# data[].attributes.body
    During Nazi occupation, youth movements filled the void left by the deportation and murder of older Jewish leaders. Unable to pursue their main goals of emigration and joining kibbutzim, these movements shifted their focus to community activities like social welfare and education. They also secretly prepared for anti-Nazi revolts after learning about the mass murder and deportations of Jews. Young leaders and fighters led the various ghetto uprisings, with the most well-known being the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in April and May 1943.

# data[].attributes.body
    Hashromer Hartzair was one of the Jewish youth movements that focused their attention on resistance against the Nazis. The movement's membership base was in Eastern Europe. Hashomer Hatzair is the oldest Zionist youth movement still in existence. Mordechai Anielewicz was the initial leader of the Hashromer Hartzair movement and he was also the organizer of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. After the war, the movement was involved in organizing the illegal immigration of Jewish refugees to Palestine.

# data[].attributes.body
   Members of the Zionist youth movements also played a significant role in promoting clandestine and illegal immigration to Palestine between 1934 and 1944. After Poland was liberated from Nazi occupation and after the repatriation of nearly 200,000 Polish Jews who had escaped to the Soviet Union during the war

# data[].attributes.body
  This is a photo of the deportation of Jewish children from the Lodz ghetto in German-occupied Poland during the "Gehsperre" Aktion, September 1942.

# data[].attributes.body
Before WWI, Munkács had few Zionists. By the end of the war, outside influences penetrated Jewish life in Subcarpathian Rus'. Hatchiya, the first Zionist organization, established Hebrew courses and Jewish schools. Youth movements and Zionist political parties organized activities in Munkács. Zionist movements faced attacks from the Orthodox public and internal disputes. In 1938, the absorption of Subcarpathian Rus' into Hungary led to the Zionist movements breaking up and going underground.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Members of "Hechalutz Hatzair" of the "Palzan" regiment. Members of the pioneering youth movements in Munkács operated in training groups across Czechoslovakia and Hungary.

"The young pioneer gave a home to the homeless youth, planted seeds of brotherhood in the wasteland of the villages, raised a warm sun over the gloomy mountains and awoke a yearning of the soul: aliya".
(Menachem Oren, Encyclopedia Shel Galuyot, [Hebrew], p. 344)

Before WWI, only a few Zionists lived in Munkács. By the end of the war, outside influences had penetrated Jewish life in the surrounding Subcarpathian Rus'. Jewish soldiers returning from Russian imprisonment came into contact with Zionist activists, became influenced by them, and refused to return to their previous way of life. Contact with Jews across Czechoslovakia strengthened, and the Jews of Subcarpathian Rus' were exposed to the modern world.

The first Zionist organization established in Munkács was Hatchiya, attracting many of the most important and influential people of the community. The organization set up Hebrew courses in Subcarpathian Rus' - activities managed also by female Zionists - and later Jewish schools. In 1920, the "Union of Hebrew Schools in Subcarpathian Rus'" was established, and the same year a Hebrew elementary school was set up in Munkács with 45 first-grade students. In the 1923/4 school year, 200 students learned at the school, with three male teachers and one female teacher. The crowning jewel of the Zionist educational activity was the establishment of the Munkács Hebrew Gymnasium (school), which opened its doors in the 1924 under the management of Dr. Chaim Kugel.

The main activities were organized by the youth movements and Zionist political parties - and sometimes the former preceded the latter. Many Zionist movements were active in Munkács, including Hechalutz, which began to operate in Czechoslovakia in 1920 and sent emissaries to Munkács.

In approximately 1920, the Mizrachi movement was established in the town, and a year later the Tzeirei Mizrachi movement. Other Zionist youth movements operating in Munkács were Hechalutz Hatzair, Bnei Akiva, Tchelet-Lavan (Blau-Weiss) and Hanoar Hatzioni, as well as Beitar and Hashomer Hatzair. A scout movement, unrelated to Zionism, also operated in the town. The town had other Zionist bodies, national funds such as the JNF and WIZO, and more.

The Zionist movements, especially the religious ones such as Mizrachi, were the subject of frequent attacks from the fervent Orthodox public that followed its anti-Zionist rabbis and admorim. Agudath Yisroel, despite being anti-Zionist, was pursued for its support of immigration to and settlement in Eretz Israel (Mandatory Palestine).

