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Gift of Gitta Rosenzweig, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
  During a roundup for deportation in eastern Poland in 1942, Gitta Rosenzweig--then three or four years old--was sent into hiding. She ended up in a Catholic orphanage. In 1946, Ida Rosenshtein, a family friend and a survivor, learned of the ...
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LIFE IN SHADOWS: HIDDEN CHILDREN AND THE HOLOCAUST
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When World War II ended in 1945, six million European Jews were dead, killed in the Holocaust. More than one million of the victims were children.

Driven by a racist ideology that viewed Jews as “parasitic vermin” worthy only of eradication, the Nazis implemented genocide on an unprecedented scale. All of Europe's Jews were slated for destruction: the sick and the healthy, the rich and the poor, the religiously orthodox and converts to Christianity, the aged and the young, even infants.

 

 

Thousands of Jewish children survived this brutal carnage, however, many because they were hidden. With identities disguised, and often physically concealed from the outside world, these youngsters faced constant fear, dilemmas, and danger. Theirs was a life in shadows, where a careless remark, a denunciation, or the murmurings of inquisitive neighbors could lead to discovery and death.

 


Related Links
Life in Shadows: USHMM online exhibition
USHMM Library bibliography: Hidden Children
USC Shoah Foundation Institute online exhibition -- Voices of the Holocaust: Children Speak
Related Articles
Plight of Jewish Children
Hidden Children: Choices
Hidden Children: Daily Life
Hidden Children: Discovered
Hidden Children: Expressions
Hidden Children: Hardships
Hidden Children: Quest for Family




Copyright © United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C.
Encyclopedia Last Updated: October 7, 2008

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