Home No Child's Play
Claudine Schwartz-Rudel was seven years old when she fled from Paris to Southern France with her parents. Before they left Paris, Claudine's parents gave her a doll named Colette Opening Tens of thousands of Jews sought shelter in lofts, cellars, bunkers, sewers, and similar places. Many equipped themselves with forged papers, while children were often concealed with Christian families. The survival ratio was low: most fugitives were discovered and murdered. The number of Jews who survived by going underground is estimated in the thousands.
Before the War
In the Shadow of the War
Ghettos
In Hiding
Toward a New Life

Janusz Korczak’s

This exhibition derives its name from an excerpt from Janusz Korczak’s “Rules of Life”, A Childhood of Dignity

Welcome to an on-line presentation of the exhibit “No Child’s Play”, which is on display in the Yad Vashem Art

Album of mementos prepared by Dr, Ardus Izor for his granddaughter Lya Benjamin on her first birthday. St. Marton, Transylvania. 1931-1932.

Album of mementos prepared by Dr, Ardus Izor for his granddaughter Lya Benjamin on her first birthday. St. Marton, Transylvania. 1931-1932.

 Museum.

Approximately one and a half million of the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust were children. The number of children who survived is estimated in the mere thousands.

This exhibition opens a window into the world of children during the Shoah. Unlike other Holocaust exhibitions, it does not focus on history, statistics or descriptions of physical violence. Instead, the toys, games, artwork, diaries, and poems displayed here highlight some of the personal stories of the children, providing a glimpse into their lives during the Holocaust.

Dolls and teddy bears became integral parts of the lives of the children they belonged to during the war. In many cases, they  accompanied them throughout the war and were a primary source of comfort and companionship. For some children, the teddy bears and dolls were the most significant possessions left with them at the end of the war. Even today, as adults, their attachment is so great that they have difficulty separating from them – 56 years after the war has ended.

The exhibition tells the story of survival - the struggle of these children to hold on to life. It describes their attempts to maintain their childhood and youth by creating for themselves a different reality from that which surrounded them. In many cases, it was the children who gave their parents the encouragement and hope to continue their desperate daily fight for survival.

Written and Edited by: Yehudit Inbar

Exhibition Credits
 

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