The Diana and Eli Zborowski Center for the Study of the Aftermath of the Holocaust | 2023 Annual Workshop on the Aftermath of the Holocaust | June 26–27, 2023 | Zoom Research Workshop | Deadline for Applications: 30 March 2023

In the immediate post-war period, it was estimated that approximately 150,000 Jewish children and adolescents survived the Holocaust in Europe. Most of these children survived in hiding because their parents, Jewish organizations, or rescue networks placed them with non-Jewish families or in religious institutions. Other children arrived at these places on their own. At times, abandoned children were collected and placed in state orphanages.

When the war ended, a highly emotional issue was raised regarding the post-Holocaust custody of Jewish children rescued by Christian families or institutions. The postwar situation brought many challenges to both the hidden children, the rescuers, surviving relatives, and the surviving Jewish community. In some instances, the justice system of individual countries was involved in determining guardianship. Some of these children were returned immediately to surviving relatives and Jewish organizations. Others remained with their rescuers, which led to searches primarily by the Jewish community.

This workshop invites scholars to present new research on the complex questions relating to guardianship of child survivors in the postwar period. Scholarship has recently begun to reexamine the complex issues and realities surrounding custody and guardianship of these children. This is largely because of access to new documentation, but also due to the realization of the trauma that the children experienced as a result of this complex and emotional issue, raising new questions about the early postwar period.

Possible topics include:

• Children’s agency in determining guardianship
• Court cases involving a child’s custody
• The issues of “signing” custody over children during the war
• The perspective of parents at the time and in hindsight regarding the reclaiming of their children
• Religious institutions and retrieval
• The views of various Christian churches on returning converts
• The kidnapping of Jewish children
• The adoption processes of child survivors
• Guardianship under Youth Aliya
• Guardianship and the Kindertransport
• Long-term relations between child survivors and their guardians
• Psychological research on long-term effects of child survivors under guardianship

The workshop will be led by Sharon Kangisser-Cohen and Eliot Nidam, The International Institute for Holocaust Research, Yad Vashem.

Application Details:

• Please send your paper proposal of no more than 100 words and a short 150-word biography by March 30, 2023 to eliot.nidam@yadvashem.org.il
• Papers will be 20 minutes in length
• Applicants will be notified by April 30, 2023 of their inclusion in the program

Image: Elizabeth Van der Lijn, nee Hijmans, with her nephew Jonathan Saunders in the Netherlands 1947. Yad Vashem Archives, 14298039.