HELPING THE CHILDREN - Buchenwald Memorial

Liberated children and adolescents in front of the “Children’s Block 66” in the Little Camp, after 11 April 1945. After liberation, the children and adolescents were housed in the SS barracks above the quarry. Unknown photographer ©United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

The British journalist George Fyfe describes meeting the liberated children and adolescents:

“But an even more pathetic sight was that of 900 boys under 14 of many nationalities. They came in with fathers who are now dead or missing through transference to unknown destinations. These boys looked, and in many ways acted, like old men. They were yellow-faced or very pale, with a strained expression, emaciated, serious, silent. […] Today a deputation pleaded with the Military Government not to separate the boys according to their nationalities, but to keep them in one group while they fight their way back to normal life. The first act of the American officers after the liberation of the camp was to give these boys all the milk available.”

George Fyfe, 40 Die Each Day in Freed Camp of Buchenwald, Daily Telegraph, 18. April 1945.

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The Jewish self-help committee made up of survivors and members of the U.S. Army sitting in an office in Block 50, June 1945. On 22 April, the committee published the appeal “Save the rest of Central Europe’s Jewish youth!” Military Rabbi Robert Marcus is seated on the far left. He later accompanied the boys on their journey back to France from Buchenwald. Unknown photographer ©Collection of Yeshiva University Museum, Louis Rittenberg Photograph Archive

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Four unidentified children after their liberation in Buchenwald, around 24 April 1945. Most of the children and adolescents liberated in Buchenwald came from Poland, Hungary and the neighbouring regions. Photo: Thérèse Bonney ©The Regents of the University of California, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. This work is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license.

Liberated children and juvenile prisoners of Buchenwald concentration camp at Weimar Central Station in the carriage of a train to Ecoui. Josek Dziubak writes the inscription "Where are our parents? You murderers". — 3/6

Young survivors departing from Weimar station to France, 1 June 1945. Unknown photographer. One of the boys wrote the Yiddish words “Vo sind unsere Elterin? ir Nazimörder” (“Where are our parents, you Nazi murderers”) on the outside of train carriage. ©Buchenwald Memorial

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Children and adolescents from Buchenwald with carers in a children’s home in Ambloy (France), September 1945. Unknown photographer ©Buchenwald Memorial

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Youth from Buchenwald arrive at the former Gurnigelbad spa hotel in the canton of Bern in Switzerland, where they were accommodated for a time, summer 1945. Unknown photographer ©Archiv für Zeitgeschichte ETH Zürich: NL August Bohny-Reiter / 17

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Buchenwald survivors in the “Felsenegg” home on the Zugerberg in Switzerland, 1945. Abram Kimelman, 16 years old, is seen front left. Photo: Heidi Eisenegger ©Archiv für Zeitgeschichte ETH Zürich: NL Charlotte Weber / 87

The 21,000 liberated inmates in Buchenwald included more than 900 mostly Jewish children and adolescents, most of whom had survived in Children Blocks 8 and 66 with the help of adult inmates. Nearly all of these children were now orphans, having lost their families as well as their homes. With support from the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration and the Red Cross, the Jewish children’s aid organisation Œuvre de secours aux enfants (OSE) in Geneva, looked for places that could foster the young people. Most were placed in children’s and convalescent homes in France, Switzerland and Great Britain.