Children in hiding

 

 

 

     Many people ask surviers of the holocaust today "Why didn't they hide how did they not know? Why didn't they run away?", because they holocauast came about slowly many jews in europe did not want to leave their home beleiveing that the storm would eventually blowover unfortunatly they were wrong. This link is about those who hid, they're stiories of being the smart or lucky ones.

 

     The most desprate of stories have emurged from this topic, living in the wilderness, hiding in sewers for days or...years, digging holes in the ground the shacks or "houses" and hiding entire families in them. Staying with strangers or friends and finding out that they would be the ones that would send you to you death. The stories are different, all tragic, all from the same thing; The Holocaust.

 

     Regina Lotven, our interview subject lived as a teen in Paris at 17 the oldest of her family. She told us that she remembers hearing stories       

                                            

    She said that she vividly remembers the many nights in which many of the raids happened, she described the  sounds of night in paris at that time as "Crying, screaming, fire, shattering glass, and the breaking down of doors, just horrable things.".

 

     Children did not always physicaly hide, some times you physicaly ran from the natzi's, or both. This what Regina Lotven said she did to escape capture.

 

     In some cases hiding wasn't  always in areas free from Natzi's, in other words sometimes people hid in tunnels or in the lofts of barracks in ghetto's or deathcamps, to not get selected to put on a train to a camp or be selected for death in the gas chambers.

 

     One of the downsides to hiding in that time was that if you were looking to stay with another family they were usaly hard to come by because of the fear of having their fleeing guests caught. If you were caught with a jew or any other hated race of the natzi party, it could ruin your life because Natzi supporters would not respect your family, or would not accept your buissness or services; or worse of all you could be put to death.                                                                   

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler#The_Holocaust

 

 

 

 

 

 

     

 

 

 

      When you compare the children you see today with the Jewish children in the holocaust, you will realize how spoiled we are today. In the 1930's and 40's the Jewish children had limits and tasks you wouldn't even think about these days. Many children were put in concentration camps, but the "lucky" ones went into hiding.

 

      Every child had a different hiding story. There were two different types of hiding. There was the physical hiding and there was the hiding where you changed your identity. Anne Frank did the physical hiding, she hid in an annex, a secret bookcase.

 

        If you hid physically you had to hire someone. Sometimes they were family members and did it for free and other times you would have to pay a price. Comfort and complete boredom was always an extreme problem. The size of your hiding space could be as little as a closet, along with that, just imagine being a child and having to grow up in silence. Some children wouldn't see daylight for months. Most importantly some of them would starve.

 

       Getting food and water was always an problem. Parents would be killed trying to fetch water for their children and always had to live with the fear of being found by the Nazi's. If you were found, you would be deported to a camp like Anne Frank and her family.

 

        When you didn't want to hide you could change your identity and get a new name, pretend to be a gentile. They did this to hide their Jewish family tree. To protect their identity they even had to go to Christian church and behave as a Christian. Some children born into the holocaust never knew their true identity. They may never discover they were really Jewish. Their parents had to tell them they were a different person to protect them. Jewish children were always tested. They had to watch their every move, so they wouldn't turn their head when their original name was called. To me it seams a great responsibly to have a child be on their highest guard all the time. 

 

       After the war was over and liberation came, some of the host families that took in the children would become attached and not give them back to their parents. Some of the original parents would hire organizations to kidnap the children and if they would return to them they would the children would see them as strangers, because they were either born into the holocaust or were a very young age. Not only this but they would refuse to go back to being Jewish and stay Christian.

 

           The holocaust was a very hard time for children. Mainly because they couldn't handle all they saw and all they heard and had to act like adults dealing with it, especially with the circumstances and conditions they had to under go. Everything was to much too bare for a child.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 For more information on the Jewish children in hiding you can visit these websites:

 

 

 

 Rosenburg, Jennifer. "Hidden Children." About.com: 20th Century History. 2008. 10 Feb. 2008 <http://history1900s.about.com/od/holocaust/a/hiddenchildren.htm>.

 

"Hidden Children." . 18 Feb. 2008 <http://www.adl.org/children_holocaust/about_hidden2.asp>.

 

"Children during the Holocaust ." Ushmn. 19 Feb. 2008. 14 Feb. 2008 <http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005142>.