In addition to attacks from outside, the Zionist movements in the town suffered many internal disputes. Sectarianism between the different streams and the limited options for immigrating to Eretz Israel gradually eroded their lively activities. Youths from religious homes found it difficult to acclimate to communal living during their Zionist training. The Communist party offered an alternative to the strains of poverty and depravation, which also undermined the Zionist movement.

In 1938, with the absorption of Subcarpathian Rus' into Hungary, the Zionist movements broke up and their activities went underground. In 1940 they were outlawed completely. For the remainder of the war, members of the pioneering youth movements were active in the rescue and escape lines from Hungary.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Zionist Movements in Munkacs in the Interwar Period

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A range of Zionist movements were active in Munkács in the interwar period, but were forced underground in 1938.

# data[].attributes.body
During the Holocaust, some children went into hiding to escape Nazi persecution. With identities disguised, and often physically concealed from the outside world, these youngsters faced constant fear, dilemmas, and danger. Theirs was a life in shadows, where a careless remark, a denunciation, or the murmurings of inquisitive neighbors could lead to discovery and death.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
When World War II began in September 1939, there were approximately 1.6 million Jewish children living in the territories that the German armies or their allies would occupy. When the war in Europe ended in May 1945, more than 1 million and perhaps as many as 1.5 million Jewish children were dead, targeted victims in the Nazis' calculated program of genocide.

As Warsaw ghetto historian Emanuel Ringelblum wrote in 1942,

"Even in the most barbaric times, a human spark glowed in the rudest heart, and children were spared. But the Hitlerian beast is quite different. It would devour the dearest of us, those who arouse the greatest compassion-our innocent children."

Liberation from Nazi tyranny brought no end to the sufferings of the few Jewish children who survived the Holocaust. Many would face the future without parents, grandparents, or siblings.

Persecution

The Nazi persecution of Jews began in Germany in 1933. By 1939, the country's Jews had been systematically deprived of their civil rights and property and ostracized from the national community. German conquests in Europe after 1939 led to the implementation of antisemitic policies in the occupied territories. Though the pace and severity of persecution differed in each country, Jews were marked, vilified, and segregated from their neighbors.

In eastern Europe, the Nazis generally isolated Jews in ghettos, which often were established in the most desolate sections of a city or town. In western Europe, internment camps, many of which had been set up earlier to house refugees and enemy aliens, served as detention centers for Jews. Such policies of isolation aided the Nazis when they began mass shootings and deportations to the killing centers.

Death

Hitler made the decision in 1941 to carry out the systematic mass murder of Jews. Einsatzgruppen followed the German army into the Soviet Union in June 1941, and by the end of the year, murdered almost 1 million Jewish men, women, and children. That December, the Chelmno killing center began operation. During 1942, the Nazis established four more killing centers to carry out the gassing of Europe's Jews.

All Jews were targeted for death, but the mortality rate for children was especially high. Only 6 to 11% of Europe's prewar Jewish population of children survived as compared with 33% of the adults. The young generally were not selected for forced labor, and the Nazis often carried out "children's actions" to reduce the number of "useless eaters" in the ghettos. In the camps, children, the elderly, and pregnant women routinely were sent to the gas chambers immediately after arrival.

Liberation

Following the defeat of Nazi Germany, the world learned of the staggering human toll of the Holocaust. Few Jewish children survived. In killing centers and concentration camps across Europe, systematic murder, abuse, disease, and medical experiments took many lives. Of the estimated 216,000 Jewish youngsters deported to Auschwitz, only 6,700 teenagers were selected for forced labor; nearly all the others were sent directly to the gas chambers. When the camp was liberated on January 27, 1945, Soviet troops found just 451 Jewish children among the 9,000 surviving prisoners.

I was 17. I, I was free, but what it meant I wasn't sure.
George Salton

Soon after liberation, Jewish agencies throughout Europe began tracing survivors and measuring communal losses. In the Low Countries, perhaps some 9,000 Jewish children survived. Of the almost 1 million Jewish children in 1939 Poland, only about 5,000 survived. Most of these youngsters survived in hiding.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
When World War II began in September 1939, there were approximately 1.6 million Jewish children living in the territories that the German armies or their allies would occupy. When the war in Europe ended in May 1945, more than 1 million and perhaps as many as 1.5 million Jewish children were dead, targeted victims in the Nazis' calculated program of genocide.

