Aloha, Welcome to My History Page

Post #12 and #13 - Final Draft and Final Critique

2005-05-11T09:01:00.000-05:00

Here are the links to Nick's critique of my paper

My critique of Nick's Paper

Post # 10 and #11 - Draft and Critique

2005-04-19T15:56:00.000-05:00

I combined Post 10 and 11 into this one...
Link to My Paper

Link to My Critique of John's Paper

Presentation Pictures

2005-04-13T22:02:00.001-05:00

Figure 3
Originally uploaded by mleahy1.

I have posted the pictures I found for my presentation if anyone wants to look at them. Click on the picture of Daniele Baurer and it will take you to my flickr site.

Post #9 - First Draft

2005-04-10T13:29:00.000-05:00

First Draft.......without figures attached, they will be up soon I promise

MEMORIALIZING THE JEWISH CHILDREN OF THE HOLOCAUST IN FRANCE

BY MADELIENE B. LEAHY
HIST 300: Introduction to Historical Methods
Spring 2005
Professor Petrik

The Holocaust killed 1.5 million Jewish children. In France, 11,402 Jewish Children were rounded up, transported in boxcars and, ultimately, sent to their deaths at concentration camps like Auschwitz. All over world there are monuments, museums, and memorials remembering them. These memorials have been established by governments who want to continue educating people about the Holocaust. The young boys and girls are also being remembered in books written by Serge Klarsfeld, in memorials established at the site of horrific events, and in the homeland established for the Jewish peoples and refuges of the Holocaust. Memorializing children killed during the Holocaust is an incredibly hard task to undertake. It is the books written by Serge Klarsfeld and the home in Izieu however, that best memorialize the children lost. These memorials have given respect to the victim, an understanding of the situation the children faced, and the lessons that can be learned through remembering.
A memorial, as defined by the Webster’s dictionary, means to commemorate a person or event with a monument or holiday. Also, it is intended to celebrate the memory of that person or event.[1] To commemorate a person could mean memorializing a person in a simple fashion such as a tombstone in front of a grave to marking life and death. Driving by a cemetery and viewing all the headstones is a way of memorializing the dead in the singular basis. Memorializing lots of people in one effort is challenging. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C. is a premier memorial to the millions who died in Europe and Russia during the Holocaust. In the memorial museum, the victims are remembered throughout. The museum describes what happened during not only the Final Solution of the Holocaust but the rise of Adolf Hitler, the initial restrictions placed on the Jewish communities, and ending with the liberation. At the very end of the permanent exhibit, are the testimonial film clips of Holocaust survivors.
A memorial has to invoke viewers with certain feelings without ever stating precisely what the memorialist wants you to feel. Feelings of rage, sorrow, horror, fear, and helplessness are just some of the emotions felt by those viewing the Holocaust memorials. Indeed it is important to know that those emotions that are evoked by these terrible events are not as important as how they are evoked.[2] So how do you remember French Jewish children who perished in the Holocaust? The answer is you give them back their faces and their names.
Although many memorials around Europe and the world remember the children by giving them a brief plaque, it does not give them back their individual identities. The idea of a memorial is to give something back to whomever is being remembered. The memorials for the French Jewish children are all meant to give identity it the victims. As Serge Klarsfeld, a leading Holocaust memorialist, said in an interview, “giving [the victim] back their faces…I believe that these children, in a way, are somewhere still alive.”[3]
First it is important to know the facts regarding the Holocaust in France. As the Nazi army spread across Europe, so did the Jewish fear of being killed. The innocent were not spared. The Jewish adults understood a little of why the Nazi were persecuting them. The children had no idea why people hated them, however. They hadn’t a clue as to why they were being targeted with hatred.[4] In Serge Klarsfeld book, Children of Izieu, an idea circulates that the children of the Jewish people, particularly the ones in the quiet countryside of France, posed no threat to the Nazi regime. So why did the Nazis kill them? The answer is simple: the children were Jewish too.
In France, the war began when the French government signed an armistice with Germany.[5] The armistice was signed shortly after June of 1940, when Northern France and Paris came under direct control of the German occupation. Although claiming neutrality, the French lead by Henri Petain, conspired with the Germans and moved their capital to the southern town of Vichy. The French government willingly helped the Germans arrest and murder the 80,000 Jews living in France. Initially, the French were not ready to let the Germans send Jewish children to the gas chamber. But clearly, the evidence shows that the French Vichy government did not stop the Germans after they invaded and took control. Between October 1940 and June 1941 laws were instituted in France known as the “Statut des Juifs” or Laws of the Jews. These laws required the Jewish people in France to be excluded from “public life, required to be dismissed from civil work, and barred from professional jobs such as law and education.”[6]
Around July 1941, the Vichy government began to help the Germans round up Jews and transport them to internment camps such as Gurs, Beaune-la-Rolande, and others established throughout France. In these camps families were separated but were held until turn in transit selection. Adults without children however were taken straight to the Drancy transit center outside Paris.[7] Drancy was the last stop on convoys before heading to outside camps such as Auschwitz. In March of 1942, the first convey left Drancy bound to Auschwitz. (see figure 16 and 17 for convoy lists) The French authorities attempted to camouflage the deportations by excluding children from the deportations.[8] Soon children were not being excluded and the Germans arrested all Jews regardless of age. Deportations continued until June of 1944. The total number of Jews from France killed was 75,721 Jews. Of that 11,402 were children.
