Essay Database

The Holocaust Full statistics for the tragic fate of children who died during the Holocaust will never be known. Some estimates range as high as 1.5 million murdered children. This figure includes more than 1.2 million Jewish children, tens of thousands of Gypsy children and thousands of institutionalized handicapped children who were murdered under Nazi rule in Germany and occupied Europe. Although children were seldom the targets of Nazi violence because they were children, they were persecuted …

…utilized as prisoners, laborers, and subjects for Nazi medical experiments. Thus, of the 15,000 children imprisoned in the Theresienstadt ghetto, only about 1,100 survived. Children sometimes also survived in hiding and also participated in the resistance (as runners, messengers, smugglers). There is no comprehensive study about the fate of children in Nazi Germany and occupied Europe, since the story has been told in an episodic fashion as part of the fate of Jews in each country affected.