Executive Vice President, Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany
Behind the historical fa?ade in Oranienburgerstrasse–the only structural remnant of Berlin’s largest and most splendid synagogue to survive Kristallnacht on November 9, 1938–is now the Centrum Judaicum, a memorial site, a site of remembrance, but also a site for education in the heart of former Jewish Berlin.
The view from the large window in the lecture hall, which is situated in what was once the women’s balcony, looks directly towards the extensive foundation of the destroyed synagogue–a symbol of centuries old Jewish life in Germany, decimated by the Shoah.
In this historic setting, the Claims Conference welcomed 200 people including representatives of the German government, Jewish organizations, and the general public who had all come to learn about the unique experiences of Jews who were children during the Shoah.
Our symposium, “Lost Childhood. Jewish Child Survivors,” which featured a roundtable discussion with child survivors, academic experts, historians and Claims Conference leaders, was organized in conjunction with the Center of Organizations of Holocaust Survivors in Israel (COHSI) and the World Federation of Jewish Child Survivors of the Holocaust and Descendents (WFJCSD). The symposium was held on the heels of the annual meeting of the WFJCSD, which drew hundreds of child survivors from 18 countries to the three-day conference.
The Claims Conference organized the academic symposium to focus on this particular group which, to date, has been unacknowledged through indemnification programs specifically for the deprivation of childhood. The contributions ranged widely from political statements to academic presentations to discussions by medical experts. The centerpiece of the program was the emotional accounts given by eyewitnesses.
I noted that the symposium was taking place on Rosh Chodesh Elul. Each morning of Elul, the shofar is blown in preparation for Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. For me, I hoped that the symposium would serve as a shofar blast, a clarion call, to the traumas still being lived every day for these survivors of the Shoah.
Jona Laks from Israel and Max Arpels Lezer from the Netherlands, both Claims Conference board members, Daniel Chanoch (brother of board member Uri Chanoch), Yoella Har-Shefi, and Aviva Goldschmidt shared their heartbreaking childhood experiences and revealed how the Holocaust has affected them in their later lives. It was, for them, a question of the recognition of their lost childhood.
In their opening statements, board members Amb. Colette Avital, chair of COHSI and Stefanie Seltzer, president of the WFJCSD shared their personal losses, the challenges currently faced by many child survivors and highlighted the importance of finding strength in other child survivors.
A panel of professionals who have spent a lifetime working with child survivors and helping them cope with related issues helped the audience understand the complex, often late-onset presentations of medical, psychological, and social effects of early age traumas. The panel included Dr. de Levita, noted psychiatrist and author Robert Krell, Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, and Dr. Martin Auerbach from AMCHA.
In closing the symposium, Amb. Stuart Eizenstat, Claims Conference special negotiator, remarked: “In the past hours we have learned much about a group of Holocaust survivors who endured the Holocaust as children and who survived. We have heard that their perception of persecution was indeed different from that of the adults. We have learned that the deep injuries to the young, defenseless souls are often scarred over, but were not healed. We have realized that the experiences of the Holocaust seriously affected the later lives and the physical and mental health of the child survivors. Often the consequences only appear at an advanced age; now that their lives are proceeding more smoothly, their psyche brings back the pictures of the past with a different sense.”
For many years, the Claims Conference has been raising the unique issues of Jewish child survivors in negotiations with the German government. I am confident that the deep impressions made by our event will not go unheard. We will spare no effort to prevent those in need of assistance–medical, psychological and social–from further injury due to lack of recognition.
By Greg Schneider