After the war, people streamed out of Eastern Europe trying to piece back together the lives they lost. Refugees searched throughout Europe for their families that might still have been alive.[9] Quickly, allied zones took in these refugees on route to new lives. Slowly the Holocaust victims rebuilt their lives. On May 15th, 1948, the new Israel state was established and thousands migrated there to put further distance between them and the past. After a few years, information surfaced about lost victims (information pertaining to who was alive or those who were killed) and people began to build memorials to the victims.
The types of memorials used to commemorate the children in France are done so through books and monuments. Both types are incredibly touching and can assault your sense in terms of what you are understand and viewing. In books a reader has the ability to travel through time and space to visit specific places of which the book speaks. It is this effect that many authors of memorials count on. They [memorialists] want their readers to feel and understand. While books cannot make you feel anything, they give you the tools in order to make yourself feel and understand what is being conveyed through the words of the book. Serge Klarsfeld has used the written word to memorialize the children and adults of the Holocaust. After many years compiling pictures and letters, Klarsfeld released his book French Children of the Holocaust: a Memorial in 1997. This book “gives back the faces of the French youngsters taken cruelly” during the Holocaust.[10]
Serge Klarsfeld, Nazi hunter and renowned memorialist, wrote a touching memorial to the French Jewish children killed by the Nazis and the French. In many of his books Mr. Klarsfeld, charges the French and Nazi officials with “brutal mistreatment” of Jews, as well as “clear disregard for human life.”[11] As a result of this clear hate for the Nazi and the Vichy government, Mr. Klarsfeld spent his adult life fighting for the French victims.[12] French Children of the Holocaust: a Memorial is written in both French and English to emphasize the impact languages have on history. [13]
In the book, Serge Klarsfeld spends 1,881 describing the history of the War and Holocaust in France. The first 400 pages of this book briefly describe the Nazis in France and the French Vichy government’s involvement in the arrests. Mr. Klarsfeld begins his memorial by listing each victim by name, age, and the convoy number they left on.[14] After setting up the tale, he further sets out to assault his reader’s humane side by spending the next 1400 pages of the book focusing on the children’s lives before the holocaust. (see figures 9 through 15) On this section of the book, Mr. Klarsfeld uses little written word and lots of pictures he discovered for the reader to understand more of the Holocausts impact on the innocent children’s lives. In this cases “a picture is worth a thousand words.” On these pages brief paragraphs about the photograph, and the victim can be found. Particularly, what convoy number they left France on. The children in the books were as young as newborns to as old as seventeen at the time they were sent on their convoys. It is most powerful section of the book. Looking at the pictures is reminiscent of photographs that can be seen throughout homes of relatives.
Klarsfeld spent decades finding the pictures of his victims, along with lost letters and former addresses.[15] He intended to spend the thousand pages of his book restoring as many names to the children as possible. It does not matter to him whether they were born French, what mattered to him was that they died French and for their religion. By restoring their names and faces, Klarsfeld attempts to give them back their childhoods that will forever be lost in the ashes and memory of the Holocaust, Auschwitz, and World War II France.
Memorializing, in regards to the Holocaust can be done in another way. This way is by establishing a monument as a memorial to the victims. Throughout Europe, there are memorials of this nature that invoke tragedy and emotion. Similar to books, monuments are meant to conjure up emotions within the audience.
The monument that stands at the side of the road in Izieu, France may not grab attention at first glance. (See figure 1) It sits back a several feet from the road next to what seems to be an empty farm home. At second glance the innocent faces engraved on the tall, slender monument evokes helpless feelings. This monument is dedicated to the forty-four children who were being sheltered in the Izieu children's home and the five adults in charge of them who refused to leave the children.
On April 6th, 1944 the Lyon Gestapo, under the command of Klaus Barbie, raided the home for children in the village of Izieu. The Gestapo struck without warning. Klaus Barbie and the soldiers rounded up the children and loaded them into the two trucks waiting outside. Without hesitation, they were all sent to Auschwitz on the first available convoy train.[16] It was the only time a home for Jewish children was singled out, raided, and deported in France during German occupation.[17]
The monument at Izieu, erected out of stone, along with the original house memorialize that tragic day and fifty lives lost in the Izieu round up. The house, established as a museum, sends out a lot of emotions at first glanced. (see figures 2 and 3) Inside La Maison d'Izieu, museum visitors feel the ever present sense of fear and hope. Little rooms, with little windows that over look an awe-inspiring view of the Rhone River and the Alps. The monument and subsequent museum allow the visitor into the atmosphere similar to the set of Sound of Music. The picturesque setting also assaults a person into wondering why something so tragic could happen to children in such a magical place. The curators of the museum have done an excellent job in first allowing its visitors to feel safe in this beautiful French countryside town of Izieu, near the Swiss border. The feeling of helplessness as the museum establishes the events of arrests and murders. Inside the building, former classrooms are restored to what they would have looked like in 1944, and the years before the arrest. (see figure 4) Bedroom dormitories create a personal setting of comfort. (see figure 5) The downstairs dining hall is set with tables and places for the children to eat. Along the walls are original art pictures the children drew while living there.[18] Furthermore the inside shows the age the building has undertaking in the past decades. (see figure 6)
