Some demanded that the child be “redeemed” through financial remuneration. In hundreds of cases, rescuers refused to release hidden children to their families or Jewish organizations. For hidden children, it was the revelation that there were no surviving family members to reclaim them. For parents, it was the discovery that their child had been killed or disappeared. Time and again, the search for family ended in tragedy. Many, however, resorted to tracing services, newspaper notices, and survivor registries in the hope of finding their children. In fortunate instances, they found their offspring with the original rescuer. In Lodz, Poland, for example, the Nazis had reduced a prewar Jewish population of more than 220,000 to less than 1,000.įollowing the war, Jewish parents often spent months and years searching for the children they had sent into hiding. In place after place, they faced the devastation wrought by the Holocaust. Consequently, when relatives or Jewish organizations discovered them, they were typically apprehensive and sometimes resistant to yet another change.Īs areas were liberated from German rule, Jewish organizations rushed in to locate survivors and reunite families. The only family that most had known was that of their rescuers. Those who had been infants when they were placed into hiding had no recollection of their biological parents or knowledge of their Jewish origins. It often involved some traumatic soul searching for children to rediscover their true identity. The quest for family was much more than a search for relatives. Tracing services set up by the International Red Cross and Jewish relief organizations aided the searches, but often the quests were protracted because the Nazis, the war, and the mass relocations of populations in central and eastern Europe had displaced millions of people. Local Jewish committees in Europe tried to register the living and account for the dead. Parents sought out the children they had placed in convents, orphanages, or with foster families. When the war ended in 1945, the surviving remnant of Europe's Jews immediately began the difficult and painful search for family members.
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