sounded like a bell tolling bad news. He said it slowly, enunciating each syllable separately. He didn’t speak – he wept. "Every now and then we asked ourselves whether this was what the world was like. Will the strong always dominate the weak? Will it ever change? "Those were the events that saddened our tender souls, and we had to deal with them on a daily basis. The Polish children, who up until a short time ago had been our best friends, now became our bitter enemies. They chased us, threw stones at us and called us names. "In order for us to be completely conspicuous, we had to sew a blue Star of David on to a white ribbon and attach it to one of our sleeves.
Anyone who disobeyed that order would be punished by death.”
The Ghetto: "We children looked at the wall and asked ourselves how it was possible that just over the wall, the Polish children of our age were running, happy and free, studying at school, going to the cinema, walking in the municipal parks. "Indeed, how different we were here,
between the walls! How much sorrow each child knew here! How much pain,
and how much hunger! Hunger was now the lot of many people, even those who
had never lacked for anything.”
The Journey to Auschwitz: "'They’ve promised us that we’ll go by train to Germany, to work. So why am I trembling? Why do I see the baker’s oven in the ghetto all the time?' I try to control myself: 'You have nothing to be afraid of…. The car is full and crowded but thank God we’re together…' "Father bent down to us: ‘Listen to me, dear children, who knows where they’re taking us, even though the direction is toward Germany. Who knows if they’ll leave us together. Whoever of us remains alive after the war will go to our address, 12 Liberty Square – that’s where we once lived. That’ll be the meeting place. We’ll wait for each other.’ "‘Liberty Square, Liberty Square,’ I repeated to myself over and over. What a wonderful name! I had never noticed the street names and their meanings. If we remain alive, if the war ends, if, if, if! I must memorize and not forget: 12 Liberty Square, Kielce. "…Father descended from the lookout place. A ray of light from the lamp in the railroad station had come through the window and illuminated his sorrowful face. His eyes reflected the terrible disaster that he anticipated. ‘Children.’ His words were addressed to all. ‘They’ve changed the direction of the tracks. We’re going to Auschwitz.’ "‘Auschwitz!’ A shout erupted from everyone. From the other cars, there was a kind of answering echo. ‘Auschwitz. Auschwitz.’ The train continued on its way. ‘Father, why is the word Auschwitz so frightening?’ In one hand, I held my mother’s hand, and in the other, my brother Tadek’s. A thin but solid masculine hand, his strong hand helped me overcome my fears. He held me, and with his other hand stroked my head. ‘Celinqa,’ whispered my mother, ‘soon it will be dawn, and you still haven’t slept, try and fall asleep so that you have strength for tomorrow.’ "‘I’m so frightened,’ I said, and immediately
sensed that I had made a mistake. I hurt my mother, and she doesn’t have
the power to help. Why did I hurt her? Now I feel the tears running from
her eyes on to my arm, on to my hair… The train continued again. Now it’s
moving slowly and cautiously. It’s so frightening, the terrible unknown.
With scared eyes we peeped through the cracks. We had reached Auschwitz.”
Eva Heyman
April 5, 1944
April 7, 1944 "We had saved up for a year and a half to
buy the bicycle. …One of the policemen was very annoyed and said: 'All
we need is for a Jewgirl to put on such a comedy when her bicycle is being
taken away. No Jewkid is entitled to keep a bicycle anymore. The Jews
aren’t entitled to bread, either; they shouldn’t guzzle everything, but
leave the food for the soldiers.' You can imagine, dear diary, how I felt
when they were saying this to my face…"
May 10, 1944 "We go to bed at 9 p.m. , dear diary, and
from now on we are supposed to get up at five o’clock in the morning. This
has also been ordered by the gendarmes who took everything away from us. I
have no idea how things are going to be now. Every time I think; this is
the end, things couldn’t possibly be worse, and then I find out that it’s
always possible for everything to get worse, and even much much worse.
Until now we had food, and now there won’t be anything to eat. …now
they’ve taken the wood from the basement, and we won’t be able to heat
water to wash in any more.
May 30, 1944 Naphtali Lau-Lavie “That same evening we were about to enjoy our last meal at home. Not a single item from our set of cutlery was missing, and all the usual food was served in the normal way at our table. The menu was very sparse, as was the custom in those days: potatoes, slices of bread. It was after eight o’clock in the evening when we were deafened by a volley of shots from various weapons… They roamed the ghetto streets and shot indiscriminately in order to inspire terror in the inhabitants, while their comrades in the unit tightened their stranglehold on the ghetto. "I don’t remember if anyone at the table tasted anything on the plate in front of him that evening …Rabbi Raphael, who was about seventy …sobbed loudly. During the last two years, he had been a member of our household, and it was from him that I learned as much Torah and wisdom as I was capable of absorbing …I always saw him with a smile on his face and he never betrayed his gloomy mood… At this last dinner, he too snapped, and his bitter weeping caused a chain reaction among other people at the table. "…The two of us stood opposite each other. I was a youth of
sixteen who was setting out alone on a life path that was liable to be
very short. At best, I would have to fight for my place in the world on my
own. Opposite me stood Father, a fifty-year-old man, a public leader with
a great deal of experience in life… He placed one of his hands, his left
hand, on my head, and in the manner of the parents who bless their
children on Yom Kippur eve before Kol Nidrei, he gave me his blessing for
my unknown journey.”
Chava (age 12; Poland)
Yitskhok (age 15; Vilna, Lithuania)
Israel Ernest "…I want everyone to know that there was no
childhood, all were adults, everyone wanted to survive. Everyone knew what
death was, and everyone knew that you had to eat, because without food
you’d die…"
Rachel Aurbach
The conversation faltered as a result of the difficult explanations and
complicated interpretations of this fable about a previous life.