The monument with the two innocent children staring back stands in front of the house. It stands at nearly five meters (nearly 16 feet high); it has triangular at the top and slender base. It was erected in 1946 by local masons. The plaque on the monument reads:
To the Memory of the forty-three children of the home at Izieu, of their director, and of their five guardians, arrested by the Germans April 6th, 1944, and exterminated in the camps or executed in German prisons.[19]
Another commemorative plaque mounted on the house in 1946 reads:
On April 6, 1944 Maundy Thursday, 43 children from the house at Izieu were arrested by the Germans with their guardians, then deported on April 15th 1944. Forty-one children and five of their guardians were exterminated in the gas chambers at Auschwitz. The director of the home and two of the other boys were executed in the fortress at Reval. Let the defense and the love of my fatherland be my defense before Thee, O Lord.[20]
The museum opened on April 4th, 1994, with President Jacques Chirac in attendance.[21] This memorial museum and monument are touching and like Serge Klarsfeld’s book are basic tools of teaching and remembering the events of the Holocaust.
The Holocaust is a hard thing to teach young children and yet one of the most important lessons they should learn. In fact, there are still some who like to believe that it never happened at all. This belief is probably the worst crime, to ignore its victims and disrespect their memory. In France and around the world the Holocaust victims are remembered on World Remembrance Day. At this time of the year teachers try to teach their classes about the Holocaust and its events. This is a memorial. Just the simple fact that you are remembering makes the event real. Ernest Nives, a survivor of Auschwitz, said to The New York Times in 1997 that, “…the Nazis were sure that these innocent children would be forgotten and nobody would care. We have not proven them wrong. We have rewritten a page of Holocaust history.”[22] Through memorials and education from the memorials, the Nazis have lost the battle to conceal there crimes against not only innocent children but innocent adults.
Teaching the lessons of the Holocaust in Europe is also a way of teaching about the other holocausts that have gone on in past and present times. History has blackened the world with genocidal events such as the Turks massacre of the Armenians in 1915, Josef Stalin’s attempt to massacre his own people during the nineteen-forties and fifties, the Hutus killing the Tutus in Africa, the “ethnic cleansings” that occurred in Yugoslavia in the early nineteen-nineties, and the current situation in Sudan. Future generations will learn about the holocausts that occur in other parts of the world, but it is important that they first learn about the systematic attempted to erase an entire religious group/race from Europe and the world. Remembering these victims and the children who died is memorializing them. They are committed to memory, they bring to mind feelings, and they remind us of what hate can lead to.
The “shriek of children does not make the Holocaust real”, nor does showing pictures of dead children make it real.[23] It is seeing the faces of the innocent children playing in their front yard before the war, or standing in front of the camera smiling carelessly. It is hard to feel the full impact of the Holocaust tragedy, even from something as significant as pictures. The audience viewing or reading the memorials are given a significant feeling from the memorial. Memorials like the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum are bittersweet in the way the permanent exhibition assaults senses with smell and climate changes. Serge Klarsfeld’s book French Jewish Children of the Holocaust is the same way. Looking at these pictures makes you feel as if you are looking at old pictures of family members instead of children who were arrested, deported, and murdered.
Old photographs, open homes, and innocent faces are essentials for memorializing children. Through the photographs, viewers learn what life was like before the Germans invaded France. It is easy to tell that the children were innocent by their appearance, surroundings, and background of the pictures. The open home museum allows visitors to step inside to past for view of what life was like for the children who lived there. Furthermore, a person just looking at the innocent faces in the pictures and on the monument plaque gets immediate feelings of remembrance. The Holocaust was a tragedy, but within this tragedy was the loss of 11,000 Jewish children.[24] The memorial examples discussed created an environment that explained the children’s situation during the Holocaust, lessons that must be learned, and the most important thing, it gives back the respect to the victims lost. One can only hope that they received their names and faces back in their unfortunate deaths and in their memorials around the world.
[1] Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary
[2] Aciman, Andre. “Innocence and Experience” The New Republic. Washington: Jan 19, 1998. Vol. 218 Iss. 3 pg, 26
[3] Mark, Jonathan
[4] Leiter, Robert. “The Story of the Lost Children”, Jewish Exponent. Philadelphia: May 16, 2002. Vol. 211 Iss. 20 pg. 46
[5]www.ushmm.org
[6] www.ushmm.org
[7] Henley pg. 1
[8] Sosnowski pg. 56
[9] www.ushmm.org
[10] Mark Jonathan
[11] Leiter, pg. 46
[12] Serge Klarsfeld was a victim himself. His father was arrested and sent to Auschwitz in 1942. Klarsfeld narrowly escaped being arrested. He has devoted his entire life to finding, arresting, and bring to justice the Nazis who killed so many of his friends and family, his father included.
[13] In French “Memorial des enfants Juifs déportés de France.
[14] Aciman pg. 3; Note: In France a total of 86 convoys left between March 1942 and Aug 1944.
[15] Shapirio, Susan. “Books in Brief: French Children of the Holocaust” NewYork Times Book Review. Feb. 9th 1997 pg. 21
[16] Dressler, Bernadette. http://www.izieu.alma.fr/
[17] Leiter, pg. 46
[18] http://www.izieu.alma.fr/anglais/frame_principale.htm
[19] Klarsfeld, Serge. The children of Izieu: a human tragedy. New York: H. Abrams, 1985. pg. 9
[20] Ibid pg. 10
[21] http://www.izieu.alma.fr/anglais/frame_principale.htm
[22] Roiphe, Anne. “Holocaust’s Children, One by One by One” The New York Times. Feb. 7, 1997, pg. C1 Note: Mr. Nives is in the Serge Klarsfeld memorial book, French Children of the Holocaust. There is a photograph of him at the ages of four sitting with his parents and brother. He is the only one who survived. After the war he moved to the U.S.
[23] Aciman pg. 5
[24] Leiter. Pg. 1

