Polish Jewish Children and JDC in the Immediate Aftermath of the Holocaust

When the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) resumed its activities in Poland on 19 July 1945, it served as a lifeline of sorts for Holocaust survivors. JDC provided immediate help, and supported educational, cultural, political, and religious endeavors, contributing to the revival of Jewish life. Another way in which JDC attempted to rehabilitate the Polish Jewish community was by tracing lost persons, and especially helping to redeem children from their gentile caregivers. While JDC supported Jewish life in situ, it also assisted Jews, particularly orphans, in leaving the country.

Records of the JDC’s Warsaw Office of 1945-1949 illustrate the situation of Polish Jews immediately after the war. Documents about children illuminate what Jewish childhood entailed at that pivotal time. This paper examines, too, JDC’s efforts on behalf of Jewish children amidst population transfers, searches for survivors, and reconstruction of communal and national lives. The scholarship to date has focused on the removal of Jewish children from their wartime guardians, on their immigration to Palestine (Israel), and on the cooperation and disagreements among various Jewish organizations involved in the processes. This paper builds upon key studies, such as Emunah Nachmany Gafny’s, Dividing Hearts, and Nahum Bogner’s, At the Mercy of Strangers. By focusing on a particular archival collection, this paper offers another lens through which to view Polish Jewish childhood immediately after the Holocaust, as well as JDC’s role as a liaison among children and their relatives, and an enabler of a Jewish community in Poland and in Israel.