What question did this study set out to answer?

The aim is to explore the historical trauma of child persecution during the Holocaust and its implications for Jewish continuity post-war.

May 7, 2026Open Access

Children and Childhood in the Occupied Eastern Territories. Trajectories of Past Research and Future Perspectives in the Holocaust Studies

Key Points

The aim is to explore the historical trauma of child persecution during the Holocaust and its implications for Jewish continuity post-war.
Analyzes qualitative data on the experiences of Jewish children during the Holocaust.
Considers both quantitative estimates of child victimhood and qualitative narratives from survivors.
Discusses historical documentation related to the experiences of children in Jewish Displaced Persons camps.
Approximately 1.5 million Jewish children were murdered during the Holocaust.
Postwar efforts focused on the renewal of Jewish life, with children at the center of these initiatives.
The focus on locating surviving children highlights the importance of childhood in post-Holocaust recovery.

Abstract

Few aspects of the Holocaust reveal the scale and brutality of the National Socialist extermination policy as clearly as the persecution and murder of children.In quantitative terms alone, the extent of the violence is difficult to grasp.Approximately 1.5 million Jewish children were murdered in the Holocaust (Steinert 2018, 31).Estimates for further victim groups, including Roma children, children with disabilities, and other persecuted minors, are far more difficult to determine.Yet the significance of child persecution during the Holocaust cannot be reduced to numbers.As Saul Friedlnder has shown (Friedlnder 2000, 87-122), the ideological aim to annihilate everything deemed "Jewish," including children, was part of a vision of redemptive antisemitism that cast Jews as enemies of a German promise of salvation.It is therefore not surprising that Holocaust survivors placed children at the centre of postwar efforts, viewing them as essential to the renewal and continuity of Jewish life.This emphasis is visible, among other indicators, in the birth rates recorded in Jewish Displaced Persons camps.Yet the postwar moment was shaped not only by the creation of new life, but also by efforts to locate and register surviving children (Nachmany-Gafny 2009).Dra Pataricza and Krisztina FrauhammerWe would like to thank Andrea Pet and Borbla Klacsman for the trust they gave us with the preparation of this issue, and for their continuous support, especially when difficulties arose.Moreover, we are sincerely grateful to Leonard Ludwig for his thoughtful and incisive feedback during the preparation of this issue.Not least,

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