Post # 8 - The Outline

2005-04-03T15:33:00.000-05:00

My outliine is pretty basic and after putting it together think it will be very useful for writing my paper. Although the number of parargraphs I mention is purely a guess and I cannot be certain how many I will actually use.

OUTLINE: MEMORIALIZING THE JEWISH CHILDREN OF THE HOLOCAUST IN FRANCE

1. Introduction to the topic, followed by my thesis statement and argument for the paper
The Nazi Holocaust of Jews was divesting.

2-4. Brief review of World War II and the Holocaust in France. I will mainly be discussing conveys and arrests of Jewish Children. This will probably take two to three paragraphs.
In France an attempted was first made to camouflage the exterminatory character of the deportations of Jews by excluding children from them (Sosnowski pg. 56)
Excluded from power and condemned to physical annihilation, the Jews were scattered in society which, after the autumn of 1942, reacted in a way that could sometimes thwart the homicidal will of the government. (Lazare pg. 308)
The Massacre of Innocents: Far from attempting to save the children of Jews, the French authorities offered them up along with the adults. The Vichy suggested that children be sent along with adults even before the Nazis were ready to accept them…The Nazis did not bother with children on the first deportations…(Marrus pg. 263)

4-6. After the war what the French did to put into place a memorial for the children who were killed.

7. This paragraph will be devoted to what does it mean to memorialize.
- This may take two paragraphs but I am not sure until I write.

8-10. The types of memorials I have found dedicated to the children in France. I have have found two types, books and memorial sites both in France and in Israel, where the majority of Jewish memorials are, not just the ones pertaining to children or France.

11-16. Research and Examples:
1. Serge Klarsfeld Book: French Children of the Holocaust: A Memorial
- The book itself is a memorial.
- it refers to itself as giving back the names and faces of innocent victims.
2. The monument/museum at Izieu:
- A commemorative plaque mounted on 1946 at the house reads: On April 6, 1944 Maundy Thursday, 43 children from the house at Izieu wre arrested by the Germans with their guardians, then deported on April 15th 1944. Forty-one children and five of their guardians were exterminated in the gas chambers at Auschwitz. The director of the home and two of the boys were executed in the fortress at Reval. Let the defense and the love of my fatherland be my defense before Thee, O Lord.

17. Wrap up on the Memorials and what they are doing for the education and realization of the Holocaust to present generations and future generations

18. Conclusion of my research and re-emphasis of my thesis.

Post # 7 - Bibliography (Updated again on April 7th)

2005-04-02T13:00:00.000-05:00

Post #7 - Bibliography (Updated Version)
I spent all day reading articles and rereading books that I have either checked out or took notes on and here is what I have for my bibliography thus for:

Books

Brooks, Philip. Viewing the Holocaust Today. Chicago: Heinemann Library, 2003.

Holliday, Laurel. Children in the Holocaust and World War II: their secret diaries. New York: Pocket Books, 1995.

Jewish Children of France during World War II. Rockville: Friends and Alumni of OSE-USE, 2003.

Klarsfeld, Serge . French Children of the Holocaust: A Memorial. New York: New York UP, 1998.

Klarsfeld, Serge. Memorial to the Jews deported from France, 1942-1944 : documentation of the deportation of the victims of the Final Solution in France. New York: B. Klarsfeld Fouundation. 1983

Klarsfeld, Serge. The children of Izieu: a human tragedy. New York: H. Abrams, 1985.