# data[].attributes.headline
Limited Refugee Opurtinites for the Jews

# data[].attributes.subject
Limited Refugee Opurtinites for the Jews

# data[].attributes.body
During Hitler's rise to power in 1933, Jews emigrated to Germany, but emigration slowed due to visa difficulties. U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt proposed a conference in 1938 to address the "refugee problem," but most countries refused. Persecution escalated with Kristallnacht, leading to limited refuge opportunities.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Kindertransport, (German: "Children Transport") the nine-month rescue effort authorized by the British government and conducted by individuals in various countries and by assorted religious and secular groups that saved some 10,000 children, under age 17 and most of them Jewish, from Nazi Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland and the free city of Danzig ( Gdańsk) by relocating them to the United Kingdom. The program began after the Kristallnacht pogroms of November 9-10, 1938, when Nazis attacked Jewish persons and property and conducted mass arrests, and largely ended on September 1, 1939, with the outbreak of World War II, although children continued to be rescued as late as 1940. The name Kindertransport came into use in the late 20th century.

Origins and operations of the Kindertransport

Within months of Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Germany in 1933, tens of thousands of Jews left the country. However, that emigration quickly began to slow as it became increasingly difficult to obtain a visa. U.S. Pres. Franklin Roosevelt responded to this "refugee problem"-that is, the inability of Jews stranded in Nazi Germany to find countries willing to offer them refuge-by proposing that a conference be held. Beginning July 6, 1938, representatives from 32 countries met for 10 days in the French resort town of Évian-les-Bains. Despite grand proclamations, little came of the Évian Conference. There were discussions of potential settlement locations, but most countries remained unwilling to admit new immigrants. The participants succeeded only in agreeing to meet again later.

Meanwhile, the persecution of Jews in Germany and Austria escalated dramatically, reaching a crescendo on November 9-10, 1938, with the pogrom that became known as Kristallnacht ("Night of Broken Glass"). In state-sanctioned anti-Jewish riots, more than 1,000 synagogues were burned or destroyed while firefighters stood idle, acting only if the fires threatened to spread to neighbouring buildings; more than 7,500 Jewish businesses were vandalized or looted; Jewish hospitals, homes, schools, and cemeteries were damaged; at least 91 Jewish people were killed; and thousands of Jewish men were arrested and conveyed to concentration camps.

Still, even in the wake of Kristrallnacht, very few countries opened their doors to Jewish refugees, who until the closure of borders at the start of World War II were permitted to leave Germany, provided that they did so without money or possessions. Throughout the Third Reich, Jews struggled futilely to find a country that would offer them refuge.

Following Kristallnacht, the British Parliament responded to calls for action by the British Jewish Refugee Committee with a debate in the House of Commons on November 21, 1938. Although the British government had just imposed a new cap on Jewish immigration to Palestine as part of its mandate there, several factors contributed to the decision to permit an unspecified number of children under age 17 to enter the United Kingdom: the diligence of refugee advocacy, the growing awareness of anti-Jewish atrocities in Germany and Austria, and pro-Jewish sympathies among some high-placed Britons. To "assure their ultimate resettlement" a £50 bond had to be posted for each of these children, who, it was assumed, would reconnect with their parents once the crisis had passed. They were admitted with temporary travel documents.

On December 1, 1938, less than one month after Kristallnacht, the first transport left Germany. It arrived at Harwich, England, the following day, bringing 196 children from a Jewish orphanage in Berlin that had been burned by the Nazis on November 9. Most of the subsequent transports left by train from Vienna, Berlin, Prague, and other major cities (children from small towns traveled to meet the transports), crossed the Dutch and Belgian borders, and from there went on to England by ship. The majority of the children never saw their parents again.

