Drawn from a review in Nation, 10/31/11

At the end of World War II there were hundreds of thousands of unaccompanied children, described by one aid worker as “tired, wan, broken little old men and women,” who had forgotten or never knew how to play.

Sometimes these children were brought together in large camps, but most often they were separated into enclaves by nationality or ethnicity.  There was an issue of “indoctrination.”  Who has the right to teach the “right” cultural setting for such children?  Such concerns even led some to distrust that families would teach these children properly and advocated instead for communal arrangements, where children would live in an extended family of a children’s facility or kibbutz.

One aid worker with the UN testified to the hope and long hours spent “on individual children…endeavoring to revive their love for their family and country.”  Often, postwar nationalists, psychologists and workers for international charity organizations were given to bouts of frustration and despair, fearing that these children were neither malleable nor innocent.  From a different perspective, Anna Freud wrote:  “It is a common misunderstanding of the child’s nature which leads people to suppose that children will be saddened by the sight of destruction and aggression.” Far from being traumatized by such experiences, children were as likely to be scintillated by them.  “If we observe young children at play, we notice that they will destroy their toys, pull off the arms and legs of their dolls and or soldiers, puncture their balls, smash whatever is breakable, and will mind the result only because complete destruction of the toy blocks further play.”

Europe’s lost children were not only cherished as the hope of a new and brighter future, but also feared as the totalitarian henchmen of tomorrow.  One official with the largest Jewish child welfare organization ran a home for ‘Buchenwald boys’…boys who had survived the camp, one of whom was Elie Wiesel.  The official characterized them as “true psychopaths, cold and indifferent by nature, and that this was the reason they were able to survive.”  Others used such sentiments to argue against allowing these children to immigrate…the refugees had experienced trauma that was irreversible and would undermine the well-being of society. …

My imagination can give place to such fears; just as I can picture these children as needing nothing so much as love and the chance to be children.  There is a contradiction in policy, perhaps, but the human condition is full of such contradictions.  What would I have done?  Can I fear and offer love at the same time?  Is that what is called for?  What about respect and the invitation to join a common cause?  “There is a place for you,” I might say. “What do you think?”