Lazare, Lucien. Rescue as resistance: how Jewish organizations fought the Holoacust in France. New York: Columbia UP, 1996.

Marrus, Michael. Vichy France and the Jews. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1995.

Samuel, Vivette. Rescuing the children: A Holocaust Memoir. Madison: University of Wisconsin P, 2002.

Schittly, Richard. Izieu, l'innocence assassinee: contributions a la memoire des enfants juifs rafles le 6 avril 1944. Paris: Seyssel: Editions Comp'Act, 1994.

Sosnowski, Kiryl. The tragedy of children under Nazi rule. New York: n.p., 1983.

Articles

Aciman, Andre. "Innocence and experience." Rev. of French Children of the Holocaust: A Memorial, by Serge Klarsfeld. The New Republic 19 Jan. 1998.

Di Paz, Michel. "Klarsfeld charges France kept assets od deported Jews." Jewish Telegraphic Agency 20 July 1995: 6. ProQuest. 18 Mar. 2005

Dupuy, E J. "Jewish American and Holocaust Literature: representation in post-modern world." Choice. Mar. 2005: ProQuest. 18 Mar. 2005

Fishman, Boris. "Letter from Paris; Holocaust Memorial Performs A Strained Balancing Act." Forward 28 Jan. 2005. ProQuest. 18 Mar. 2005

Herman, Jerry. "'Children of Chabannes' shows town's good will during dark years." Jewish Bulletin of Northern California 9 June 2000. ProQuest. 12 Mar. 2005

Kaplan, Rachel. "French Jewry 50 Years After the Deportations." Inside. 30 June 1995: ProQuest. 12 Mar. 2005

Kraft, Dina. "New Holocaust museum puts human faces on 6 million deaths." Jewish Telegraphic Agency 7 Mar. 2005. ProQuest. 18 Mar. 2005

Leiter, Robert. "The Story of Lost Children." Jewish Exponent. 16 May 2002: 46. Proquest. 18 Mar. 2005

Mark, Jonathan. "Bringing the Children Back: In Serge Klarsfeld's monumental book, the faces of the French youngsters taken cruelly in the Holocaust come into view." Rev. of French Children of the Holocaust: A Memorial, by Serge Klarsfeld. The New York Jewish Week 14 Feb. 1997: 33.

Roiphe, Anne. "Holocaust's Children, One by One by One." The New York Times 7 Feb. 1997, Late ed., sec. C. ProQuest. 18 Mar. 2005.

Sauvage, Pierre. "Among the Villagers of Le Chambon." Editorial. Forward 8 Oct. 2004

Shapiro, Susan. "Books in Brief: French Children of the Holocaust." Rev. of French Children of the Holocaust: A Memorial, by Serge Klarsfeld. New York Times Books Review 9 Feb. 1997.

Internet

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. USHMM. 19 Feb. 2005http://www.ushmm.org.

The Holocaust Chronicle. 18 Mar. 2005 http://www.holocaustchronicle.org

"memorial." Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 31 Mar. 2005http://www.m-w.com/.

La Maison d'Izieu: Memorial Museum of the Children of Izieu. 2 Apr. 2005 www.izieu.alma.fr/

Post #6 - Progress Report

2005-03-18T11:43:00.000-05:00

I have been working hard on trying to find my thesis for my paper. But I am having a problem creating what my paper will be about. I know and foresee that this will be my main problem for the next week or so. After doing my research at both the Holocaust Archives and the Library of Congress, I have my topic and my book research but now I need to focus on my article research. But I am not certain about what I want to write about. Do I want to write about the Children of the UGIF Center of Neuilly, or the children of Izieu? And what constitutes as an article? Is an article something from, for instance Newsweek Magazine about the subject or something from Historical Abstract database? I have pictures and copies of Primary sources that I have been transliterating but what kind of articles am I looking for?
Just thinking out loud but what is my thesis, what do I want my paper to say? Is there a narrow path I can take in order to get to my final goal: my paper? But what do I want my paper to say?

Post #5 - The Library of Congress

2005-03-07T22:13:00.000-05:00

My experience at the Library of Congress(LOC) was a whole lot happier than Kelly's experience. While I did arrive late thanks to the stupid Metro and over-sleeping, the library experience was incrediable. I have never been inside the LOC before. It was also helpful that we did it in a big group and were able to work together and go off and do our separate research.

At the LOC I found similar sources to the ones I found at the Holocaust Museum. As a result I can now focus my library research attention at either library/archieve instead of going back and forth between the two. Although the LOC did not carry Le Memorial de la Deportation des Juifs de France, which I have found very helpful.

The one problem I encountered at the Library of Congress was the wait. While I do not have a problem sitting around and waiting, it got a little annoying waiting 45 minutes for three or four books! At the Holocaust Museum, I waited a few minutes and there was not a whole lot of people waiting with me (which I liked because I got the table to myself.)