People of a number of faiths-Christians of many denominations, including Quakers, along with Jews-collaborated on this effort to rescue primarily Jewish children. Leaders in the effort included Lola Hahn-Warburg, a member of a prominent German Jewish banking family who established the framework for the rescues in 1933 before immigrating to England herself; German Jewish businessman Wilfrid Israel, who used his extensive network of personal connections to secure passage for countless Jews; former British prime minister Stanley Baldwin, who appealed to British conscience via a BBC broadcast in December 1938 in support of the Lord Baldwin Fund for Refugees; Viscount Walter Horace Samuel; Sir Wyndham Deedes; Rebecca Sieff; Rabbi Solomon Schoenfeld (whose efforts were responsible for the rescue of nearly 1,000 Orthodox Jewish children); Nicholas (later Sir Nicholas) Winton, who, working with Trevor Chadwick, Doreen Warriner, and Bill Barazetti, saved 669 Czechoslovak children; academic Norman Bentwich; Quakers Bertha Bracey and Jean Hoare (cousin of Sir Samuel Hoare), the latter of whom shepherded a plane full of children out of Prague; social workers in the Jewish communities of Vienna, such as Franzi Danneberg-Löw (who later became the guardian of the Jewish children trapped in Vienna after the last Kindertransport); and leaders of the German youth movement in Berlin, such as Norbert Wollheim (who accompanied several transports as an escort and refused a place on what he knew would be the last one because he did not want to leave his wife and young child in Berlin; in 1943 he was deported to Auschwitz).

One organizer, Geertruida (Truus) Wijsmuller-Meijer, a Dutch Christian, appealed directly to SS officer Adolf Eichmann in Vienna before leading the escape of 600 children on a single train. She also helped smuggle children onto a ship bound from Marseille to Palestine and was largely responsible for the success of the final transport. She sped her charges through burning Amsterdam to the freighter Bodegraven, which left IJmuiden, Netherlands, for Dover, England, on May 14, 1940, the day that Rotterdam was bombed and the Netherlands surrendered to the Germans. The ship was raked by gunfire from German warplanes.

Life in Britain

Those children who already had been assigned sponsors were taken to London; those without prearranged sponsors stayed in summer holiday camps until host families, hostels, or schools could be found for them. Among the organizations that helped settle the children were B'nai B'rith, the Refugee Children's Movement, the YMCA, the Society of Friends, the Chief Rabbi's Religious Emergency Council, and a variety of other organizations (both Jewish and non-Jewish). Private donations-from money and clothing to houses-also played an important role.

The children, few of whom knew English, were dispersed to many parts of the United Kingdom. There was a relatively even split between those who lived in group settings and those who lived with foster families. Those over age 14 who lacked sponsors or who had not been fostered or sent to boarding schools often underwent a short course of training and joined the British labour force, usually performing domestic service or agricultural work.

Most of the families (both Jewish and non-Jewish) who took in children treated them well and developed strong bonds with their guests. Some children, however, were abused or maltreated. Upon reaching age 18, some of the children took up arms against Nazi Germany by volunteering for the British or Australian military.

In the spring of 1940 hysteria raged over a supposed "Fifth Column" threat by domestic Nazi sympathizers within Britain. Ostensibly to prevent them from collaborating with the Nazis, Jewish refugees, Austrian and German non-Jews, Italians, and others were interned by the British government. More than 1,000 Kindertransportees (boys and girls) over age 16 were interned on the Isle of Man and other sites. Moreover, some male Kindertransportees were shipped to Canada on the same vessels as German prisoners of war, and others were transported to Australia aboard the notorious Dunera, labeled a "hell-ship" because of the overcrowded conditions and terrible treatment of foreign nationals meted out by the British escort troops. Opposition to further internment mounted among the British public in July 1940 after a German U-boat sank the Arandora Star, carrying more than 1,200 internees (including Italians as well as German and Austrian refugees), with the loss of some 800 lives. A large number of all of those who had been deported were returned to Britain.

Fiftieth anniversary and organized remembrance

Kindertransport children had gathered in small groups over the years, reunited by the hostel they lived in or by the school they attended. In June 1989, however, what had begun as a local 50th anniversary reunion of the Kindertransportees in London (organized by Bertha Leverton, a Kindertransport child still living in that city) became an international reunion, the very first gathering of Kindertransportees regardless of where they had lived during World War II. More than 1,200 Kinder (as the refugees now called themselves, their spouses, and their children) arrived from all parts of the United Kingdom, Israel, Australia, and elsewhere, as well as from Canada and the United States, where some 2,500 Kinder had immigrated. They gathered to reconnect with old friends, to celebrate their survival, to express their gratitude to the British people, and to honour the parents who had selflessly sent away their children in order to save their lives.

