Children in the Holocaust

Jewish and non-Jewish children were not singled out and harmed by the Nazi regime and its collaborators specifically because they were children but because of the Nazis’ racial, biological, and political policies. Nazi Germany and its collaborators killed about 1.5 million Jewish children and tens of thousands of Romani children, 5,000 – 7,000 German children with physical and mental disabilities living in institutions, and many Polish children and children residing in the German-occupied Soviet Union. Along with older adults, children had the lowest survival rate in concentration camps and killing centers established for the T-4 “euthanasia” program. Young children, determined to be unfit for forced labor, were immediately sent to the gas chambers at extermination camps and other killing centers. Only 6 – 11% of Europe’s prewar Jewish population of children survived compared with 33% of the adults.

During this dark moment in history, hope and humanity were seen in the lives of children rescued from Nazi Germany’s expansion. For those sheltered by religious institutions or adopted by Gentile families, they survived, but often at the cost of their true identities. In some cases, children were never told of their former lives or reunited with their families. Those reunited bore the trauma of war and prolonged separation from their parents. Only one-in-five children on the Kindertransport to Great Britain were reunited with their parents.

Children who survived the ghettos and camps carried physical and emotional scars, and many were orphans and displaced children. Many of these child survivors managed to find strength in telling their stories, and they contributed significantly to the testimonies gathered and saved about the Holocaust. These men and women told their stories in published memoirs, interviews, and oral history projects, along with written accounts in the form of diaries, letters, and drawings. Today, child survivors’ efforts to tell their stories help us remember those who perished and honor those who survived.

Source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum