Introduction

In the early 1930's in Germany and Poland, school was simple thing. It was a tradition for example on the first day of school for a parent to bring a paper cone filled with sweets to the child completing their first day ¹ Strong discipline was exercised in the classrooms, utter respect for authority was required. Uniforms were often required includeing knickers, coats and kneesocks for boys, and jumpers for girls or dark skirts and sweaters for older girls. boys and girls were often seated separately in utter germanic order.

Segregation of Jewish boys and girls and severe Anti-Semitic feeling came even before the segregation laws of the 1930s. Public humiliation was not unusual. German teachers used story books in mixed classes to inculcate feelings of Aryan superiority. In these storybooks, the Jews were portrayed stereotypically and always as the villain, trying to harm young boys and girls. The motivations of instilling fear and loathing were culminated, and even very young German/aryan children came to see the Jew as responsible for every sin and crime. Later, anti-semitic feeling would become an issue of training in the Hitlerjugend or Hitler Youth Organization.

Instilling Fear

Fear of the Jews was likewise instilled in German and Polish Children by stories of "Blood Libel". Blood Libel is the rubric given the scapegoating, particularly of Jewish persons with outlandishly evil and bizarre crimes, often directed against children. Parents would tell their children that late at nigh, the Jews would steal Christian children especially infants, and kill them in order to make Matza out of them. (a form of dry cracker/bread) While these stories were bizarre, as they spread from one person to another, they gained credibility and began with embellishment to be believed by the community at large. These libels and slanders were further fueled by the unfortunate occurrences of real incidences when children were missing or killed. These true incidences, often committed by an unknown person were incorporated into the body of rumors, and blamed upon the Jews. It is not surprizing therefore, that young impressionable German children were not just alienated from the Jews and their culture, but were afraid of their Jewish classmates and their families.

Ostracism of Jewish Children

As rumors and hatred and epithets grew, it became almost impossible for Jewish Children to stay in mainline German and Polish classrooms. In the early 1930's as Hitler came to power, laws were enacted in Germany forbidding the attendance of Jews in public schools. The Jewish children were at first segregated from the others in public schools, and then were not permitted to attend. This was because Hitler and his political allies did not want the Jews to be seen, as they had been, as identical in personhood or as deserving civil rights. He also wished no intermingling among the races because he was concerned they would inter-marry when old enough and defile aryan bloodlines (see Eugenics) At the same time, Laws were enacted in Germany forbidding bringing civil actions against aryans; or indeed having any access to the courts. Therefore when the Jewish parents complained about their treatment and the breach of civil rights, they had no where to turn. These actions succeeded in drivng Jewish Children inot segregated schools, homeschool, or rabbinical schools. This segregation had the following effects: It removed Jewish presence and there heightened differences and hatread and fear of the Jews by depersonalization [what is not seen is less real]; but it also had the effect of

Creating Jewish unity and identity; and increasing family/community cohesion among the Jews. This happened because many of the schools were taught by rebbes and the students once out of secular schools returned to studens of Torah in addition to regualr academic pursity. while teasings and torments were no longer at the new schools, there was a strict discipline applied, which often required major adaptations by the students. There was often segregation of the sexes withing Jewish Schools.

One slightly paradoxical effect of closer family/community/religious cohesion, was that as the deportations and killings began, loss was even more traumatic on families. The Germans had succeeded in their terrible persecutions in making Jewish families closer knit and more loving; and in taking that away still more in cruelty.

Jewish Education

As is the tradition among the Jews throughout history, families place a very high value on education. As segregation against Jews in German Public Classrooms was enacted and carried out, Children were brought either home or place in traditional orthodox schools usually taught by a local rebbe, or rabbi. Integral to Jewish education in these schools was daily, intensive Torah Study and Hebrew, along with stringent discipline. Some Jewish children who had spent much of their school life in public schools, had a difficult time adapting to new modes of teaching and learning. Others had difficulty understanding why they were no longer welcome with their Gentile friends. Adjustments took some time.

As the Reich progressed in power so did restrictions against the Jews. As more and more Jews were deported to labor camps and killing centers, restrictions on Jewish education grew: Hitler was not interested in promoting the advancement of Jewish progeny. At one point in Poland, Austria and Germany, it was forbidden to teach reading in Jewish orphanages. Clever teachers and rabbis often developed songs, which they were allowed to sing to teach children. For example, a song about the aleph beyes, could teach rudiments of phonics in Hebrew, or a song about places could teach geography.(See Lullabies & Folk Songs) Home education for some was the only way out: because of employment restrictions, some families could no longer afford to send children even to private schools. As mentioned before, these 'closer-to-home' methods of education had the benefit of increasing family cohesion and bonds, but had the dual effect of making loss more severe.

Orphanages, Boarding Houses & Convents

Many children in the Shoah were sent away for safety's sake, earlier in the war before or at the point of deportation in the hopes of being reunited with parents and older siblings after the war: this was seldom the case and ripped at families already in trouble. Early in the war, separation from children occurred only for Jewish families, but by the end of the war because of extensive bombing and danger in European cities, many children were sent to camps, orphanages, convents, and hosting families through the kindertransport. Jewish families though, faced far greater fears and torment as children were either reluctantly or against will sent to live in foreign surroundings. Orphanages were often terribly crowded with poor circumstances and little to eat. While there were a few havens for children such as Le Chambon and the Hugenots, and the kindness of caretakers such as Janusz Korczak in Warsaw, most were cold, institutional and impersonal, adding to separation anxieties and loss. Many children were then deported with the orphanages and then put to death. Convents occasionally took in Jewish children with an attempt to hide their identities, but this was fraught with difficulty as they were forced into false identities, baptism into the Roman Catholic church and being forbidden to practice their faith. The Nazis selected some children for "germanization" (see Aryanization) in which aryan-looking children young enough were sent to live in German surroundings with German families in hopes of total assimilation, never to see their families again. None faired well, most children were also killed and only a few survived to see the end of the war, far fewer to be reunited with relatives.

Education in the Concentration Camps

It may seem surprising to consider that many children with and without their parents were sent alone to concentration camps or killing centers such as Treblinka or Auschwitz. What might surprise one more, is that despite devastating, life-threatening conditions, some education of children went on, although fraught with despair and difficulty. This small effort at hope kept both children and adults alive in spirit: in their children there was hope that some might survive and go on, that Jewish life might go on. There were obviously no classrooms or learning tools. Jewish education was actually outlawed in some circumstances. In these cases, Jewish adults charged with children's care found other, creative ways to keep education going. For both Jewish children and the Hitlerjugend, young people during the war often forewent any formal education during the war years, an effect that would last into modern times. The lagers were so severe, so extreme, that children who managed to live through even part of the experience (they were often killed first) got an education not in academics, but in the extent of cruelty men could sink to. Still, in finding and creating meaning to life during the camp, educating the surviving young went on in quiet protest whenever possible.

Textbooks & the Jews

The Third Reich's aim of education was to 1) separate the Jews from other children ,2) to inculcate hatred of the Jews and 3)to bar opportunites of education to Jewish children. They accomplished all three goals for a few years. One of the ways they trained young minds in bigotry was in their portrayal of the Jews as evil, harmful and sinister, in storybooks and textbooks. Examples such as "The Poisonous Mushroom" and others warned German children of the very sinister motives of the Jews. Jews were also portrayed in textbooks as ugly, greedy, devilish and cunning: by the age of 8 a German child at their most impressionable point had a firm belief that all Jews were bad and meant to do them harm. Coupled with mandatory training in the Hitlerjugend, Hitler accomplished his earlier stated goal: to produce a generation which would be absolutely obedient to him with the goal of a "New Germany" erasing all civilized tradition. Adaptation of children after the war to traditional mores was only partly successful and still has ramifications today. The portrayal in textbooks also lead to confusion and hurt in Jewish children, although thier familial role models contradicted the morose portrayals.