The success of the reunion spurred the formation of the Kindertransport Association in 1989. It is based in New York, and its mission is to locate, reunite, and bring together Kinder and their families, to educate the public about this little-known chapter in Holocaust history, and to assist with charitable work dedicated to helping children without parents, regardless of race or religion. The Kindertransport Association established World Kindertransport Day on December 2, 2013, the 75th anniversary of the day the first Kindertransport arrived in Great Britain.
Ernest Goodman Melissa Hacker

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Kindertransport | European history [1938-1940]

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Kindertransport, (German: "Children Transport") the nine-month rescue effort authorized by the British government and conducted by individuals in various countries and by assorted religious and secular groups that saved some 10,000 children, under age 17 and most of them Jewish, from Nazi Germany,

# data[].attributes.headline
Jewish Women leadership during the Holocaust

# data[].attributes.subject
Jewish Women leadership during the Holocaust

# data[].attributes.body
During WWII, prominent female leaders emerged from socialist egalitarian Jewish youth movements in Polish ghettos. They occupied central leadership positions and served as delegates to central leadership.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Draenger, Gusta Davison. Justyna's Narrative. Edited by David H. Hirsch and Eli Pfefferkorn. Translated by Roslyn Hirsch and David H. Hirsch. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1996

Grosman, Haika. The Underground Army: Fighters of the Bialystock Ghetto (translated from the Hebrew by Shmuel Beeri). New York: Holocaust Library, 1987

Klinger, Chajka. A Diary from the Ghetto (Hebrew). Kibbutz Ha-Ogen: N.p., 1959

Korczak, Rozka. Flames in the Ashes (Hebrew). Tel Aviv: N.p., 1949, 1965

Lubetkin, Zivia. In the Days of Destruction and Revolt (Hebrew). Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1981

Mazia, Fredka Oxenhendler. Friends in the Storm(Hebrew). Jerusalem: N.p., 1964

Tenenbaum, Mordechai. Pages from the Flames (Hebrew), second edition. Beit Lo h amei ha-Getta'ot: Hakibbutz Hameukhad, 1986

Ronen, Avihu and Yehoyakim Cochavi, eds. Third Person, Singular: Biographies of Youth Movements' Activists during the Holocaust (Hebrew) 2 volumes. Tel Aviv: N.p., 1995

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Poland: Women Leaders in the Jewish Underground During the Holocaust | Jewish Women's Archive

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
There were prominent female leaders in nearly every Jewish underground in the Polish ghettos during WWII. Women often took on the role of delegate to central leadership, moving between ghettos. Jewish fighting organizations relied on these delegates to deliver arms, forged documents, and military instructions between ghettos.

# data[].attributes.body
Before WWII, Zionist groups were secondary to other Jewish political organizations. During the war, Zionist youth took leadership positions, focusing on a wider Jewish public and establishing kibbutz groups and underground schools. They became independent and autonomous, influencing underground political and social action.

# data[].attributes.body
The youth leaders informed the jews about what was happening in the outside world and they made newspapers about latest atrocities to inform the Jews

They established an underground press so that the Jews had communication between the ghettos

As part of their educational efforts, Zionist youth movements established underground schools in the ghettos.

# data[].attributes.body
In many cases, the Jewish youth leaders were the first to assess the Jews massacres. These youth were a very good example of resistance during the war; they always kept working hard to find new information about what was happening in the ghettos and the outside world, even though they were cut off from the outside world.

# data[].attributes.body
After the start of the war a large number of Zionist youth leaders who managed to flee to the east made the decision to return to invaded Poland. For many youth apart of the youth movement leadership of Warsaw, this was the case. These youth were impacted by this war and decided to own up leadership to the Jewish community in Germany.

# data[].attributes.body
They would put them in ghettos and they were established in most sections of the city or town.Most of them that survived were in hiding. At the start of World War ll, there were 1 million Jewish children but in 1939 in Poland, children were persecuted and only 5,000 survived.

# data[].attributes.body
Even though some children survived their future was going to be without no parents or grandparents or siblings. A Particular boy he was 17 years old George Salton shows how he was feeling by saying "I was 17. I, I was free, but what it meant I wasn't sure." the impact on George did not know what to do when he was released because he has been in the reservation in whole life.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
George Salton describes liberation by American forces

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
I ran in that direction and as I came onto that place I noticed many prisoners yelling and screaming and jumping and dancing. And there standing amongst them were seven giants, young people. They must have been 18 or 19...American soldiers. There were seven or eight of them standing inside the camp.