The little ones that got away: Incredible stories of Jewish children who survived the Nazi holocaust

Daily Mail ^ | 23rd March 2013 | Allan Hall

[the scotsman]

'They were the children of the damned – Jews who had no place in the New World Order of Adolf Hitler and his stormtroopers.

Their parents were rounded up and shipped off to die as the Nazi regime which came to power 80 years ago in Germany - set about the systematic 'cleansing' of the country. But there were good people too; people who looked beyond the religion of an innocent child and risked death by guillotine to hide them from the round-up squads.

Now the heart-moving stories of 15 of these children are told for the first time in a book published this week in Berlin called 'You Don't Get Us.'. The book, by Tina Huettl and Alexander Meschnig, will be released in English later this year.'

[SuziQ]

One of my husband's major professors in his Graduate Studies was one of those children. He is Polish, and his parents realized what was happening and tried to get the family out. They realized that they could not leave with the children, because they would be stopped and probably sent to a camp. They went to a local convent and asked the nuns if they could keep their son until they could return for him. The nuns agreed immediately, so Naftali spent his years from age 5 to 11 hidden by the nuns.

He remembered them as being very kind, but firm, and when, happily, his parents returned for him after the war, the sisters were extremely sad to see him go. He is very grateful to those nuns who truly did risk their lives to save him and the other Jewish children hidden with him.

[Smokin' Joe]

Soros didn’t escape—he collaborated. That soul was sold a long time ago.

[dfwgator]

I highly recommend this movie....

I believe it is available on iTunes.

[meadsjn]

Some were psychologically damaged beyond recovery - e.g. George Soros.

Soros was not damaged by others. He was a teenager who made a conscious choice to betray his Jewish family members and neighbors to the NAZIs for his own material gain. He damaged himself. Putrid evil.

[Mrs. Don-o]

I’d never heard of this before. I just googled it, and it sounds like an intense and amazing cinematic experience. Thanks for the recommendation.

[Yaelle]

Thank you. I had a coworker in Switzerland whose dad, before he was born, had been a Swiss “Schindler” and gotten German Jews hired in his company in Switzerland. There are almost as many hero stories as evil stories about the Holocaust. Nuns, priests, all kinds of people risked their lives to save, hide, and smuggle people out. One family I know was put aboard a freight train to Spain to make it to the Americas. The employee who got them out was caught and he (a Christian) was sent to a concentration camp himself.

[Yaelle]

I love that museum. I cried all the way through it. The book they made is excellent too: “the world must know.” Worth buying.

[MadMax, the Grinning Reaper]

Our family friend Joan was a child in Poland who was taken in by a Christian family and given a Christian identity which protected her during the war.

She told of seeing her parents across the street (they also adopted Christian identities), but she could not even acknowledge them for fear of betraying them.

Fortunately they survived the war and came to America where they became successful professionals. We’ve been babysitting Joan’s plants for a while when she had to go on a trip.

Another late friend, Stefan Korbonski, was the leader of the Polish Free Army who fought the Nazis during WW2. He was also responsible for smuggling arms to the Warsaw Ghetto resistance for which he was honored by Israel as a “Righteous Gentile”.

The stories of Jewish children saved by Christians during WW2 is one of the most encouraging signs of Christian morale courage during WW2.

[jmacusa]

Would that woman be Doctor Ruth Westheimer?

[TurboZamboni]

no, I didn’t write it.

I’m aware they’re real. Been to Auschwitz.

[ArmyTeach]

Dr. Elsbeth Gehorsam. How intersting that there might be a parallel story ..

[ArmyTeach]

Sorry, Memphis TN

[jmacusa]

Dr. Ruth was 12 years old and living in Berlin in 1938 when the Nazis took her father away on November 9th,1938, “Kristallnacht’’. She never saw him again. The rest of her family were lucky to escape Germany and the Holocaust. Little wonder, to me anyway that someone so traumatized by racial and religious hatred, personal loss and war would dedicate their lives to helping other find love, the joy of lovemaking as can only be experienced as only two people who truly love each other heart and soul can so as to create new life. War destroys but love conquers.

[ArmyTeach]

My husband’s ‘cousin’ was Dr Elsbeth Gehorsam who came to specialize in treating severe mental conditions, such as psychosis and schizophrenia. Dr Elsbeth was a young woman, already a medical student, when she left Germany. A German sub surfaced and searched the ship for refugees. She was determined to jump overboard if they identified her. Thank heaven they did not and she arrived safely in the United States. She had a practice in Memphis but traveled all over the Southern US on consults. Never lost her very pronounced German accent. :-)

[SJackson]

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