Pepa Bergman (14 years old) "From all around I hear voices calling out
for bread. A tiny child, shivering all over, holds out his skinny hand and
begs. His mother has died of hunger and the Germans have snatched his
father for labor. And here is a poor woman whose clothes are torn and
ragged, bloated with hunger, lying as if dead in the street. I can’t look
at her and I turn my head away… These are the pictures that I see in the
street every day.”
Shalom Eilati
“One day, Mother didn’t come home from work… I immediately grabbed my
sister’s hand and we went to look for her… Father was now unreachable, and
the two of us were alone opposite a locked gate, trying to trace Mother’s
footsteps, and there was no one to talk to. No one waved to us through the
window. We turned back toward home, clutching each other tightly. At night,
we huddled up in Mother’s bed, shedding tears and feeling very, very
worried, while I, the big brother, tried to cheer [my sister] up and
comfort [her] and refrain with all my strength from thinking thoughts.
We felt like two chicks when the brooding hen that always covered them
suddenly disappears and they are left exposed to the blazing sun and to
ominous perils. Never before had we felt so abandoned, so alone.”
Erika Amariglio "It was pitch dark and huge spotlights pierced the darkness, blinding us. ‘Steigt schnell aus!’ [Climb out at once!], they were blinding us. ‘Schnell! Schnell!’ [Faster! Faster!] – but nobody understood. Stunned by the long journey, stiff, hungry, frightened, desperate, everyone tried to jump out of the railroad cars… "The cold was terrible, it froze our faces,
hands, and feet. We were chilled to the bone. Mothers held their babies
tightly in their arms, and the older children clung to their skirts.”
"…The 26 March 1944 was a day like any other, but for me personally a very special day. It is the day on which I sensed what love, brotherhood, assistance and creativity there was in the camp despite all the torturers. …It was my birthday …When we returned from work that evening, I found a small flower on my bed, around which several items had been arranged. I stood there, my mouth open wide with surprise, and a lump in my throat from emotion that left me speechless." "…The girls were gathered around me in
anticipation. ‘Many happy returns,’ my friend Reni wished me, and with a
wink she added, ‘Did you think we had forgotten your birthday?’ From the
bed she took a starched white kerchief for my head and gave it to me.
Gisela gave me an onion with a red band tied in a bow around the end.
Edith Vessely and her sister Renée had made a tiny cake from two portions
of bread kneaded together with jam, and on top there were bit of margarine
which looked like whipped cream."
A Letter to a Priest “To the revered priest, the head of the congregation of the All Saints Church,
Bilha Shefer "What do I remember about the occupation as a child? One of the first things is that we had to wear the badge. I was eight and a half then. From the day I was born, a gold chain with a Star of David in a circle hung around my neck. My father put it around my neck when he first saw me. I never went anywhere without it. "…I remember that we were two girl friends. The first day we went out with that badge, we also took out our chains (My friend also had a chain with the Star of David), and we walked proudly as Jewesses! I wasn’t ashamed of the badge (the yellow star), on the contrary, I was proud. "…Besides, I really had to make sure that every piece of clothing I wore had that badge… "…But there was always harassment, the danger that you could be arrested on the street… When I got to school, there was always the guessing game about who was there and who wasn’t. There was something else in the general atmosphere, but from a child’s vantage point, my entire problem was whether or not I would meet the Germans today. If I meet Germans, it’s a bad day. If I don’t, it’ll be good. That was the basic philosophy of a 10-year-old girl… But aside from that, we were children and we tried to be happy…. "Life continued at home without Father, my brother started doing all kinds of jobs in order to earn a living. "Grandma drove us all crazy; she was very nervous. It was really hard for Mother to cope with her, but that’s life. As time went on, the decrees became more frequent, and there were incidents all the time. "Then came the evening when we were all at home. We heard noise and tumult from the street. We knew that it was coming from German trucks. We heard the commotion, the screaming and the crying. Then, by the time the Germans opened the door, my big brother had disappeared. The German read the list and called my brother’s name. Then my mother said: (for me as a child, it came as a shock), 'He is not my son. Since his father hasn’t been at home, I don’t know him. He isn’t here, he’s independent. I don’t know where he is.' But the sentence, 'He is not my son,' was a shock to me. I was so frightened. I have a brother just a bit older than I am and he said to me, '…Sshh… she’s just saying that for them. Be quiet!' and my mother was totally indifferent… "During the entire time we were in Westerbork, we received packages from my brother (who was outside the camp with the Dutch underground). We also received letters. In the packages there were all kinds of things that would last – canned goods, jars of jam, chocolate bars…. When we arrived in Bergen Belsen, and were getting organized in the hut, they handed out tea and bread with the runny jam that became our staple food there, so Mother said: 'Let’s get together here by the bed and eat something.' Then the family gathered round and sat down. Mother then bent over her knapsack and pulled out a jar of the strawberry jam that I liked so much, and that my brother sometimes sent in the packages. It was a long time since we had received a package from my brother. Everyone was surprised and then Mother said: 'Mazal Tov – it’s your Bat Mitzvah, your birthday.' In other words, I was 12 years old. Mother remembered to celebrate and had kept that jar in her bag. That was my Bat Mitzvah celebration. That was the day we arrived in Bergen Belsen."
Jacob (age 17; Poland) "For my grandchildren and all the children of the world of any religion, I have written my testimony 50 years later so that they will be able to reply to anyone who dares to deny there was a Holocaust and so that they will always be on guard to make sure that there will never again be another Holocaust: NEVER AGAIN." In your opinion, how is it possible to “make sure that there will never again be another Holocaust: NEVER AGAIN”? |
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