Children of the Slaughter: Young People of the Holocaust

by Fed Gottfried, Stephen Alcorn (Illustrator)

Among the victims of the Nazis in World War II were more than a million young people. This includes those who died at the hands of the Nazis directly as well as those who died as a result of the war, whether from disease, neglect, or any number of causes brought on by the horrible conditions that resulted from the war and Nazi aggression. But the effect of the Holocaust on children does not begin and end with the war years, nor does it end with those we traditionally view as victims of the Holocaust. The legacy of the Holocaust reaches beyond time and ethnic identity to rob generations of young people of the security of a fully realized childhood. The Nazis' persecution of Jews and others did not exclude children; indeed, children who were too young or weak to be of use to the Nazi war effort were often the most expendable. Jewish children experienced being driven from their homes, and witnessed the breakup of their families, and the death of loved ones, and came to learn that they were hated on the basis of their religion and their ethnicity. German children, and those loyal to the Nazi leadership, in turn, were victimized by a society that viewed them as cannon fodder -- a resource to be used to insure the future of Adolf Hitler's vision of a racially purified and powerful Europe. These young people, under the guise of the Hitler Youth, were also robbed of childhood with dire consequences. The children of Holocaust survivors and victims bore the brunt of the grief, sadness, and guilt that were by-products of this horrible episode in history. And as modern-day Jewish and German young people, in particular, struggle with the legacy of the Holocaust, all people can benefit from learning of this legacy to help to prevent its happening again.

112 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2005