The publication, edited by Prof. Dalia Ofer of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Dr. Sharon Kangisser Cohen, Director of the Diana and Eli Zborowski Center for the Study of the Aftermath of the Shoah, is the amalgamation of research papers originally presented in July 2017 at a scholarly workshop hosted by the Zborowski Center of Yad Vashem's International Institute for Holocaust Research.
A range of scholars researched the most crucial issues, such as the medical, physical and psychological assistance provided to child refugees, the return of Jewish children from non-Jewish families and institutions, and the placement of child survivors through various frameworks to ensure adequate accommodation and their psychological wellbeing.
During the online launch, Prof. Ofer discussed how the two co-editors had tried to make sense of the somewhat perplexing mix of papers offered by the authors in terms of chronology, themes or geography, but that "ultimately each individual article, and the collection, mirrored how incoherent this time had been," as well as the "bewilderment and disbelief" in the mind of survivors." Postwar Europe, she concluded, "should remain one of disarray and confusion."
Nevertheless, the publication endeavors to answer major questions concerning how child survivors could begin to understand normative behaviors in society; how they learned to trust adults and institutions again; how they lived the remainder of their lives; and – perhaps most importantly after decades of scholarly investigation into the topic – whether this kind of research may be used to better the situation of child survivors of traumatic experiences today.
This idea was echoed by guest speaker Prof. Laura Jockusch of Brandeis University (Massachusetts, USA), who gave a comprehensive overview of the integration of children's voices into Holocaust research.
"In the post-survivor age hild survivor voices are by no means relevant only for Holocaust research and Jewish history. Rather, they also open up the possibility of cross-cultural comparisons between experiences and survival strategy in other cases of mass violence, displacement and genocide, and offer a window into the rights and wrongs of post-traumatic rehabilitation and recovery."
Dr. Simone Gigliotti of Royal Holloway (University of London) presented the fascinating six-month journey of Polish-Jewish photographer David Seymour (Dawid Szymin, aka "Chim"), documenting child refugees in postwar Europe on behalf of the newly established UNICEF. "Humanitarian photography, and its practitioners, such as Chim, attempted to visualize… the infliction of serious bodily and mental harm [caused by state-sponsored conflict], and that children were overwhelmingly its first victims," she argued. "Photographic odysseys such as Chim's were a necessary witness to the psychology of destructive genocidal nationalism and its global response."
While neither scholar contributed an article to the publication, concluded Dr. Kangisser Cohen, they brought novel perspectives to the topic, and will help continue the conversation into new fields of research in studies of the postwar period.
This article originally appeared in the "Yad Vashem Jerusalem Magazine," volume 94.
