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Six
Roadblocks to Restitution for Young
Jewish
Child Survivors of
the Holocaust
Robert
Krell M.D. and Sarah Moskovitz Ph.D.
We
have recently conducted a survey of Child Survivors to inquire
about their experiences with compensation for war‑related
consequences. Approximately one thousand questionnaires
were widely distributed and six hundred and twenty were returned
from the U.S., Canada Australia, Sweden, France, Holland,
Belgium and Poland. The information gathered reveals that great
injustice has been perpetrated through certain requirements,
rules and regulations for application which effectively
discriminate against people who were young children during the Holocaust.
In
the first instance, many children between the ages of two to
twelve at the end of the war, were neither informed about or
assisted to make claims. By the time some did become
aware, they were told they had missed the deadline for
meaningful compensation (1965). These children have thus been
effectively denied any meaningful restitution for damage done to
them in their formative years. Most were orphaned, lost entire
families and were robbed of their childhood years, They keenly
feel, according to our survey, the emotional, social,
educational and economic loss. They were also too young during
the Holocaust to know if their families had insurance, property,
etc., and many were left postwar so completely bereft of family
that there was no one even to tell them about their families,
let alone what they owned.
One
would have thought it was these vulnerable persons of tender age
that should have received the most attention and appropriate
compensation. Instead they were faced with the following
roadblocks—each briefly discussed as to the travesty of
justice they represent.
Roadblock
1: Missed Deadline
Children
who were placed in adoptive or foster homes were not in touch
with the adult survivors nor the institutions and organizations
that could have helped them to apply. In fact, Child Survivors
were taught not to think of themselves as survivors. For more
than thirty years that designation belonged only to older camp
survivors who largely ignored the damage done to young children,
told them to keep silent, that they were lucky to have no
memories, and who discouraged them from talking about or
mourning their losses. By the time some of these younger people
came out of their second hiding (after the war) and realized
they were entitled to restitution, various deadlines had passed.
For others, the maze of application forms and procedures via the
URO, the Claims Conference, and individual governments were too
overwhelming and confusing.
According
to our survey, over half have never applied or have applied and
been rejected. One-third of all who did apply received a
one-time lump sum payment, half of them for less than $700 US.
Many had to sign that this one-time payment would close
possibilities for any future payment. Some in France were told
that since they were too young to have worked, there was nothing
to compensate them for since they lost no work! Generally, only
one in six received any kind of pension.
In
all, two‑thirds of our total respondents received no meaningful compensation.
Consider
this against the fact that Child Survivors report
themselves to be seriously and permanently affected:
emotionally (81%), socially (69%), educationally (66%),
physically (67%), and economically (65%)!
Roadblock
2: Documentation Requirements
·
"First
they killed my family and now they want proof that they
existed.”
·
“I
have no Proof of origin, no papers, I was too young to remember
the name of my hiders in Poland."
·
"I
was too young to know my address.”
Applications
typically required proof of the country of origin, birth
certificates, death certificates of parents and names of
witnesses. In most instances these do
not exist or are beyond the Child Survivor's ability to
obtain without incurring great expense for travel and lawyers in
Europe, and incurring harmful emotional stress. Some fifty years
later a few have taken great pains to overcome the fear of
returning to the sites of their parent's murder and retrieved
valuable documentation. But not everyone is presently capable of
this emotionally or financially, and some documentation is
non-existent. Witnesses too have died.
Roadblock
3: Time Requirements for Those in Hiding or in Ghettos
The
length of time required to qualify for compensation, eighteen
months in "Closed" hiding or eighteen months in
Ghettos is too long. Consider this in terms of young children.
Closed hiding meant not to be outside of one's hiding place.
This implies that Jewish children in "open" hiding did
not suffer enough to warrant restitution, discounting their
having been taken from their parents, discounting the loss of
security of home and family, and discounting the life‑long
toll for many of having been forced to assume a false identity
and another religion, leaving them with feelings of abandonment,
unworthiness, identity confusion and loyalty conflicts for the
remainder of their lives.
There
is also a mistaken assumption that children hidden in convents,
monasteries, or in homes were emotionally safe, well cared for
and not abused. However, a conservative estimate based on a 1987
study of child survivors hidden in such circumstances revealed
over half were harshly treated and beaten, including one in five
who were sexually abused. Half lived with threats of being
turned over to the Nazis.
Eighteen
months of survival in ghettos was seldom achieved by young
children who were hunted down, as in Lodz, and deported even
before their parents. In the Warsaw Ghetto young children were
among the first to starve to death. Imagine a child comfortably
at home, whether poor or rich, being uprooted, subject to
starvation, illness, foraging for food and witnessing
deportations, actions, death and living in constant terror. Does
the requirement to survive eighteen months of life as a young
child in this way reflect in any way a sense of justice?
Eighteen months of such deprivation, abuse and neglect as a
requirement is outrageous.
Roadblock
4: Time Requirement of Six Months in Concentration Camps
In
Treblinka and Majdanek, young children were lucky to live more
than one day. In Auschwitz, the majority of adults who were not
murdered upon arrival lived no longer than three months. Why is
a child required to have survived six months in a concentration
camp? It raises the question: “How many days in Auschwitz
are required for the experience to have left its mark on a
child?”
Roadblock
5: The Means Test
It
appears that if the above conditions are met (a virtual
impossibility for most young child survivors) then a final means
of exclusion comes into play. One's economic status must be at
the poverty level, $16,000 for a single person, $22,000 for a
couple. It is precisely this group and those just above who are
also struggling, who cannot afford legal advice and do not have
the personal resources to pursue their rightful compensation.
Survivors report that having to convince bureaucrats and social
workers who were never “over there” of their suffering and
need is a demeaning experience that is for the survivor a
continuation of Holocaust trauma.
Roadblock
6: Requirement to Be Interviewed by a German Psychiatrist
There
are certain circumstances in which a survivor must submit to an
interview (for continuation of pension for example) with a
German psychiatrist. We maintain that this is a continuation of
war retraumatization, that there
are no circumstances that can justify this. There is no
reason why the evaluation of a competent, accredited, board
certified psychiatrist other than one appointed by the German
government, could not be arranged to save the survivor needless
angst and retraumatization.
Conclusion
All
of the above raise serious question that must be addressed. What
circumstances can be invoked to reject the application of any
Jewish child who survived under Nazi occupation, or who was
displaced by that occupation, thereby losing home and family?
What are possible grounds for rejection?
In
our survey, we have yet to see a response where the child
survivor has not suffered enormous loss, vast disruptions, and
life‑long adverse consequences. Only 1.5% claim
that the war has had no permanent effect. How is it
possible that one‑third of Child Survivors who
applied for restitution were rejected? This rejection in itself
has been injurious and a cause for continued suffering.
It
is time for the Jewish Conference on Material Claims to create
and fight for a New Restitution Category to recognize the
Extraordinary Vulnerability of young child victims. Child
Holocaust victims were robbed of parents and family, comfort and
security, physical and emotional nourishment, education and
encouragement, and true identity—all during the most
sensitive, formative years of their lives with resulting
lifelong consequences. Now at last is the time to provide
justice and apology to child survivors before it's too late.
Robert
Krell M.D. is Professor Emeritus at the University of British
Columbia, Canada and Sarah Moskovitz Ph.D. is Professor Emeritus
at California State University, Northridge. |
