Love Despite Hate: Child Survivors of the Holocaust and Their Adult Lives

By Sarah Moskovitz and Sarah Moskowitz

Book Overview

Many people today believe that childhood trauma is the cause of anti-social behavior in adults. Thus the actions of John Hinckley Jr., Jack Henry Abbott, and others are explained. If this is valid,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0805238018
• ISBN13: 9780805238013
• Release Date: January 1987
• Publisher: Schocken
• Length: 245 Pages
• Weight: 1.24 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Love, care, strength and courage

At the end of World War II, the British government allowed 1000 child survivors of the holocaust to enter England. With the advice and guidance of psychologist Anna Freud, German-Jewish refugee, Alice Goldberg, ran a home in Lingfield, Surrey, for some of these children. This is the story of these children, and their later lives. Part I tells of the arrival of some of these children in England, and of their experiences at Terezin concentration camp. "Education of children was stridently forbidden by the SS, and subject to severe punishment, teaching took place there nonetheless. In the groups where the older children lived, there was an attempt ot teach the attempts of communal Zionist life, to enact plays, to learn Hebrew, to celebrate the festivals and to help the aged". We read of the horrors of the situation of children in Auschwitz, where many children were thrown alive into the crematorium furnaces, or into a pit near the furnace. On January 27, 1945, when Auschwitz was liberated by Russian soldiers, about 300 children were found barely alive. Among the survivors, were four little girls and a boy. The girls were two pairs of sisters. Withing two months, these five children were transported to Lingfield. The story of these children is heartwarming and moving. How their lives were remoulded by the love they recieved at Lingfield and at their foster homes. 30 years later, the author travelled to meet and interview 24 former children of Lingfield, living in England, the USA, Israel and Australia. What follows is a story of hope and courage. How almost all of these children, were as adults able to build fulfilled lives, devoted to care of others. Only oneof these children lived in a mental hospital, and only one experimented with drugs when the children came of age in the 1960's. This book is a moving and hope-instilling real-life story of how horrific childhood experiences can be overcome with love, care, strength and courage.