My next visit will be to the Holocaust over Spring Break for some in depth information on Serge Klarsfeld, who I have found to the leading person memorializing the French Jews, in particular the children. I also plan on trying to get to the LOC one more time before the outline is due, just to make sure I have hit all the leads and sources I can possible take. However now I am at a bit of a stand still at what I am actually going to write about. After all the research about who, how and why these memorials are taking place what am I going to write about? More and more the angle I am thinking about is how the most of the children lived before and if they survived what they went back too. But still think I need help or a shove in the right direction.

Post #4 – Topic Statement for Research

2005-02-24T14:10:00.000-05:00

French Jews Children of the Holocaust

For my topic I am looking at Children of the Holocaust. After spending last Friday at the Holocaust Museum I was able to narrow my topic to the French Children. Michelle Amir, reference librarian at the USHMM helped me begin my research by looking at Serge Klarsfeld’s research Le Memorial de la Deportation des Juifs de France (The Memorial of the Jewish Deportation in France.) This book was written in French and is a complex list of all the Jewish victims that were deported out of France during the years of 1942 to 1944. From this book I discovered that French Jews are currently being memorialized by the French. Through the work of authors like Klarsfeld and the CDJC (Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporarie) the memorialization efforts are making head way.
The second book I looked at was also a Klarsfeld book, which has been translated by Susan Cohen, French Children of the Holocaust: a Memorial. This was probably the hardest book to look at. The book contains very well documented lists of all the children who were arrested, deported, and never returned to France. A rare word in the book is the word “survived.” Towards the end of the 1881 pages is a photograph of a group of young boys from a UGIF center (these were homesteads that act as foster care for Jewish children). These little boys were cared for and hidden by French women who wanted to see them survive. Alas, they were arrested and sent to Auschwitz. This book was not without charts and dates, always as lists of all the names of children. Also in the book was a well memorialized (and long) list of pictures of as many children as possible.
From my research I hope to convey the idea that the French people have tried to memorialize their dead. Both of these books gave me a brief but helpful look at what these children were like before the Holocaust. It also gave me a number. Of the 1.5 million children who were killed during the Holocaust, only 11,146 were French or at least rounded up in France. Mr. Klarsfeld has done an excellent job memorializing the French died in both his books. I agree with his use of lists. These lists have helped me to understand the chronology of events and the record of all the children killed starting with Israël Knaster to the last group of 31 boys on the last train, Convoy #86.

Post #3: Primary Sources

2005-02-13T17:18:00.000-05:00

Auschwitz Record of Transfer to Dachau
Originally uploaded by mleahy1.

Primary Source #1

This is a record I found on the Holocaust Survivors website.

"This is a page of an original document from the archives of the National Museum of Auschwitz-Birkenau which lists the name of Solomon Radasky. It concerns a transfer of prisoners from Auschwitz to Dachau. Solomon Radasky (Slama Radosinski) had Auschwitz No. 128232 and is the 1043rd person on the list. His profession is listed as Schneider (Tailor)" From website Holocaust Survivors

__________

This Source can be dominant in my research because Aushwitz was one of (if not the) most notorious concentration camps in Europe during the Holocaust. It is reported that millions were sent there, and millions more died as soon as they got off the train car. This one document is a record of transfers, who did not die in the gas chambers.

Primary Source #2

From: Ghetto VilnaAuthor: Abraham Sutzkever

Translated by Shep Zitler

Zelda Einhorn, an escapee from Ponary, saw her whole family shot to death there. She told (the writer) that she had seen how Tzerna Morgenstern, a young woman of 18 years, the beautiful daughter of a well-known Vilna professor, was murdered. She had been marched with her mother and young brother. She stood near a deep ditch. She was told to remove her clothes. Those who did not respond had their eyes stabbed out. It was evening. The moon had just begun to appear above where Tzerna stood, half undressed by the ditch. The Nazi commandant, Weiss, approached Tzerna rapidly and pulled her aside, as if to rescue her. Tzerna resisted, preferring to be with her mother and little brother, already shot lying in the ditch. Weiss would not let her go. "A beautiful girl like you should not die," he said and dragged her further away. She screamed and cried but to no avail. Weiss continued, "How beautiful is the world with the moonlight shining on the leaves, and you, young girl, are more beautiful by the moonlight." He spoke to her like a lover, extolling the beauty of life to this unfortunate girl as he removed his revolver from his back pocket and shot the sad young girl in the head. Then roaring with laughter, he proudly dragged the dying girl to her family's ditch.

From a webpage titled The Death of Young Tzerna Morgenstern, at the Holocaust Survivors website

__________

I read this document last Sunday morning. It was the first document I had ever read that made me seriously think about the lives of teenage girls. What happened to them if they manage to survive the hard labor of concentration camps or just hard labor camps? This one girl's story has made me narrow my approach to looking at young girls between the ages of 10 and 13. While Tzerna was 18, the story of her death (for no reason) makes me wonder where she started from and how she arrived at this concentration/prisoner camp.

