The Diary of the Children in Youth Movements in the Transit Camp Westerbork

In the transit camp Westerbork over seventeen thousand Jewish children were incaserated on their way to the extermination camps in Poland. Out of those children only about a thousand children survived.

From the beginning of the camp, when it was still a refugee camp for Jews who came from Germany before the German conquest (May 1940), there was an active youth movement in the camp. In the youth movement the children met to hear stories and lectures, to celebrate special occasions and different holidays and also to create art and plays. In addition, the children wrote a diary together, once a month. In it they described their lives in the camp, including their shared feelings. The diary, which was written in German, was preserved and copied for the surviving movement`s members after the war by one of them.

Through the diary we can learn about the feelings of children who were subject to racial persecution. For these children, normalcy was impossible due to them being in such an unstable situation, imprisoned in the camp, waiting for an exile to the east to an unknown fate.

The diary shows the deep connection of these children to their counselors in the youth movement and their gratitude to these educators.

In this diary the children tell us about the beliefs that strengthened them and helped them deal with the tragic situation they were thrown into.

My lecture will present the diary and the meanings arising from it