The Jewish Children Hidden in France During the Second World War: A Retrospective Study

Abstract

This retrospective study focused on the consequences of childhood traumas and mourning among Jewish children who were hidden in France during World War II. Some of these hidden children went on to create a self-help group over a half-century after the end of the war, but most have remained isolated and, in the majority of cases, have difficulties assimilating their traumatic experiences.

KEYWORDS:

• childhood
• mourning
• retrospective studies
• Shoah
• traumas

Notes

The name of the association and the names of its participants have been changed to protect their privacy.

The deportees were in many cases foreigners of Polish origin who had come to France during the 1920s and 1930s.

The process of mourning in a situation of genocide, bereft of information and with no body or coffin, is particularly difficult: “When there is no grave, the mourning process goes on forever …. For me, the word grave does not refer to a plot in a cemetery, but to the certain knowledge of a death, of how a loved one died.” (Klüger, 1997, p. 110).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Yoram Mouchenik

Yoram Mouchenik is a psychologist and senior lecturer in clinical psychology at Université Paris 13. His research interests include traumatism and cross-cultural psychology.

Marion Feldman

Marion Feldman is a psychologist and assistant lecturer in clinical psychology at Université Paris Descartes. Her research interests include traumatism and psychopathology.

Marie Rose Moro

Marie Rose Moro is a professor of psychiatry and a psychoanalyst at University Paris Descartes. Her research interests include child and adolescent psychiatry and cross-cultural psychiatry.