In 1939, approximately 1.6 million Jewish children lived in areas that would be occupied by Nazi Germany and its allies. Although scholars differ on the numbers, it seems safe to say that between 100,000 and 500,000 of these children survived.
Many of these survivors were hidden children; some secreted in attics or cellars, others living in the open, with Christian families.
Joanna Michlic is director of the Families and Holocaust Project at the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute. She said that children who survived the Holocaust living as Christians with adopted families experienced “two massive ruptures” that affected their sense of self.
The first occurred following the separation from their biological families. Jewish parents hid their children in Christian homes or convents, where the children had to learn to conceal their identities.
The second rupture was “when the children were confronted with the news of being Jewish,” as Michlic put it, and had to leave their Christian lives behind.
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