Everything Possible: JDC and the Children of the DP Camps

During the war, this man and his wife fought as partisans in the woods of Poland. At Bad Reichenhall camp in the Bavarian Alps, he was interviewed by JDC's chief nurse for Germany's U.S. Zone. Germany, c. 1947, <em>Al Taylor.</em> Children in the DP camps soon included those born in hiding. This little girl and her father, a Czech partisan, were reunited after the Liberation and joined a "kibbutz" within the Foehrenwald camp. Germany, c. 1947. The care of orphaned children became a top priority for JDC.  These Polish orphans came via Czechoslovakia to a transient camp in Vienna. After their immediate need for rest, food, clothing, and medical attention was addressed, orphans were sent to JDC children&rsquo;s homes in France, Switzerland, England, and other countries when possible. Others were placed in separate children&rsquo;s sections of the DP camps. Austria, c. 1946.

Child Survivors

More than 1.2 million Jewish children died in the Holocaust. Children made up only a tiny portion of concentration camp survivors and suffered from malnutrition, disease, and extreme trauma. Their numbers grew as children who had spent the war in hiding or among the partisans made their way to the DP camps.