page_title: The Boys of Buchenwald
section_title: Plot
hierarchical_section_title: The Boys of Buchenwald / Plot
caption_attribution_description: English: Children liberated at Buchenwald are examined by medical personnel. Pictured on the far right is Salek Finkelstein. The medical doctor on the left is Françoise Brauner (1911-2000). The Buchenwald children were a group of approximately 1000 Jewish child survivors found by American troops when they liberated the Buchenwald concentration camp on April 11, 1945. Most of the children were originally from Poland, though others came from Hungary, Slovenia and Ruthenia. Unsure of what to do with the child survivors, American army chaplains, Rabbi Herschel Schacter and Rabbi Robert Marcus, contacted the offices of the OSE (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants) Jewish children's relief organization in Geneva. They arranged to send 427 of the children to France, 280 to Switzerland and 250 to England. [Vivette Samuel reverses the figures for England and Switzerland in her monograph, "Sauver les Enfants."] On June 2, 1945 OSE representatives arrived in Buchenwald and together with Rabbi Marcus escorted the transport of children to France. Rabbi Schacter accompanied the second transport to Switzerland. Because of the difficulty in finding clothing for the children, the boys were clad in Hitler Youth uniforms. This created a problem, for when the train crossed into France, it was greeted by an angry populace who assumed the train was carrying Nazi youth. Thereafter the words "KZ Buchenwald orphans" were painted on the outside of the train to avoid confusion. On June 6, 1945 the French transport arrived at the Andelys station and the orphans were taken to a children's home in Ecouis (Eure). The home had been set up to accommodate young children, but in fact only 30 of the boys were below the age of 13. This was only one of the many problems faced by the OSE personnel, who were not prepared to handle a large group of demanding, rebellious teenagers who were full of anger for what they had experienced. At Ecouis the boys were given medical care, counseling and schooling until more permanent accommodations could be found. Most of the children remained only four to eight weeks at Ecouis before being moved elsewhere, and the home was closed in August 1945. Among the first to leave were a group of 173 children who had family in Palestine. They were given immigration certificates and departed from Marseilles in July aboard the British vessel, the RMS Mataroa. The remaining boys at Ecouis were soon transferred to other residences and homes. Some of the older ones were sent to the Foyer d'Etudiants located on the rue Rollin in Paris, where they boarded while attending vocational training courses or working at jobs in the city. Others were sent to the Chateau de Boucicaut home in Fontenay-aux-Roses (Hauts-de-Seine). Many of the boys came from religiously observant homes. Since the OSE could not obtain kosher food for everyone, they divided the children into religious and non-religious groups. Dr. Charly Merzbach offered OSE the use of his estate, the Chateau d'Ambloy (Loir-et-Cher) for the summer, and between 90 and 100 boys chose to go there in order to receive kosher food and live in a religious environment. In October 1945 the children and staff of Ambloy were relocated to the Chateau de Vaucelles in Taverny (Val d'Oise). About 50 of the non-religious boys were taken to the Villa Concordiale in Le Vesinet (Yvelines) near Paris that housed an equal number of French Jewish orphans. In the summer they went to the Foyer de Champigny in Champigny-sur-Marne (Val-de-Marne). In all the homes attended by the Buchenwald children vocational training as well as regular classroom instruction was offered. At the same time OSE social workers made every effort to locate surviving relatives, succeeding in about half the cases. By the end of 1948 all of the Buchenwald children who had come to France had left the OSE fold and begun new lives for themselves. Sources: Hemmendinger, Judith and Krell, Robert. "The Children of Buchenwald." Gefen Publishers, 2000; Grobman, Alex. "Rekindling the Flame." Wayne State University Press, 1993; Hazan, Katy, "Chronologie de l'histoire de l'OSE L'action de l'OSE apres la guerre." (31 December 2002)
context_page_description: The Boys of Buchenwald is a 2002 documentary film produced by Paperny Films that examines how the child survivors of the Buchenwald concentration camp had to assimilate themselves back into normal society after having experienced the brutality of the Holocaust. The documentary features interviews with the survivors, including Elie Wiesel.
context_section_description: Over four hundred orphans from Buchenwald were sent to an orphanage in Écouis, France where they were educated and cared for. 
  The documentary follows the orphans, who are now old men, as they reunite on the 55th anniversary of the liberation of Buchenwald by the American army. The now-elderly men all agree that their friendships in the orphanage made the tremendous losses they suffered more manageable.  "I had just lost my father, and I had witnessed my brother’s murder right next to me", one survivor says, addressing his best friend. "And then I met you. You were a godsend."
  The inhuman treatment they had received in the concentration camps meant the boys needed to relearn how to live in society. The boys of Buchenwald spent their childhoods surrounded by terror and death, and, as a result, they were rebellious against authority, full of anger and under-educated. In fact, society viewed child survivors as damaged goods who would go on to become psychopaths.
  The boys had to relearn everything — even their meals proved challenging. Their extreme hunger and inexperience with ordinary behavior had robbed them of table manners. They threw food, shoved it in their pockets to save for later, and gorged themselves, clearing their plates in a matter of minutes. With the help of benevolent guardians, who gave consistent discipline, the boys slowly relearned how to behave.
  Once it was time to leave the orphanage and go out on their own, many of the boys moved to Australia or Canada to distance themselves from their awful pasts.  There, they established homes and careers near one another so they could still come together for meals and Jewish holidays.
caption: Buchenwald boys examined by Austrian physician Dr. Françoise Brauner in 1945 in Écouis, France
exif: {}