Primary Sources #3

Nazi Letters on Execution of Jews

Letter: Execution of Jews

15.November.1941 Reichskommissar for Ostland IIa 4 Secret

To: Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories

RE: Execution of Jews

. . .Will you please inform me whether your inquiry of 31.October should be interpreted as a directive to liquidate all the Jews in Ostland? Is this to be done regardless of age, sex, and economic requirements (for instance, the Wehrmacht's demand for skilled workers in the armament industry)? Of course the cleansing of Ostland of Jews is a most important task; its solution, however, must be in accord with the requirements of war production. . .

Loshe Reichskommissar for Ostland Letter: The Jewish Question

18.December.1941 Berlin Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories

To: Reichskommissar for Ostland

RE: Jewish question

The Jewish question has presumably been clarified meanwhile by means of verbal discussion. In principle, economic considerations are not to be taken into account in the settlement of the problem. It is further requested that any questions that arise be settled directly with the Higher SS and Police Leader.

Braeutigam December.1941 Reichskommissar for Ostland

To: Higher SS and Police Leader . . . I request most emphatically that the liquidation of Jews employed as skilled workers in armament plants and repair workshops of the Wehrmacht who cannot be replaced at present by local personnel be prevented. . . . . . Provision is to be made as quickly as possible for the training of suitable local personnel as skilled workers. . .

Loshe Reichskommissar for Ostland

16.December.1941 Minsk Generalkommissar for Byelorussia

To: Reichskommissar for Ostland

I wish to ask you personally for an official directive for the conduct of the civilian administration towards the Jews deported from Germany to Byelorussia. Among these Jews are men who fought at the Front and have the Iron Cross, First and Second Class, war invalids, half-Aryans, even three- quarter Aryans. . . . . .These Jews will probably freeze or starve to death in the coming weeks. . . On my own responsibility I will not give the SD any instructions with regard to the treatment of these people. . . I am certainly a hard [man] and willing to help solve the Jewish question, but people who come from our own cultural sphere just are not the same as the brutish hordes in this place. Is the slaughter to be carried out by the Lithuanians and Letts, who are themselves rejected by the population here? I couldn't do it. I beg you to give clear directives [in this matter,] with due consideration for the good name of our Reich and our Party, in order that the necessary action can be taken in the most humane manner. Heil Hitler! Wilhelm Kube

__________

While this document did not lead me to any new approached or narrowed topics, it did make me realize the level of focus that the Nazi had in total inhilation of the Jews. This was the first primary document I found and probably the most relevent in why I choose my topic. The fact that these educated men decided to take out all their angers and frusterations on one group of religious people is just awe-striking.

Of my initial primary sources the story about Tzerna has struck me the most in relating to my topic. As a result I would like to find out more information about her or her family or the camp Ponary. If this ideas hit walls, I would like to focus on a lesser known camp for my research. For instance I have never heard of Ponary and have no idea where it is located. While I am not sure any of these primary sources will lead me to my end goal, they have lead me to this point, and will continue to lead me further because I can look back at them as examples.

Post #2: Abuse or Neglect, Which is Worse?

2005-02-13T15:26:00.000-05:00

In reading “Why the Young Kill,” by Sharon Begley I began questioned the violence that was witnessed by the youth that survived the Holocaust. In the article from Childhood in America, the author looks at influence in a child’s “biology, culture, and social surroundings.”[1] After reading this particular article I have looked into the topic of violence in the lives of children who survived the Holocaust. More importantly, is abuse or neglect the worse way to screw up kids.

Dr. Bruce Perry from Baylor College of Medicine theorizes that children who suffer repeated stresses in life (ex: abuse, terror, violence, etc.) also experience physical change in their brains.[2] This idea is so incredibly fascinating. The fact that repeated violence not only will change outside changes but also internal changes. Consider this, a victim of repeated emotional and verbal abuse will adapt to trigger words that will make them emotional vacant. The same can be said for a victim of constant physical cruelties. If someone says words or makes a significant action, the victim reacts immediately whether it is to protect themselves or brace themselves for whatever will follow. But what happens when the child grows up realizing that violence will make someone listen. Holocaust survivors endured violence so horrific that life afterwards must have been a struggle. I wonder what the suicide rate was, or among those who manage to have children after the War was over.

Dr Perry also mentions the idea that neglectful parenting is just as bad as an abusive parenting. Neglectful parents often avoid affection and are withdrawn from children. Affection is important to children particularly in young children, such as toddlers. Toddlers need to be reminded of attachment to a parent or guardian because it gives them a feeling of self-worth. These children may grow up feeling lost or as Dr. Perry puts it ostracized by peers. He also states that these children will have difficult forming relationships with others because they may not feel they are worthy of friendships and become increasingly withdrawn themselves. Although I think Dr. Perry goes a step too far when he uses music, movies, and video games as an example of “dangerous pop culture outlets.” [3] I myself listen to some of this dangerous type of music but do not consider the music an outlet for my neglected childhood. I listen to it because I like the beat or the music in general.

