This important reference work highlights a number of disparate themes relating to the experience of children during the Holocaust, showing their vulnerability and how some heroic people sought to save their lives amid the horrors perpetrated by the Nazi regime.
This book is a comprehensive examination of the people, ideas, movements, and events related to the experience of children during the Holocaust. They range from children who kept diaries to adults who left memoirs to others who risked (and, sometimes, lost) their lives in trying to rescue Jewish children or spirit them away to safety in various countries. The book also provides examples of the nature of the challenges faced by children during the years before and during World War II. In many cases, it examines the very act of children's survival and how this was achieved despite enormous odds.
In addition to more than 125 entries, this book features 10 illuminating primary source documents, ranging from personal accounts to Nazi statements regarding what the fate of Jewish children should be to statements from refugee leaders considering how to help Jewish children after World War II ended. These documents offer fascinating insights into the lives of students during the Holocaust and provide students and researchers with excellent source material for further research.
- Provides readers with insights into the vulnerabilities faced by children during the Holocaust
- Shows how individual rescuers and larger (though clandestine) rescue organizations sought to minimize the worst effects of Nazi anti-Jewish measures against children
- Explains how some Jewish children pretended to be non-Jewish as a way to survive
- Showcases adult victims of the Holocaust who, despite the risks to themselves, worked to save children
