"The Hidden Children"

Carried in a specially constructed knapsack, three-year-old Stephan Zwieg was hidden by German Communist prisoners. Kristine Keren lived with her family in the sewers of Lvov, Poland for fourteen months. Rene Roth-Hano posed as a Catholic and lived in a convent. Such were the lives of some of the "hidden children."

There were laws that you can't shoot a deer, and all of a sudden it dawned on me that these animals were better off than we were. . . . I realized at the time that our level of existence was worse than an animal. They had some protection, there were only certain months you could shoot them . . . .
---Jack Goldstein, Holocaust survivor

Estimates suggest that between 10,000 and 100,000 Jewish children, hidden from the Nazis, survived the Holocaust. The methods used to hide the children varied depending on circumstances. Although some children remained "visible," passing as Christians, the majority were forced to go into hiding. Often benefactors took them from their homes and had to separate them from their families. Some found refuge in various institutions such as convents, schools, or orphanages. "Righteous Gentiles" sometimes adopted or protected Jewish children from the Nazis, often at great risk to their own lives.

In many instances, arrangements were made through a parent's or family member's personal contacts. This method often resulted in a complicated effort to find an individual or agency willing to offer refuge to a Jewish child. Gradually, however, these efforts managed to establish networks of rescue and concealment. Not only individuals but sometimes whole villages would work to save Jewish children! Besides those who helped hide the children there were groups who gave the children gifts of money or, even more valuable, false documents to conceal their real identities.

The same frightening ordeal was repeatedly constantly throughout Nazi-dominated Europe. Jewish children found themselves boarding a train along, or perhaps in the company of a brother or sister bound for an unknown destination. Upon arrival, they might be met by a total stranger whom their family had entrusted with their care - a stranger about whose goodwill they could never be certain. Although these children may not have always understood completely what was happening, many survivors remember feeling a deep sense of anxiety, fear, and danger.

Many Jewish children were placed with protective families or hidden among other children in schools or orphanages. Others, however, moved from one hiding place to another such as tiny closets, cramped attics, dark basements, and filthy sewers. There were those children, too, who endured the additional hardship of suffering abuse from their "rescuers." Children in hiding learned some basic survival skills, amoung them to lie and to deny their real identity, heritage, and culture. The most important lesson of all, though, was silence, for danger lurked everywhere. These children soon understood that they could trust no one. One survivor recalled: "We were in so much danger. . . in some respects under much more tension and pressure than people who were already caught, because we always had to be on guard."

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