After reading this article and the section in Children’s Cultural Reader dealing with learning, I find that parenting must be an incredibly hard job that should not ever be jumped into by many who think it is just a way of “having someone who will love me unconditionally.” Parents need to remember that the way they act around their children will have an affect on them. But more importantly, being over parental damages them kids as much as ignoring or withdrawn does. I am still not sure about how I am going to approach my topic on the Holocaust but I think I am going to look at one family, consisting of at least one survivor and how their life was impacted on a “lost childhood” sense.
[1] Begley, Sharon. “Why the Young Kill,” in Childhood in America, edited by Paula S. Fass and Mary Ann Mason, New York University Press: New York and London. 2000, pg. 177.

[2] Pg. 178
[3] Pg. 179

Post # 1: Discipline in Raising Children

2005-02-03T10:00:00.000-05:00

Raising children in present society and times must be difficult. After reading the “Discipline” section of Childhood in America, it clarified that different time periods in American history defined the standard behavior for children. I looked particularly at “Managing Young Children” by Benjamin Spock. In contrast, I read the section in Children’s Culture Reader about the “Freedom and Responsibility” looking mainly at Rudolph Dreikurs’ “Democratic and Autocratic Child Rearing.” Both writers share an attitude about children and how to raise children to the right standard. However the standard changed over the twenty year difference between the two writers and their period in U.S. History. That is way I looked at how to mix the two philosophies of rights and responsibilities. As a result, the best tool for parenting is mixing Spock’s guidance theory with Dreikurs’ freedom and raising children in a consistent home.

All the selections in Childhood in America deal with the disciplining as a social order and reflecting children of the home. No matter the time, children have always been a reflection of what goes on in the home and how happy that home is. If parents had to constantly discipline their child, it was obvious that the parents were not the sort that belonged in polite society. Adults had the attitude that children reflected them and until they are adults themselves the need only to be seen and not heard. In some households this attitude is still present. But something happened in the 1940’s, psychologist were shifting the idea to fit the children. Benjamin Spock relates that children are the product of the parent’s early home life. Wow, what a new idea! He maintains that punishing in not always the best way to “rear” your children. To reflect upon this new notion he makes a statement that “punishment is not the main element in discipline”[1] Further discipline is trying to guide your child through a situation in order to educate him or her into making the right decision. He also maintains that raising and having children is like driving a car. You (the parent) are the driver. You steer the car in the direction or path you want to take. The Child is the car in which you steer. So if you over punish your car, in reality the parent is damaging the child from learning the right lessons and will more frequently breakdown or misbehave.

After reading the discipline section of Childhood in America, I looked at the “Freedom and Responsibility” section of Children’s Culture Reader. The readings followed a similar idea as Spock’s but did not go further until I came to Rudolf Dreikurs’ “Democratic and Autocratic Child Rearing.” This three page selection was just along the lines of Spock’s new theory but it went a step further. He introduces the idea of adding democracy into the household. However, with democracy comes the notion of equality between parent and child. By equality he does not mean sameness of rights and responsibilities but he means that the child is equal in respect and dignity as the parent. His main focus is in incorporating democracy as a way of life not just a political agenda. Democracy is not a power struggle but a sharing of rights between parent and child. The parent must raise the child to know their rights but also be aware that with these rights come responsibilities. Furthermore the responsibilities a child receives give the parents certain obligations to teach and enforce justice. A good parent, as he describes, enforces order from which freedom arises from. “Without order, there can be no freedom,” He states.[2]
From reading both selections and consequently the two main readings in them, I have come to the conclusion that in order to parent well you must guide and give freedom. Since there is no manual for raising children it is up to parents to decide how to implicate the new standards of how a child is to behave and how a child is to be punished. However, I am not sure how I am going to implement this in to a research paper or what I want to look at particularly. I do know that after reading these selections I found that I am obliged to reflect on how I was raised and on how I will in turn raising children in future.

[1] Spock, Benjamin, “Managing Young Children,” in Childhood in America, edited by Paula Fass and Mary Ann Mason, 223.
[2] Dreikurs, Rudolf, “Democratic and Autocratic Child Rearing,” in Children’s Culture Reader, edited by Henry Jenkins, 505.

Comment to Classmate

2005-02-03T09:50:00.000-05:00

http://historialiberorum.blogspot.com/2005/02/post-1-reading-for-topic-ideas.html#comments

The Historians

2005-02-03T09:45:00.000-05:00

Anderson, Nicholas A.
Baber, John B.
Byrd, Lori L.
Dobbs, Laura N.
Hadrick, Kelly M.
Kennedy, Francie
Klepfel, Keith H.
Leahy, Madeliene B.
Luu, Nghinh A.
McCormack, Brendan
Nikitenko, Jazmine L.
Perry, Rickita T.
Smith, Sarah C.
Stewart-Nunes, Sarah

Welcome Note

2005-01-30T12:51:00.000-05:00

Aloha, this is the first writing for the semester. Please enjoy what I write, and remember some is opinion, you do not have to agree with my opinion but respect that I have one and will not force anyone to agree with it.
Enjoy.